William Benton

Even after the stock market crash it was business as usual for some. There was always a demand for products and services and a need to advertise them. William Benton made his fortune during the Depression. He and a partner started an advertising agency that became the sixth largest agency in the world due to his innovations in advertisersponsored radio programs. Benton later went on to become the publisher of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1943–1971, U.S. assistant secretary of state in 1945, and a U.S. senator for Connecticut from 1949–1952.

Ileft Chicago in June of '29, just a few months before the Crash. Chester Bowles [at one time, Governor of Connecticut; later, American Ambassador to India] and I started in business with seventeen hundred square feet, just the two of us and a couple of girls. July 15, 1929—this was the...