Mary Cross is the author of A Century of American Icons: 100 Products and Slogans from the 20th-Century Consumer Culture (Oryx, 2002). She is also the editor of Advertising and Culture: Theoretical Perspectives (Praeger, 1996). She has taught at the University of Delaware, the City University of New York, and Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she was chair of the English Department. She is a former advertising copywriter.