Frederic Breakspear Farrar

Frederic Farrar, a former advertising executive and historian of advertising and journalism, died on July 29, 2014. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Washington and Lee University in 1941 before serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. After the war, Frederic became a newspaper advertising executive, representing the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and many other papers in the United States, Canada, and England over the course of the next three decades. After earning his master’s degree in history from Adelphi University in 1975, he turned his attention to teaching and writing, publishing his master’s thesis as a book titled This Common Channel to Independence: Revolution and Newspapers, 1759-1789. He also wrote for The Dictionary of Literary Biography, as well as Media History Digest, Editor & Publisher, and Historic Preservation magazines. In 1980, he joined the faculty of Temple University teaching advertising and the history of journalism, and in 1990 the Frederic B. Farrar Advertising Scholarship was established at the university in his honor. After moving to Florida in 1990, he became a consultant to the St. Petersburg Times and taught courses at Eckerd College.