6.5 Cubic feet (16 boxes, 188 pieces of original artwork)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Black-and-white photographic prints
Pastels (visual works)
Advertisements
Business records
Date:
circa 1936-1995
Summary:
The collection documents the development and evolution of the Breck Girl, a highly successful and long-lived advertising campaign whose hallmark was its vision of idealized American womanhood through correspondence, photographs, paintings, and print advertisements.
Scope and Contents:
188 pieces of original advertising art (mostly pastel drawings), and photographs, correspondence, and business records, documenting the development and evolution of the Breck Girls advertising campaign. Original advertising art includes portraits of famous models, such as Cheryl Tiegs, Brooke Shields, Kim Basinger, and Erin Gray. Artists represented include Charles Sheldon and Ralph William Williams. The 2006 addendum consists of approximately one sixth of one cubic foot of papers relating to Cynthia Brown's selection as a Breck Girl, 1988 and her induction into the Breck Hall of Fame.
Arrangement:
Collection divided into four series.
Series 1: Company history, 1946-1990
Series 2: Photographs, 1960-1995
Series 3: Print ads, 1946-1980
Series 4: Original artwork, 1936-1994
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. John Breck is credited with developing one of the first liquid shampoos in the United States, in Springfield Massachusetts in 1908; Breck is also credited with introducing the first ph-balanced shampoo, in 1930. During the early years of the business, distribution remained localized in New England, and the product was sold exclusively to beauty salons until 1946. Advertising for the brand began in 1932, but appeared only in trade publications, such as Modern Beauty Shop.
Edward Breck, son of the founder, assumed management of the company in 1936. Breck became acquainted with Charles Sheldon, an illustrator and portrait painter who is believed to have studied in Paris under Alphonse Mucha, an artist noted for his contributions to Art Nouveau style. Sheldon had achieved some measure of fame for his paintings of movie stars for the cover of Photoplay magazine in the 1920s, and had also done idealized pastel portraits for the cover of Parents magazine. He created his first pastel portraits for Breck in 1936, launching what would become one of America's longest running ad campaigns. When the company began national advertising (and mass distribution) in 1946, the campaign featured Sheldon's 1937 painting of seventeen-year old Roma Whitney, a spirited blonde. Ms. Whitney's profile was registered as Breck's trademark in 1951. When he retired in 1957, Sheldon had created 107 oil paintings and pastels for the company. Sheldon was known to favor ordinary women over professional models, and in the early years of the campaign, the Breck Girls were Breck family members, neighbors or residents of the community in which he worked; company lore holds that nineteen Breck Girls were employees of the advertising agency he founded in 1940. A Breck advertising manager later described Sheldon's illustrations as, "illusions, depicting the quality and beauty of true womanhood using real women as models." The paintings and pastels form a coherent, if derivative, body of work which celebrates an idealized vision of American girlhood and womanhood, an ideal in which fair skin, beauty and purity are co-equal.
Ralph William Williams was hired to continue the Breck Girls campaign after Sheldon's retirement. Between 1957 and his death in 1976, Williams modified the Breck Girl look somewhat through the use of brighter colors and a somewhat heightened sense of movement and individuality. The advertising manager during his tenure recalled that at first Williams continued in Sheldon' manner, but in later years, as women became more independent, he would take care to integrate each girl' particular personality; he studied each girl and learned her special qualities. During these years, Breck Girls were identified through the company's sponsorship of America's Junior Miss contests. Williams work includes pastels of celebrities Cybil Shepard (1968 Junior Miss from Tennessee), Cheryl Tiegs (1968), Jaclyn Smith (1971, 1973), Kim Basinger (1972, 1974) and Brooke Shields (1974) very early in their careers.
By the 1960s, at the height of its success, Breck held about a twenty percent share of the shampoo market and enjoyed a reputation for quality and elegance. Ownership of the company changed several times (American Cyanamid in 1963; Dial Corporation in 1990). The corresponding fluctuations in management of the company and in advertising expenditures tended to undermine the coherence of the national advertising campaign. In addition, despite William's modifications, the image had become dated. Attempts to update the image misfired, further limiting the brand's coherence and effectiveness. Finally, increased competition and an absence of brand loyalty among consumers through the 1970s and 1980s helped push Breck from its number one position into the bargain bin. The Breck Girl campaign was discontinued around 1978, although there have been at least two minor revivals, first in 1992 with the Breck Girls Hall of Fame, and again in 1995 when a search was begun to identify three new Breck Women.
Scope and Content: The 188 pieces of original advertising art (62 oil paintings on board, 2 pencil sketches on paper, and 124 pastels on paper) and related photographs, correspondence and business files in this collection document the development and evolution of the Breck Girl, a highly successful and long-lived advertising campaign whose hallmark was its vision of idealized American womanhood. The collection is a perfect fit with other 20th century Archives Center collections documenting the efforts of American business to reach the female consumer market. The Estelle Ellis Collection (advertising and promotions for Seventeen, Charm, Glamour and House & Garden and many other clients) the Cover Girl Collection (make-up), the Maidenform Collection (brassieres), and the Tupperware Collections offer a prodigious body of evidence for understanding the role women were expected to play as consumers in the 20th century.
These advertising images also offer fertile ground for research into the evolution of popular images of American girlhood and womanhood. The research uses of the collection derive primarily from its value as an extensive visual catalog of the ideal types of American women and girls, arising and coalescing during a period in which 19th century ideals of womanhood were being revisited (the depression, the war years, the immediate post-war period) and continuing, with slight modifications and revisions, through several decades during which those historical ideals were being challenged and revised.
Related Materials:
Several items of packaging, 1930s-1980s are held in the former Division of Home and Community Life (now Division of Cultural and Community Life); an 18k gold Breck insignia pin is in the former.
Provenance:
The Dial Corporation through Jane Owens, Senior Vice President, Gift, June 1998.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
Collection consists of print and television advertisements and promotional materials created by Revlon, Incorporated, 1936-1986.
Scope and Contents:
Collection consists of print and television advertisements and promotional materials created by Revlon, Incorporated for its products dating from 1936 to 1986. Revlon experienced substantial growth using these materials and semi-annual promotions to become one of the leading brands of the cosmetics industry. The materials provide insight into the depiction and importance of beauty throughout the decades. Additionally, the names of models and photographers are identified on the materials. The collection is arranged in two series: Series 1, Revlon Advertisements, 1936-1986; and Series 2, Other Revlon Incorporated Brand Advertisements, 1965-1986.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in two series.
