At an early age he moved to Iowa to live with an uncle and aunt and in 1915 began his career with the advertising agency Lord & Thomas, now part of Draftfcb.
[2] and the agency, which numbered the consumer goods company of Procter & Gamble among its clients, rapidly became one of the largest buyers of radio time in the United States.
[4] Blackett was a member of the Republican National Committee[5] and guided the campaign of Alf Landon, who ran unsuccessfully against the incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 US presidential election.
The Blackett advertising agency, Blackett-Sample-Hummert, Inc., does the biggest business in radio: mostly sobby, low-cost network serials plugging household helps, headache remedies, beauty aids, etc.
"[7] When the project met with difficulties Elliott Roosevelt set up a new radio network, Transcontinental Broadcasting System, but resigned from the company in 1940[8] and the venture came to an end.