Unsolicited mail received by Ellen Wells during two twelve month periods, 1976-1977 and 1980-1981. Ms. Wells kept all materials received during these periods as a sample of the changing use of this mass communication medium. Ms. Wells received the first group in Ithaca, New York, and the latter in Alexandria, Virginia. This collection provides a substantial sample of materials used in direct mail advertising and solicitation. These techniques of mass communication have became increasingly sophisticated and more widely used in recent years and the products of these techniques--commonly called "junk mail"--are ubquitious in contemporary society.
Because this collection consists of materials received by only one individual, it is not a scientific sample; however, it reflects the targetting of individual consumers based on interests, tastes, and past buying patterns; and the use of direct mail by a wide range of organizations and institutions and the changing techniques employed.
Biographical/Historical note:
Donor is a Smithsonian Institution librarian.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Dibner Library, National Museum of American History, through Ellen Wells, 1984.
Series Three, Speeches and Lectures, contains Caples' speeches to advertising industry associations and other business organizations, as well as a series of lectures prepared for a college course on advertising techniques that Caples taught at Columbia University Graduate School of Business during the 1953-54 academic year..
Series Four, Client Files, contains correspondence, advertising copy, press clippings, memos, tearsheets, and other business records for scores of clients for whom Caples did work; Readers Digest and the Wall Street Journal are especially well represented. Files are arranged alphabetically by client name.
Subseries A contains client files from Caples' years at Ruthrauff & Ryan (1925-1927).
Subseries B contains client files from Caples' years at BBDO (circa 1946-1972).
Subseries C contains files documenting copy testing and direct mail methods and results. Some of the copy-testing materials are in poster-sized format presumably designed for presentation. Several sets of lantern slides illustrating copy-testing results are also included.
Series 5, Business Files, includes BBDO files and correspondence from the 1930s through the 1980s. This series includes many of BBDO's internal manuals and instructions on copy-testing and direct mail, many authored by Caples. This series also contains notes, clipping files, and "tickler" or idea files, mostly from the period of Caple's retirement. Also found here are Caples' many awards and honors from advertising and direct marketing organizations.
Series 1: Personal Papers, is divided into three subseries.
Subseries 1.1 contains Caples' diaries in original, unedited manuscript form. The diaries are arranged chronologically. They constitute a notable resource for the study of the advertising industry from an insider's perspective during a period of tremendous expansion of advertising as a force in American business and culture. They document Caple's participation in and reflections on the business of advertising, and detail his acquaintance with noted business and advertising professionals. The diaries record his responses to the major events of his lifetime, such as presidential elections, the stock market crash of 1929, American entry into World War II, the Kennedy assassinations, and the moon landing. Caples recorded conversations and contacts with some of the key advertising and communications people of his time, including Rosser Reeves, David Ogilvy, George Gallup and Harry Reasoner. Also found in the diaries are reflections of a more mundane or personal nature: weather conditions, the best restaurants, whether to quit drinking or go on a diet, and Caples= ambivalence about retiring from BBDO. Caples wrote precisely one page each day from 1928 through 1981. Missing from the series are the years 1935-1940, 1946-1950; 1952-1955; 1957-1962.
Subseries 1.2 contains edited, rewritten portions of the diaries, presumably intended for publication as short-stories or reminiscences. Of particular interest are humorous short stories relating to Caples' years at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD during the early 1920s.
Subseries 1.3 contains photographs of Caples and his family, ca. 1900-1960.
Subseries 1.4 contains personal and family papers, including material documenting Caple's service as a recruitment and enlistment officer for the U.S. Navy during World War II, and a copy of a dissertation about Caples by Gordon White, entitled John Caples, Adman.
Series 2: Publications, contains Caple's published and unpublished manuscripts about advertising techniques, direct marketing, and the advertising industry. Arrangement is according to publication and thereunder by date of publication. This series is arranged into two subseries.
Subseries 2.1 contains articles published in advertising industry publications such as Advertising Agency, Advertising and Selling, Direct Marketing, and Printer's Ink, and for business publications like Saturday Review. The articles typically are of a how-to nature, but also include Caples observations about the business of advertising, including a series for Advertising Agency in the 1950s, titled "Diary of an Ad Man," which drew heavily from his diaries.
Subseries 2.2 contains book manuscripts. Caples was a prolific and respected author in his field, publishing four widely acclaimed books on advertising and direct marketing techniques. Material in this series includes rough and final drafts, illustrative material, and correspondence with editors and publishers. There are also letters of congratulation from friends and letters of praise from readers.
Series 3: Speeches and Lectures, contains Caples' speeches to advertising industry associations and other business organizations, as well as a series of lectures prepared for a college course on advertising techniques that Caples taught at Columbia University Graduate School of Business during the 1953-54 academic year..Series 4: Client Files, contains correspondence, advertising copy, press clippings, memos, tearsheets, and other business records for scores of clients for whom Caples did work; Readers Digest and the Wall Street Journal are especially well represented. Files are arranged alphabetically by client name.
Subseries 4.1 contains client files from Caples' years at Ruthrauff & Ryan (1925-1927).
Subseries 4.2 contains client files from Caples' years at BBDO (ca. 1946-1972).
Subseries 4.3 contains files documenting copy testing and direct mail methods and results. Some of the copy-testing materials are in poster-sized format presumably designed for presentation. Several sets of lantern slides illustrating copy-testing results are also included.