Series 1, Revlon Advertisements, 1936-1986
Series 2, Other Revlon Incorporated Brand Advertisements, 1965-1986
Historical:
Revlon began as a single product company in New York in 1932. The founders of the company American businessmen Charles Haskell Revson (October 11, 1906- August 24, 1975), Joseph Haskell Revson (October 11, 1906-August 24, 1975), and chemist Charles Lachman started the business with a desire to create a mainstream market for nail enamel. With an innovative manufacturing process and the introduction of new colors every year the company was able to build a successful brand and dedicated market. Revlon introduced lipstick in 1940 and continued to expand its product line to include skincare, cosmetics, hair color, fragrances, and beauty tools.
Source: New York Times obituary for Charles Revson, August 25, 1975.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (NMAH.AC.0060)
Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork (NMAH.AC.0561)
Cover Girl Advertising Oral History and Documentation Project (NMAH.AC.0374)
NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records (NMAH.AC.0059)
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Martin Stevens in 2007.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
The collection documents Parke, Davis and Company, one of the largest and oldest pharmaceutical firms in America.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents Parke, Davis and Company, one of America's oldest and largest drug makers. Parke, Davis had the first research laboratory in the American pharmaceutical industry. The company played a major role in the development of some of the principle new drugs of the twentieth century and pioneered the field of drug standardization. They were one of the first American firms to produce antitoxins, hormones, and other biologicals. They introduced new and important drugs such as adrenalin, dilantin, chlorenpleniol, and other antibiotics. They also did important research on vitamins, disinfectants, and pencillin.
The collection contains complete documentaion of all the research activities done, including research laboratory notes, correspondence, and published papers. The collection also contains corporate, financial, advertising and sales materials, photographs, and audiovisual materials. The collection is important for those researchers interested in the history of public health, the history of biologicals, pharmaceutical manufacturing and business history.
Arrangement:
Collection is divided into 13 series.
Series 1: Corporate Materials, 1887-1951
Series 2: Financial Materials, 1880-1970
Series 3: Employee/Personnel Materials, 1900-1989
Series 4: Advertising/Sales Materials, 1868-1980
Series 5: Photographs, 1866-1992
Series 6: Notebooks, 1908-1968
Series 7: Control Department Records, 1884-1931
Series 8: Formulas, 1882-1967
Series 9: Equipment Data Files, 1922-1978
Series 10: Publications, 1968-1988
Series 11: Research Materials, 1920-1978
Series 12: Drawings, 1911-1971
Series 13: Addenda, 1867-1970
Series 14: Audio Materials, 1956-1957
Historical:
Parke, Davis and Company traces it's origins to Samuel Pearce Duffield (1833-1916), a physician and pharmacist. Duffield was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and his family moved to Detroit when he was an infant. Duffield graduated from the University of Michigan in 1854 and he attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, latter leaving for Germany where he studied chemistry and sought treatment for his eyesight. He subsequently earned a Doctor of Philosophy from Ludwig University at Giessen in Germany. Duffield returned to Detroit in 1858 and established a retail drugstore with a strong interest in manufacturing pharmaceuticals. Duffield sought financial partners for his retail and manufacturing venture with A.L. Patrick and Francis C. Conant. Both men retracted their investments and Duffield met Hervey Coke Parke (1927-1899), a native of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Duffield and Parke formed a formal partnership in 1866. George S. Davis, a third partner and traveling salesman previously with Farrand, Sheley and Company, was added 1867. Augustus F. Jennings joined the company as a partner to head manufacturing. The company became known as Duffield, Parke, Davis, & Jennings Company. Duffield withdrew in 1869 and the name Parke, Davis & Company was adopted in 1871. The company incorporated in 1875 and began planning world-wide scientific expeditions to discover new vegetable drugs such as Guarana, Bearsfoot, Eucalyptus Globulus, and Coca. The company first showed a profit in 1876, and the first dividend paid to shareholders in 1878 and dividends paid until mid-1960s. Research was a major activity of the company.
In 1907, Parke, Davis and Company bought 340 acres in northeast Avon Township, Michigan, and called it Parkedale Farm. The farm was dedicated on October 8, 1908, and included sterilization rooms and a vaccine propagating building. By 1909 the farm included 200 horses, 25 to 50 cattle, 150 sheep, and employed 20 men. The horses produced the antitoxin for diphtheria and tetanus, the cattle produced a vaccine for smallpox preventatives, and the sheep made serum. Only the healthiest animals were used and all were well cared for. Exotic plants were also grown on the site and used for drugs. Parke-Davis' chief products were antitoxins and vaccines as well as farm crops for feeding the animals. The farm continued to produce vaccines for diphtheria, scarlet fever, tetanus, smallpox, anthrax, and in the 1950s, the Salk polio vaccine.
Due to a weakening financial position, the company became susceptible to take-over, and was purchased by Warner-Lambert in 1970. Warner Lambert, was then acquired by Pfizer in 2000. In 2007, Pfizer closed its research facilities in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Source
Rochester Hills Museum at Voon Hoosen Farm (last accessed on September 29, 2021 https://www.rochesterhills.org/Museum/LocalHistory/ParkeDavisFarm.pdf)
Parke, Davis and Company. Parke-Davis At 100...progress in the past...promise for the future. Detroit, Michigan, 1966.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Alka-Seltzer Documentation and Oral History Project (NMAH.AC.0184)
N W Ayer Advertising Agency Records (NMAH.AC.0059)
Cover Girl Advertising Oral History Documentation Project (NMAH.AC.0374)
Garfield and Company Records (NMAH.AC.0820)
Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork Collection (NMAH.AC.0561)
Ivory Soap Advertising Collection (NMAH.AC.0791)
Kiehl's Pharmacy Records (NMAH.AC.0819)
Alan and Elaine Levitt Advertisement Collection (NMAH.AC.0303)
Medical Sciences Film Collection (NMAH.AC.0222)
Norwich Eaton Pharmaceutical, Inc. Collection (NMAH.AC.0395)
Procter & Gamble Company Product Packaging Collection (NMAH.AC.0836)
Sterling Drug Company Records (NMAH.AC.772)
Syntex Collection of Pharmaceutical Advertising (NMAH.AC.0821)
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Medicine (NMAH.AC.0060.S01.01.Medicine)
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Patent Medicines (NMAH.AC.0060.S01.01.PatentMedicines)
Materials at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Smithsonian Libraries Trade Literature Collection
Trade catalogs related to Parke, Davis & Co.; Warner-Lambert; Pfizer Pharmaceuticals; and Pfizer, Inc.
