Advertising, Marketing, and Commercial Imagery Collections

The Archives Center has nationally recognized collections for the study of advertising and marketing. Advertising cards, posters, labels, letterheads, booklets, trade catalogues, and other ephemera in the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana are the Center's most heavily used materials. This collection, occupying some 1,000 cubic feet, is organized into 538 subject and geographic categories (primarily manufactured products) and is strongest for the period 1840-1900. Other large collections of commercial ephemera include greeting cards, matchbooks, sports trading cards, postcards, and cigarette packaging.

Special projects undertaken by the Center for Advertising History have concentrated on the years since World War II. Center historians have conducted oral history interviews with a wide range of people involved in the process of creating advertising campaigns and gathered collections of related print, radio, and television advertisements. Campaigns for Pepsi-Cola, Marlboro, Alka-Seltzer, Federal Express, Campbell's Soup, Cover Girl, and NIKE have been documented as well as the history of Kraft Television Theatre.

The N W Ayer Advertising Agency Records include business records but consist primarily of print advertising created for thousands of clients between 1869 and 1996. The Walter Landor/Landor Associates Collection and the Frances Mair Collection document their groundbreaking work in packaging design and, later, in the development of corporate identity programs. The Maidenform and Hills Bros. Coffee collections have exceptionally complete advertising and marketing records. The Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation Records and the Carvel Ice Cream Company Records reveal the early history of prepared foods, franchising, and the role of marketing in their success. Other collections in advertising and marketing history include the Breck Girls Collection, the papers of direct response pioneer John Caples, the papers of Estelle Ellis, promotions director for Seventeen, Charm, Glamour and House & Garden magazines, and the reminiscences of advertising writer Sid Bernstein and magazine advertising executive Tom Black.

Collection Finding Aids Currently Available On-Line

• Ally and Gargano, Inc., Print Advertisements, 1962-cicra 1995, #938
• The Sandra & Gary Baden Collection of Celebrity Endorsements in Advertising, ca. 1897-1979, #611
• Frances S. Baker Product Cookbooks, ca. 1900-1993, #612
• Tom Black/Smithsonian Magazine Oral History Interview, 1993, #505
• Virginia "Jimmie" Booth Collection, 1936-1998, #729
• Breck Girls Collection, ca. 1936-1995, #651
• Carvel Ice Cream Records, 1934-1989, #488
• Ann and Thomas Damigella Collection, 1951-1997, #583
• The Freda Diamond Collection, ca. 1945-1984, #616
• Estelle Ellis Collection, 1944-1994, #423
• The Eskimo Pie Corporation Records, 1921-1996, #553
• Colonna Farrell Wine Label Collection, 1975-1997, #626
• Goya Foods, Inc. Collection 1960-2000, #694
• Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork Collection, 1926-1980, #561
• Virgil Johnson Collection of Cigarette Packages, ca. 1890-1997, #645
• Kripsy Kreme Doughnut Corporation Records, ca. 1937-1997, #594
• Maidenform Collection, 1922-1997, #585
• The Joseph Magnin Poster Collection, ca. 1963-1968, #355
• Marlboro Advertising Oral History and Documentation Project, ca. 1926-1986, #198
• Jane Parker Cake Advertising Sample Book, 1947, #720
• "Pepsi Generation" Oral History and Documentation Collection, 1938-1986, #111
• Procter & Gamble Company Product Packaging Collection, 1946-1980, #836
• Evan Rangeloff Collection of Punchboards, ca. 1910-1970 and Liggett & Myers Tobacco Sales Materials, ca. 1955-1991, #716
• The Dorothy Shaver Papers, ca. 1922-1959, #631
• Simmons Company Records, 1892-2000, #731
• Norman W. Squires Collection, 1908-2006, #927
• Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, ca. 1724-1977, #60
• Brownie Wise Papers, ca. 1928-1968, #509

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