Asher, Louis Eller, 1877-1948

Advertising executive and businessman.

Autograph collector.

Louis Eller Asher was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1877. He moved to Chicago in 1898 where he worked successively as a reporter for the Daily News, and later for a local trade paper, soliciting advertisements. An article he wrote in late 1898 about the American Woolen Mills, a subsidiary of Sears, Roebuck and Co., brought him to the attention of Richard W. Sears who, impressed by his imagination and writing ability, hired him as an advertising writer for American Woolens. In 1901, Asher was appointed advertising manager of Sears, Roebuck and Co., in 1906 assistant general manager, and later in that same year general manager of the company. Asher, working closely with Richard Sears, was responsible for many of the great promotion schemes of the company. Resigning from Sears, Roebuck in 1909, Asher entered the mail-order business himself, founding the very successful Banner Tailoring Company, of which he was president until he retired in 1927. In 1942, Asher, with Edith Heal, wrote Send No Money, a history of Sears, Roebuck and Co. under the leadership of Richard W. Sears. Active in Chicago civic and social life, Asher was one of the founders of Poetry Magazine, a member of the Chicago Art Institute, and the Chicago Museum of Natural History. He established a fellowship in social sciences at the University of Chicago in 1944 and later one in the humanities. Asher died in Chicago in 1948.