Materials at Other Organizations
Detroit Public Library, Special Collections
Parke, Davis & Company records, 1892-1959
Scrapbook of clippings, 1929-44; Excursions & Announcements, 1892-1902; and company newsletters.
University of California San Francisco
Drug Industry Documents was created by the University of California San Francisco Library in collaboration with faculty members C. Seth Landefeld, MD and Michael Steinman, MD. Originally established to house documents from an off-label marketing lawsuit against Parke-Davis (United States of America ex rel. David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis), the archive has grown to include documents from additional sources illustrating how the pharmaceutical industry, academic journals and institutions, continuing medical education organizations and regulatory/funding agencies operate in ways that are detrimental to public health.
Separated Materials:
Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History
The division holds objects related to Parke, Davis that primarily include containers (boxes and glass bottles) that held phamrmaceuticals, biologicals (vaccines), crude drugs, and herb packages. See accessions: 1978.0882; 1982.0043; 1982.0043; 1984.0351; 1985.0475; 1988.3152; 1991.0415; 1992.3127; 2001.3066; 2012.0165; and 2018.5001.
Provenance:
The initial collection of approximately 185 cubic feet was donated by the Warner-Lambert Company, through Jerry A. Weisbach, Vice-President and President of the Pharmaceutical Research Division, on February 3, 1982.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
Collection documents the life and career of Byron Lewis, founder of UniWorld Group, Inc., (UWG), an early African American advertising agency.
Content Description:
Archival materials documenting the life and career of Byron Lewis, founder of UniWorld Group, Incorporated, (UWG), an early African American advertising agency. Materials include photographs, correspondence, drawings, newspaper clippings, magazines (e.g. Urbanite Magazine and the Tuesday Magazine), radio scripts, and audio and videotapes.
Arrangement:
Collection is unarranged.
Related Materials:
Materials at the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Collection donated by Byron Lewis and Sylvia Lewis, December 8, 2022.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
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.
Hampson, Albert W., 1911-1990 (artist) Search this
Extent:
6 Cubic feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Slides (photographs)
Photographs
Sketches
Advertisements
Date:
1926-1968
Summary:
Collection consists of the commercial artwork created by artist Albert W. Hampson dating predominately from during the 1950s and 1960s.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the creation of promotional and advertising materials through photographs, original artwork and completed print advertisements and point-of-purchase displays. The research value of the collection lies in the documentation of this process. Researchers will find that these materials demonstrate how ideas are conceived and then expressed by artists for their clients. Evidence of decision making and collaboration between the artist and the client is illustrated by elements such as color choices or model poses. Often this evidence is lost when the only record saved is the completed advertisement or display. A good example of the developmental/creative process, complete with finished product, is the Tung-Sol Radio Tubes project. Materials also demonstrate the variety and occurrence of advertising projects during the mid-twentieth century. The artist created documents and artwork for different markets, both the consumer and the company.
Materials are arranged first by parent company, then by product or brand name. However, there are a very small number of items, with obscure affiliations to a company listed by product name. Corporate ownership of many of these companies and products has changed since the era that Hampson was working in, but their historical application has been maintained in this container list. Researchers must research product or company names within their historical context.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in five series.
Series 1, Personal Papers, 1928-1980, undated
Series 2, Early Artwork, 1926-1927, undated
Series 3, Commercial Artwork, 1934-1969, undated
Series 4, Artwork for Covers of Publications, 1937-1950s, undated
Series 5, Portraits, 1951-1977,; undated
Biographical:
Albert W. Hampson was born May 20, 1910, in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He demonstrated artistic ability at an early age, winning all of the available school awards. Observing teachers encouraged him to pursue a career as an artist. His mother's death and father's unemployment forced him to get a job while still attending high school. He balanced work, school, and art all through his adolescence.
After his graduation from Northeast High School in June of 1927, Hampson pursued his art education at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (the University of the Arts) until June of 1931. While at the university, he was quarterback of the Germantown Boys Club football team and a semi-pro team in Chestnut Hill, and he attended the Cape Cod School of Art under a scholarship provision, for one year in 1930. Also during his education, and after graduation, Hampson earned a living by providing draft and architectural drawings for several Philadelphia architects. He was driving a bread wagon and preparing advertising layouts for a Philadelphia bakery, the Old Bond Bakery, when he got his first big break: one of his oil paintings was featured on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on November 30, 1934. Between 1935 and 1944, his work appeared on the covers of Post and Look magazines more than a dozen times.
Hampson had been working as a commercial artist for a decade and was well established before marrying Josephine Unger Corson, a jewelry designer and librarian, on February 7, 1945. They had two children, Hillary, born 1945, and Theodore "Ted" born 1956.
In his personal life Hampson was known for his strong political opinions and work ethic, sometimes working eighteen hours a day. He did not believe in short-cuts, and his determination for perfection was evident in his do-it-yourself landscaping, according to his son. He spent time away from home, working five days a week in New York when Ted was young, but Hampson always brought gifts home and was ready for a discussion on politics. He was an active member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club, the oldest continuing artist organization in the nation. He was remembered by long-time colleague and friend, Fred Decker, as a staunch democrat (borderline socialist) who firmly publicized his views. This tenacious attitude provided him with the abilities of a great salesman, and knowing how to sell ideas can make a great commercial artist, as his son noted. He also had personal success as a father figure, according to Ted.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)
Francis M. Mair Papers (AC0548)
Landor Design Collection (AC500)
NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records (AC0059)
Walter H. Voigt Brewing Industry Collection (AC1195)
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Hampson's son, Theodore Hampson, September 1996.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Mair, Francis M., 1916-1991 (commercial artist) Search this
Extent:
68 Cubic feet (198 boxes, 4 map folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Audiovisual materials
Business letters
Business records
Personal papers
Videotapes
Interviews
Oral history
Date:
circa 1862-2002, undated
Summary:
Collection consists of the business records and original art documenting the work of Walter Landor and his design firm Landor Associates located in San Francisco, California.
