James Marvin Henderson (March 28, 1921 – October 31, 1995) was the founder of the Henderson Agency. Henderson founded the eponymous agency in 1946. The agency was described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' as "one of the bigger agencies in the Southeast." In 1969, Henderson took a one-year leave of absence from his advertising agency to serve as Special Assistant to the

Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsib ...

for Public Information, returning February 1970. In 1970, he was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of South Carolina. Henderson was elected secretary-treasurer of

American Association of Advertising Agencies The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) is a U.S. trade association for advertising agencies. founded in 1917. It serves over 700+ member agencies across 1,300 offices, which control more than 85% of total U.S. advertising spend. ...

, "the most prestigious organization in its field" in 1971. In 1974, his life story to that point was described by a ''New York Times'' writer as a "slightly cracker-barrel rags-to-riches saga." He retired from the Henderson Agency in 1986 at the age of 65. Twenty years later, the headline "''A South Carolina Agency Closes Its Doors''" told about the end of what ''The New York Times'' called ''Henderson Advertising''. A regional obituary noted that Henderson was "known for putting Greenville on the national advertising map" because it was "in 1980 ... the first ad agency outside of Chicago or New York to be named Advertising Agency of the Year by ''

Advertising Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in m ...

'' magazine."

References

20th-century American businesspeople 1921 births 1995 deaths South Carolina Republicans Clemson University alumni {{US-business-bio-1920s-stub