Series 5: Business Files, includes BBDO files and correspondence from the 1930s through the 1980s. This series includes many of BBDO's internal manuals and instructions on copy-testing and direct mail, many authored by Caples. This series also contains notes, clipping files, and "tickler" or idea files, mostly from the period of Caple's retirement. Also found here are Caples' many awards and honors from advertising and direct marketing organizations.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1: Personal Papers
Series 2: Publications
Series 3: Speeches and Lectures
Series 4: Client Files
Series 5: Business Files
Biographical / Historical:
John Caples (1900-1990) was one of advertising's most influential copywriters. He grew up in New York City, the eldest of two sons of Byron Caples, a doctor, and Edith Richards Caples, a grandniece of W.W. Cole, P.T. Barnum's partner.
After graduation from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Caples began his advertising career at Ruthrauff & Ryan in 1925, during the decade in which advertising began to assume its modern form, both in style and organizational structure. His first year there, he wrote a legendary mail-order advertisement for the U.S. School of Music. This advertisement, more than a thousand words long, embodied many of the techniques which Caples was later to develop, and is still regarded within the industry as one of the most effective pieces of advertising copy ever written. It began with the straightforward but emotionally insightful headline: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano." The headline became a part of American popular culture, appearing in ads, comics, cartoons, and greeting cards into the 1990s.
In 1927, Caples moved to Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne (BBDO), where he had the opportunity to work alongside Bruce Barton, an advertising legend and pioneer of direct mail. Caples remained at BBDO for 55 years, during which time he reshaped the field of direct response advertising. At BBDO he supervised direct response advertising for DuPont, U..S. Steel, General Electric, United Fruit, Hormel, the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest, Phoenix Mutual, Liberty Mutual, Western Airlines, U.S. Navy Recruiting, and many other clients. In his honor, the Direct Marketing Creative Guild established the John Caples Award to recognize creative excellence in direct marketing.
Caples was also respected for the development of innovative copy-testing techniques. He was the author of countless articles and several well-respected books, including Tested Advertising Methods (1932), Advertising for Immediate Sales (1936), Making Ads Pay (1957) and How To Make Your Advertising Make Money (1983). He also served as a recruitment and enlistment officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II. John Caples retired from BBDO in 1981. He died after a long convalescence in 1990.
Related Materials:
As part of the collection, the Archives Center accepted 22 books on advertising, including copies of Caples' books, some in foreign languages. These books are housed in the Archives Center.
Provenance:
The collection was donated in December 1990 by Caples' widow, Mrs. Dorothy Dickes Caples, of New York City.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Rights:
Reproduction fees for commercial use. Copyright restrictions. Contact staff for information.
Collection consists of retail mail order catalogs from numerous commercial organizations, chiefly American but also includes catalogs from European companies. Catalogs cover a wide range of consumer goods, including home furnishings, books, musical instruments, toys, men's and women's apparel, jewelry, A/V materials, firearms, art , hobby crafts and gifts.
Arrangement note:
Items arranged in alphabetical order by company name.
Biographical/Historical note:
Saul E. Zalesch, an Associate Professor of Art History at Louisiana Tech University, began collecting mail-order catalogs in 1993 while an NEH fellow at the Winterthur Library.
Provenance:
Donated by collector, 2009.
Restrictions:
Non-circulating materials.
Topic:
Consumer goods -- United States -- Catalogs Search this
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
New York Airways Collection, Acc. NASM.1992.0052, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Engines forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
Covers all manner of engines including: boilers, gasoline, steam, water motors, automatic shut off, self-oiling, portable, vertical, mining, marine, diesel, crude oil, stationary, generators, compound, pumping, silent, alcohol, turbine, kerosene, hydrolic, caloric pumping, sectional, gasolene, iron man, single cylinder, slide valve, apparatus, cut-off, wind, horse, air cooled, valueless, two cycle, and the Corliss engine. Some of the following include engines used in portable sawing outfits, powered mills for grinding grain, feed cookers, boilers, injectors, and generators.
Materials represent a sampling of catalogues, correspondence, invoices, receipts, advertising and marketing material, bulletins, advertising cards, caricatures, seals, product specifications, booklets, price lists, company histories, order forms, prospectus, a few photographs, contracts, a legal opinion on a patent dispute (Novelty Iron Works, 1856), an operations guide 80-foot Elco Submarine Chacer Instructions, Care and Operations of Machinery Plant (Standard Motor Construction Company, 1917), patents and patent circulars, and a promotional diary. Many items are illustrated with print drawings and schematics of engines and associated equipment, plus some images of manufacturing facilities. No extensive runs or complete records exist for any single company or brand, and no particular depth is present for any singular subtopic, although some publications may provide general and historical overviews of a person, company, or a facet of industry.
Arrangement:
Engines is arranged in three subseries.
Business Records and Marketing Material
Genre
Subject
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Engines is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Engines, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Ways to save on: postage and printing : strategies for cutting costs from your direct mail campaigns, including list hygiene best practices and tools, and tactics for working effectively with your printer and lettershop/ from the editors of Catalog success, Target marketing
Deceptive mailings and sweepstakes promotions : hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, first session, March 8 and 9, 1999
Author:
United States Congress Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Search this
War in the mails : an explanation of the most gigantic direct mail fraud in the history of advertising : [a brief outline of the investigation to uncover and expose the Nazi campaign of disruption through the United States mails / by Henry Hoke]