Scope and Contents:
Collection documents the career of designer Walter Landor and the significant body of commercial imagery and packaging produced by Landor Associates design firm. Contains corporate and business records of Landor Associates, Landor's personal papers, oral history interviews, films, videotapes, and other audiovisual resources.
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1: Landor Associates Business Records, 1862-1993, undated
Subseries 1.1: Historical Background and Project Administration Files, 1941-1993, undated
Subseries 5.2: Educational and Training Acquired by Landor Associates, 1944-1975,
undated
Subseries 5.3: Promotional Films Acquired by Landor Associates, 1958-1977, undated
Subseries 5.4: Television Commercials, Advertising and Public Service Announcements,
1964-1975, undated
Subseries 5.5: Miscellaneous Films Acquired by Landor Associates, 1967-1970,
undated
Series 6: Video Cassette Tapes, 1980-1993, undated
Series 7: Audio Cassette Tapes, 1971-1991, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Walter Landor (1913-1995), son of Jewish Bauhaus architect Fritz Landauer, came to the United States in 1938 with the design team for the British Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. He emigrated to the United States in 1941, launching a small design firm in San Francisco. Landor started out doing package design for a largely local and regional clientele (including many West Coast wineries and breweries), although he soon developed a client list that included some of the world's largest and most prestigious corporations. Corporate identity projects were an important specialization. In addition to his own considerable design abilities, Landor had a gift for inspiring and organizing the creativity of a group of associates, and for developing lasting and productive relationships with his clients. The firm developed particular strength in its portfolio of airlines, financial institutions and consumer goods, and prided itself on a network of international clients. From the beginning, Landor linked design to research in consumer behavior, developing increasingly sophisticated methods for evaluating the effectiveness of his designs. This collection documents Walter Landor's remarkable career, the significant body of corporate identity, packaging and other commercial imagery produced by Landor Associates, and the interplay between industrial design and American consumer culture.
German Historical Institute
Walter Landor in the Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present.
The collaborative research project Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present sheds new light on the entrepreneurial and economic capacity of immigrants by investigating the German-American example in the United States. It traces the lives, careers and business ventures of eminent German-American business people of roughly the last two hundred and ninety years, integrating the history of German-American immigration into the larger narrative of U.S. economic and business history.
Related Materials:
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Francis M. Mair Papers NMAH.AC.0548
NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records NMAH.AC.0059
Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated Records NMAH.AC.0395
Emmett McBain Afro American Advertising Poster Collection NMAH.AC.0192
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana NMAH.AC.0060
Marilyn E. Jacklar Memorial Collection of Tobacco Advertisements NMAH.AC.1224
Marlboro Oral History and Documentation Project NMAH.AC.0198
Division of Work and Industry, National Museum of American History
The division holds artifacts related to the Walter Landor and his advertising work. See accession 1993.0393.
Provenance:
Personal papers donated to Archives Center in 1993 by Josephine Landor, widow of Walter Landor; business records donated to Archives Center in 1993 by Landor Associates.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
More than 300 reels of 16mm black and white and color film, silent and sound, fiction and documentary motion picture film documenting jazz and related musical performances, social and popular dance styles and performances, jazz musicians, performance locales, and documentation of African-American popular culture. A list of featured performers in the collection is shown below. The films are frequently compilations produced by Smith for lectures.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of 352 reels of 16mm motion picture film. Most of the film is 16mm black and white and sound (composite optical track print), although a few titles are silent or in color. The collection is comprised of compilation reels created by Ernie Smith to accompany his lectures, topical compilation reels created by Ernie Smith, compilation reels created by the Archives Center, and single title reels. The Archives Center produced master and reference video copies using a wet-gate telecine film-to-tape transfer system. Titles were often combined to allow for increased ease of handling, storage, and duplication.
The collection is strongest in the areas of jazz dance styles including Lindy Hop and tap, overviews of jazz musical performers and styles; specific jazz musicians and performers including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Bob Crosby, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Jack Teagarden as well as a wide range of female vocalists; and documentation of the New York jazz and club scene. The collection includes feature films and excerpts from feature films, Soundies and other film shorts, television kinescopes, and documentary films.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series and is not arranged in accordance with standard archival procedures. The breadth of the collection and the existence of so many multiple topic and/or performer compilation reels made it impossible to impose traditional archival series order. Therefore, each reel is described at the item level in the container list.
Biographical:
Ernest (Ernie) Smith began collecting jazz and jazz dance films during the mid-1950s. An Art Director for a New York advertising agency, Smith had a long-standing interest in jazz and jazz dance that began during his youth in Pittsburgh, Pa. Early on, Smith discovered that jazz music was best appreciated while dancing. He became an accomplished Lindy Hopper, frequenting both white and African American ballrooms.
His job at the advertising agency supported Smith's two passions - painting and jazz dance and music. Smith was also a film enthusiast so, in 1954, after taking a jazz class at the New School taught by Marshall Stearns, a leading jazz scholar, he began collecting examples of jazz and jazz dance on film. In the process of creating his film collection, Smith became one of the leading authorities on jazz and jazz dance films. He collaborated with Stearns on the 1964 book Jazz Dance, compiling the book's jazz dance film listing. He also wrote the extensive entry on jazz film for the 1988 edition of New Grove Dictionary of Jazz .
Smith built his film collection by identifying films of potential interest and acquiring them through trade and purchase. He created lecture reels on specific topics -- the history of jazz, social dance, tap dance, Duke Ellington, Lindy Hop -- and presented lecture/screenings nationally and internationally. He also provided footage for numerous documentaries and maintained active relationships with filmmakers, other film collectors, jazz scholars, the swing dance community, and musicians.
Ernie Smith donated his film collection to the Archives Center in 1993. He continues to lecture and participate in swing dance activities, but he devotes the majority of his time to painting and related artistic pursuits.
Provenance:
The Archives Center acquired the collection from Ernie Smith in 1993.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but the films are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
African Americans in the performing arts -- 1930-1970 Search this
Genre/Form:
Motion pictures (visual works) -- 20th century
Citation:
Ernie Smith Jazz Film Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Sponsor:
America's Jazz Heritage: A Partnership of the The Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution provided the funding to produce many of the video master and reference copies.
