Rare Books and Manuscripts

Vance Packard was born in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania, to Philip J. and Mabel Case Packard in 1914. He attended public schools in State College, Pennsylvania, where his father managed a farm owned by the Pennsylvania State University. He entered Penn State in 1932 and graduated with a degree in English four years later. That same year, he started his career in journalism by briefly working for the State College newspaper, the Centre Daily Times. In 1937, he earned a master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and joined the Boston Daily Record as a staff reporter. The following year, he married Virginia Matthews. He joined American Magazine as a section editor in 1942 and worked there until the magazine closed in 1956. He then worked as a writer for Collier’s Magazine until its demise in that same year. In 1957, Packard wrote The Hidden Persuaders, which brought him national attention and launched his career as a social critic and full-time lecturer and book author. He wrote twelve books in all, most of them bestsellers. In 1961 he was named a distinguished alumnus of Pennsylvania State University. Vance Packard died in 1996 at his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard.

Vance Packard’s work covered important sociological topics such as class divisions and the influence of the media. His books were forerunners of “pop sociology” and bridged a gap between academic scholarship and a more popular readership.

The Vance Packard Papers at the Penn State Libraries include information related to nine of Packard’s books:

• The Hidden Persuaders (1957), which deals with the advertising industry.
• The Status Seekers (1959), which describes American social stratification.
• The Waste Makers (1960), which deals with American industry’s planned obsolescence.
• The Pyramid Climbers (1962), which describes the hierarchy and social advancement in the American business structure.
• The Naked Society (1964), which exposes the threats to privacy with advancements in new technology and surveillance.
• The Sexual Wilderness (1968), which deals with the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
• A Nation of Strangers (1972), which deals with the disintegration of community structure caused by frequent geographical transfers of corporate executives.
• The People Shapers (1977), which deals with the use of psychological and biological testing and experimentation to manipulate human behavior.
• Our Endangered Children (1983), which discusses childrearing in an America preoccupied with money, power, and status.

The Penn State collection does not include papers for Packard’s other books, including How to Pick a Mate (1946); Animal IQ (1950); Ultra Rich: How Much is Too Much? (1989).

The files for each book contain Packard’s note cards, advertisements used for research, notebooks, chapter drafts, publicity, copies of reviews, and letters from readers.

A finding aid for the Vance Packard Papers will soon be available on-line. In the meantime, we encourage researchers to get in touch with Special Collections for further information.

 

Special Collections Library
104 Paterno Library
University Park, PA 16802
Telephone: (814) 865-7931, (814) 865-1793
Fax: (814) 863-5318

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