The Cover Girl Make-Up Advertising Oral History and Documentation Project, 1923-1991, is the result of a year-long study in 1990, which examined the advertising created for Noxell Corporation's Cover Girl make-up products from 1959 to 1990. The objective of the project was to document, in print and electronic media, the history of Cover Girl make-up advertising since its inception in 1959.
Scope and Contents:
Twenty-two oral history interviews (conducted by Dr. Scott Ellsworth for the Archives Center) and a variety of print and television advertisements, photographs, scrapbooks, personal papers, business records and related materials were gathered by the Center for Advertising History staff. The objective was to create a collection that provides documentation, in print and electronic media, of the history and development of advertising for Cover Girl make-up since its inception in 1959.
Collection also includes earlier material related to other Noxell products, including Noxzema, with no direct connection to the Cover Girl campaign.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into eight series.
Series 1: Research Files
Series 2: Interviewee Files
Series 3: Oral History Interviews
Series 4: Television Advertising Materials
Series 5: Print Advertising Materials
Series 6: Company Publications and Promotional Literature
Series 7: Photographs
Series 8: Scrapbooks
Biographical / Historical:
George Avery Bunting founded the Noxzema Chemical Company in Baltimore, Maryland in 1917. In the 1890s, he left behind a teaching job on Maryland's Eastern shore to move to Baltimore, where he hoped to pursue a career as a pharmacist. He landed a job as errand boy and soda jerk at a local drugstore, where he worked while attending classes at the University Of Maryland College of Pharmacy. Valedictorian of the Class of 1899, Bunting was promoted to manager of the drugstore, which he purchased. Bunting began to experiment with the formulation of medicated pastes and compounds, which he marketed to his customers. In 1909, he began refining a medicated vanishing cream, which he introduced in 1914. "Dr. Bunting's Sunburn Remedy," an aromatic skin cream containing clove oil, eucalyptus oil, lime water, menthol and camphor, was mixed by hand at his pharmacy. Marketed locally as a greaseless, medicated cream for the treatment of a variety of skin conditions, including sunburn, eczema, and acne, the product was renamed "Noxzema" for its reputed ability to "knock eczema." By 1917, the Noxzema Chemical Company was formed. During the 1920s, distribution of the product was expanded to include New York, Chicago, and the Midwest and, by 1926, the first Noxzema manufactory was built in northwest Baltimore to accommodate the demand for nearly a million jars a year.
Having achieved a national market by 1938, Noxzema Chemical Company executives pursued product diversification as a means to maintain the corporate growth of the early years. In the 1930s and 1940s, line extensions included shaving cream, suntan lotion and cold cream, all with the distinctive "medicated" Noxzema aroma.
In the late 1950s, Bill Hunt, director of product development at Noxzema, suggested a line extension into medicated make-up. Creatives at Sullivan, Stauffer, Colwell & Bayles, Incorporated (SSC&B), Noxzema's advertising agency since 1946, suggested that the advertising for the new product focus on beauty and glamour with some reference to the medicated claims made for other Noxzema products. In contrast to other cosmetics, which were sold at specialized department store counters, Noxzema's medicated make-up would be marketed alongside other Noxzema products in grocery stores and other mass distribution outlets. After experimenting with names that suggested both glamour and the medicated claims (including Thera-Blem and Blema-Glow), Bill Grathwohl, Noxell's advertising director, selected Carolyn Oelbaum's "Cover Girl," which conveyed the product's usefulness as a blemish cover-up, while invoking the glamorous image of fashion models. These three elements of the advertising, wholesome glamour, mass marketing, and medicated make-up, remain central to Cover Girl advertising nearly a half-century later.
Beginning with the national launch in 1961, American and international fashion models were featured in the ads. The target audience was identified as women between eighteen and fifty-four and, initially, the "glamour" ads were targeted at women's magazines, while the "medicated" claims were reserved for teen magazines. Television ads featured both elements. Cover Girl advertising always featured beautiful women -- especially Caucasian women, but the Cover Girl image has evolved over time to conform to changing notions of beauty. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Cover Girl was refined and aloof, a fashion conscious sophisticate. By the 1970s, a new social emphasis on looking and dressing "naturally" and the introduction of the "Clean Make-up" campaign created a new advertising focus on the wholesome glamour of the "girl next door," a blue-eyed, blonde all-American image. In the 1980s, the Cover Girl look was updated to include African-American, Hispanic and working women.
In January 1970, SSC&B bought 49% of the Lintas Worldwide advertising network. After SSC&B was acquired by the Interpublic Group of Companies in 1979, the entire Lintas operation was consolidated under the name SSC&B/Lintas in 1981. With the Procter & Gamble buy-out of the Noxell Corporation in September 1989, the cosmetics account was moved to long-time P&G agency Grey Advertising, in order to circumvent a possible conflict of interest between P&G competitor Unilever, another Lintas account. In 1989 SSC&B/Lintas, Cover Girl's agency since its launch in 1961, lost the account it helped to create and define, but the brand continues to dominate mass-marketed cosmetics.
This project is the result of a year-long study of advertising created for the Noxell Corporation's Cover Girl make-up products, 1959-1990. The effort was supported in part by a grant from the Noxell Corporation. The target audience was identified as women 18-54, and initially, the "glamour" ads were targeted at women's magazines, while the "medicated" claims were reserved for teen magazines. Television ads featured both elements. Cover Girl advertising has always featured beautiful women (especially Caucasian women), but the Cover Girl image evolved over time to conform with changing notions of beauty. In the late 1950s-1960s, the Cover Girl was refined and aloof, a fashion conscious sophisticate. By the 1970s, a new social emphasis on looking and dressing "naturally" and the introduction of the "Clean Make-up" campaign created a new advertising focus on the wholesome glamour of the "girl next door," a blue-eyed, blonde all-American image. Through the 1980s, the Cover Girl look was updated to include African-American and Hispanic models and images of women at work.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana (AC0060)
N W Ayer Advertising Agency Records (AC0059)
Separated Materials:
"The Division of Home and Community Life, Costume Collection (now Division of Cultural and Community Life) holds eighty-six cosmetic items and one computer that were also donated by the Noxell Corporation in 1990 in conjunction with the oral history project. These artifacts include lipstick, manicure sets, brushes, make-up, eye shadow, blush, powder puffs, eyelash curler, nail polish, and mascara. See accession number 1990.0193.
"
Provenance:
Most of the materials in the collection were donated to the Center for Advertising History by the Noxell Corporation, 1990. All storyboards and videoscripts, and a large collection of business records and proofsheets were donated by George Poris in June 1990. All mechanicals were donated by Art Weithas in June 1990. (These contributions are noted in the finding aid).
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but a portion of the collection is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
The collection contains domestic and foreign advertising for both pharmaceutical and consumer health care products; sales and marketing materials for pharmaceuticals aimed at physicians, such as brochures, package inserts, reports, catalogs, price lists, manuals; the company's business and administrative papers, including annual reports, news releases, clippings, newsletters and publications, financial and corporate files, histories, and photographs.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into four series. In most instances, original folder titles were retained. In circumstances where there was no folder title, the processing archivist created one derived from the nature of the materials. The contents of some folders were combined.
Series 1: Products, 1946-1948
Series 2: Advertising, 1902-1984
Series 3: Sales and Marketing, 1881-1979
Series 4: Corporate, 1896-1993
Historical:
Sterling Drug was founded in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1901 by two childhood friends, William E. Weiss and Albert H. Diebold, to manufacture and sell a pain-relieving preparation called "Neuralgine." The company's original name was Neuralgyline. Within a few years, Weiss and Diebold realized that expansion required more product lines and that this would be best obtained by acquisition. This policy continued throughout the life of the organization. At least 130 companies were acquired directly or indirectly between 1902 and 1986.
In 1913, Weiss and Diebold established intangible assets (trademarks, patents, and copyrights) and tangible assets (offices and plants). By 1914, the company set-up proprietary agencies for overseas trading. Weiss and Diebold changed the name of the company in 1917 from Neuralgyline, which was difficult to say, to Sterling Products.
Sterling Products benefited from World War I. Because supplies of drugs from Germany were cutoff by the Allied blockade, they established the Winthrop Company to manufacture the active ingredients. After the war, Sterling acquired the American Bayer Company in December 1918. They established a separate subsidiary, the Bayer Company, to market Bayer Aspirin. During the 1930s, Winthrop made Sterling a leader in the pharmaceutical field with such renowned products as Luminal, the original phenobarbitol; Salvarsan and Neo-Salvarsan, the first effective drugs in the treatment of syphilis; Prontosil, the first of the sulfa drugs; and Atabrine, the synthetic antimalarial that replaced quinine during World War II. The company expanded overseas in 1938, and eventually operated about seventy plants in about forty countries. Sterling was especially profitable in Latin America. By 1942, the use of Sterling Products as a name was confusing and could not be licensed to conduct business in some states. Therefore, the company namechanged to Sterling Drug, Inc.
In 1988, in order to avoid a hostile takeover by Hofmann-LaRoche, Sterling became a division of Eastman Kodak and remained one until 1994 when Kodak disposed of its health-related businesses. This left Sterling broken up with Sanofi purchasing Sterling's ethical business; Nycomed of Norway purchasing the diagnostic imaging; and SmithKline Beecham purchasing the worldwide over-the counter pharmaceutical business.
Source
Collins, Joseph C. and John R. Gwilt. "The Life Cycle of Sterling Drug, Inc." Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Volume 25, Number 1, 2000.
Related Materials:
Materials at the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
NW Ayer and Sons Incorporated Advertising Agency Records (AC0059)
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Series: Patent Medicines (NMAH.AC.0060)
Parke-Davis Company Records (NMAH.AC.0001)
Norwich Eaton Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Records (NMAH.AC.0329)
Syntex Collection of Pharmaceutical Advertisements (NMAH.AC.0821)
Garfield & Company Records (NMAH.AC.0820)
Materials at the National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Libraries Trade Literature Collection
Division of Medicine and Science holds artifacts related to Sterling Drug, Inc. that include a banner, flag, product packaging, memorabilia, a colander, and a soap dispenser. See accessions 2001.0314, 2004.0129, and 2018.5001.
Provenance:
Collection donated to the Archives Center by the History Factory through Bruce Weindruch (President and CEO), in 2001.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
The papers document Norniella's life and career in the advertising field, and her Ole Television Network, and include business records, photographs, scrapbooks, photograph albums, advertising, clippings and articles, awards, newsletters, and publicity materials.
Arrangement:
Collection is unarranged.
Biographical / Historical:
Isabel Norniella was born in Cuba in 1938. She graduated with a degree in advertising management from the University of Puerto Rico. After working for several advertising firms, including McCann Erickson, she founded her own, Publitec, in 1969. Her firm has been much awarded, and has had clients including Stokely Van Camp, Cutty Sark, Uncle Ben's, and others. She has also done publicity work with several charities. In 1994 she founded the Ole Television Network.
Provenance:
Donated by Isabel Norniella to the Archives Center in 2017.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Collection documents James Holmes, an advertising agent who specialized in advertising for the Karting industry. Holmes created magazine advertising, product catalogs and event promotional materials as well as logo and patch designs for manufacturers and karting sport sanctioning organizations.
Scope and Contents note:
The collection spans the years 1961-1979, but the majority of the documentation is from the 1960s. The collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1: James W. Holmes Advertising Agency, 1979, consists of invoices from the Holmes Advertising Agency.
Series 2: Manufacturers, ca. 1960s, is arranged alphabetically by manufacturer name (clients Holmes handled) and consists of negatives and some photographs of parts produced by the manufacturers. The negatives were used to create catalogs for various companies selling go-karts.
Series 3: Go-Kart Races, 1961-1978, undated, is arranged alphabetically by the race site. Almost exclusively negatives, there are some photographs and two microfilm reels depicting races throughout the United States.
eries 4: Go-Kart Associations, 1964-1968, undated, contains documentation on associations, councils and clubs associated with the go-karting industry. Of interest are seven issues of the Grand Prix Press, a newspaper published by Meadowdale International Raceways, Inc.
Series 5: Miscellaneous, undated, consists of one folder of material which includes newspaper clippings, business cards, art work, and articles.
Arrangement:
Collection is aranged into five series.
Biographical/Historical note:
The first go-kart was built in southern California by Art Ingels in 1957. Three other individualsBBill Rowles, Duffy Livingstone, and Roy DesbrowBfounded GoKart Manufacturing Company in 1957, and offered the first commercially available kart, the GoKart 400. James Holmes was a prominent advertising agent involved with the karting industry in the midwest from the 1960s to 1980s. He created magazine advertising, product catalogs and event promotional materials as well as logo and patch designs for manufacturers and karting sport sanctioning organizations. Some of Holmes= clients included: G.E.M. Products, Evans Supply Company, Max-Torque, Inc., Rolfe Aircraft Associates, Rupp Mfg., and Simplex Mfg.
Provenance:
Collection donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History by Robert DiNozzi, January 16, 2002. Items donated are from the personal collection of Mr. James Holmes of the James Holmes Advertising Agency
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Wilkinson, J. Walter (commercial artist) Search this
Extent:
1 Cubic foot (2 boxes, 2 map-folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Audiocassettes
Sketches
Date:
ca. 1932-1935, 1940-1964, 1985-1987.
Scope and Contents:
Originals and copy photographs of advertisements and other commercial art work, original sketches, materials documenting a mechanical drafting instrument patented by the Wilkinson and his son, Walter G. Wilkinson, and a scrapbook of clippings, photographs, awards, and other materials documenting the Wilkinsons' careers. Also included are audiocassettes containing interviews of Wilkinson, conducted by National Museum of American History curator, Larry Bird.
Biographical / Historical:
J. Walter Wilkinson (1892- ) is an award winning commercial artist, perhaps best known for a series of six war bond posters he and his son Walter G. Wilkinson (1917-1971) created for the United States Treasury Department. J. Walter Wilkinson was born on Maryland's eastern shore, received formal academic training in art, and worked on newspapers and at an advertising agency before becoming a free lance artist. In addition to his war posters and other government commissions, he created a number of outdoor and magazine advertisements and many magazine covers. Major products for which Wilkinson did advertising art work included Ivory soap, Pabst beer, and Ballantine ale.
Provenance:
Collection donated by J. Walter Wilkinson, September 13, 1984
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
A. (Arthur) Bernie Wood (1921-1986) was an advertising designer, consultant, and inventor actively involved in the development of the restaurant franchise industry in America during the 1960s and 1970s. Particularly notable is his work with marketing, promotion, and merchandising for the McDonald's Corporation during its formative years.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the post-war development of the franchise business system from an insider's view. Wood participated in almost all aspects of franchising activities from design to ownership. The materials consist of a wide variety of corporate identity elements--primarily visual--developed by Wood under contract to various corporations in the food service industry. Wood delivered his services in design concepts and graphics for advertisers and industrial firms using photo graphics and lithographic media.
Series 7: Audio and Moving Image Materials, 1963, 1964, 1968
Subseries 1: Audio Materials, 1963, 1964, 1968
Subseries 2: Moving Image Materials, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Arthur Bernie Wood (1921-1986) was born in Council Grove, Kansas. Wood graduated from Central High School in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1939 and subsequently attended several junior colleges and business and trade schools. Wood held a variety of positions in typesetting and lithographic services from 1940 until military service in the United States Navy (1942-1945). In the Navy, Wood served as a Laboratory Technician, 1st Class Photographic Specialist at the Naval Air Station, Glenview, Illinois. While in the Navy, Wood produced patentable material for a photo-litho process for instant printing techniques through photosynthesis. After being discharged from the Navy, Wood worked for an art studio that serviced advertising agencies. This work involved reproduction art, direct mailing services, mail order books, and newspaper art for Marshall Field's. From 1958 to 1960, Wood established the A. Bernie Wood Studio in Chicago to provide finished photographic art for leading advertising and print publications and television.
In 1961, Wood founded Admart, Inc., Advertising. As the president and creative director of Admart, he created, promoted, and merchandised the new fast-food corporate image of McDonald's Carry-Out Restaurants. While working for McDonald's, Wood designed interior food service floor plans, a logotype, direct mailing materials, posters, newspaper mat campaigns, and radio taped productions (1963-1964). Wood obtained several patents--beverage cup holder (1964), candy box (1967), finger-grip food product containers (1967), and a refreshment tray-forming template (1964) and trademarks--"Chick'n-2-Go" (1968);"NEATRAE" (1967); and "Ma and Pa's Country Candy Store" (1966). Wood, and Donald Conley formed Neat Containers Associates to promote the use of "Neatrae" and license it.
In 1965, Wood founded a franchise business called Ma and Pa's Country Candy Stores in Arlington Heights, Illinois, which he owned and operated with his wife Marilyn until 1972. They also owned another unit in Long Grove, Illinois. As the director and co-founder of this franchise, Wood was responsible for creating names, trademarks, copyrights, and image materials. He sold franchise rights to others, and there were other Ma and Pa's Country Candy Stores located in the United States, especially in St. Louis. He also designed store interiors and exteriors for other clients and supervised construction. From 1964 to 1965, Wood was a freelance designer and consultant on design, marketing, and franchising issues for restaurants and drive-ins. Other corporate images designed by Wood include: Prince Castle, Neba Roast Beef, and Friar Fish's Fish and Chips. Wood expressed his goal to design an image/logo as one "that would be recognized and one that would relate to products, packaging, properties, people, procedures and promotion. Put together, these elements communicated and coordinated the corporate image."
Wood also developed the concept Dial "All Wood," the use of a memorable association of letters rather than phone numbers (255-9663) and requesting specific phone numbers from the local Illinois Bell Telephone.
Wood married Marilyn Dewar (1923-1981) on May 27, 1942, in Kansas City, Missouri. They had five children: Ronald W.; Rhonda C.; Randall S.; Rayne Ann; and Rodger L.
Wood died on April 5, 1986.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Rayne Ann Wood, daughter of A. Bernie Wood, on February 25, 2007.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning intellectual property rights. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The collection documents the work of Dolores Valdes-Zacky and her advertising firm Valdes-Zacky Associates, who specialize in the Hispanic consumer market.
Scope and Contents:
The collection includes guidebooks on marketing to Hispanics; business records; letters and emails; photographs; an award; case studies; ad campaign proposals; story boards; press releases; print advertisements for the agency and for its clients, as well as for products; a DVD of commercials; newsletters; magazine and newspaper articles. Some items in the collection relate to Valdes Zacky's work with the J. Walter Thompson firm.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1: Background Materials, 1955-1999
Series 2: Advertising and Marketing Materials, 1989-1999
Biographical / Historical:
Dolores Valdes-Zacky started her career in advertising with the J. Walter Thompson agency. She left to start her own firm, Valdes-Zacky Associates in 1987, specializing in tapping the Hispanic consumer market. Some of the agency's clients have been Mitsubishi Motors, Adolph Coors Company, Arrowhead Puritas Waters, Vons Grocery, and the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Dolores Valdes Zacky, 2016.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
The project files include booklets: "Elements of Design" (1953-54); "Appearance Design" (1954); packaging and label designs and prototypes, photographs of drawing machinery, clippings, and misc. designs and printed advertisements for shoes, antennas, and candies.,This collection documents Hombordy's work as a graphics designer in the late 1940s and 1950s while employed at A.W. Lewin, General Electric, and Houbigant, Inc.
Arrangement:
Unprocessed; The archive material consists of labels, booklets, drawings, photographs and printed materials related to Hanna Lore Hombordy's work while employed at A.W. Lewin advertising agency, General Electric and Houbigant, Inc. in the 1940s-1950s.
Recent work has been included in twenty national juried shows and in 1987 she received the Monarch Best Tile Award. In California, she won an Award of Merit at the State Fair. Locally, she has received numerous awards, among them 1st place in the Thousand Oaks City Competition, the Oxnard Art Association Competition, the Ventura Assembly of the Arts and the Ventura County Fair. She has had fourteen solo exhibits in the southern California area. Hombordy works at her studio home in Ventura, Calif. She creates clay and sculpture and vessels as well as decorative custom tiles and house numbers. She does research and experimental work in clay and uncommon fine art materials such as expanded polystyrene foam. Discoveries in airbrushing on clay are documented in the December 1991 issue of Ceramics Monthly. An article on her work has been published in Ceramic Review, the British ceramics magazine. Recent publications include: Pottery Making Illustrated (Spring 1999) and Clay Times (November 2000 and 2001).
Related Archival Materials:
Works by Hombordy are in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art collection in Logan, Utah; Moorpark College, UCSD, Santa Paula Savings and Loan, and Monarch Tile Co., in Texas.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Hanna Lore Hombordy in 1993.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
Thompson, J. Walter (advertising agency). Search this
Extent:
3 Cubic feet (8 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Immigration records
Music
Contracts
Correspondence
Compact discs
Scrapbooks
Sheet music
Parts (musical)
Songbooks
Photographs
Commercial art
Date:
1919-1957
2009
Summary:
This collection documents the life and career of Peruvian musician, composer, and translator Clotilde Arias. Her work includes a Department of State-commissioned translation of "The Star-Spangled Banner" titled "El Pendón Estrellado", advertising jingles, original compositions, and translations of music originally written in English. She also was heavily involved in numerous Pan-American organizations including La Unión de Mujeres Americanas/United American Women.This collection contains correspondence, music manuscripts, photographs,newspaper clippings and printed materials, and four compact discs.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the life and career of Clotilde Arias, who was chosen by the U.S. State Department to write a Spanish translation to "The Star Spangled Banner," during the years of the Good Neighbor Policy. In addition to materials related to her translation of the National Anthem, entitled "El Pendón Estrellado," the collection includes music manuscripts, lyrics, composition notebooks, parts for instruments, and correspondence with the State Department. This collection also contains papers related to Arias's work in advertising, her work as a translator, and her own business records. Personal papers include correspondence, immigration and naturalization documents, printed material, and photographs as well as items from a scrapbook. Also included are compact discs containing images from items in the collection.
Arrangement:
This collection is composed of six series.
Series 1: Personal Papers, 1923-1956
Series 2. Music Materials, 1921-1953
Series 3. "El Pendón Estrellado"/"The Star Spangled Banner," 1919-1954, 2009
Series 5. Miscellaneous Printed Materials, 1942-1956
Series 6. Photographs and Scrapbook, 1939-1957
Biographical / Historical:
Clotilde Arias was a Peruvian-born musician, composer, and translator who lived in New York City following her migration from Iquitos, Peru, to the United States in the 1920s. Her full name was Maria Clotilde Arias and she briefly took her husband Jose Anduaga's last name during their marriage from 1929 to 1942 but was known most often as Clotilde Arias. With Jose Anduaga, Arias had one son, Roger Arias. While she is known for her Department of State-commissioned translation of "The Star-Spangled Banner" titled "El Pendón Estrellado," Arias worked diligently as a translator and musician in a variety of contexts as well as working with a variety of organizations that promoted Pan-Americanism. Prior to her life in the United States, Arias worked for the Iquitos newspaper El Oriente writing satirical pieces related to local issues. Arias died in 1959 in New York City.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, by Clotilde Arias's son, Roger Arias in 2010.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Materials relating to Henry J. Kaufman, including photographs and ID cards; and the records of the Kaufman firm, including six scrapbooks, one for each decade; company newsletters, photographs, and other papers detailing the business history of the company as well as its social and other internal activities.
Scope and Contents note:
This collection consists of various business papers, personal papers, and advertising samples of Henry Kaufman and the Washington, D.C. advertising firm Henry J. Kaufman and Associates. The bulk of the collection consists of seven scrapbooks from the 1930s-1970s that detail the company's social and internal activities as well as business history. Researchers will find this collection particularly valuable for its insight into office culture and the ways in which it changes throughout the decades.
Series 1, Business Papers, 1930s-1980s, contains various business papers, photographs, and advertising samples relating to Henry J. Kaufman and Associates.
Subseries 1.1, Scrapbooks, 1930s-1970s, contains seven scrapbooks put together by Henry J. Kaufman and Associates. The scrapbooks contain press coverage of the firm, newspaper clippings relating to members of the company, information regarding clients and campaigns, photographs of company events, and examples of office humor and culture. Five of the scrapbooks are divided by decade, beginning with the 1930s and ending with the 1970s, but two of the books cover date ranges longer than one decade. The scrapbook contained in Box 5 is dedicated mainly to Kaufman's tenure as president of the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington, Incorporated. Several of the scrapbook pages have been disassembled, but there are numbered and photocopied pages to maintain the provenance of the collection. The folders labeled "Material" contain the material originally located on the disassembled scrapbook pages.
Subseries 1.2, Newsletters, 1933, circa 1958, 1968-75, 1978, contains editions of the company newsletter The Kaufman Report, an earlier newsletter entitled Corner Stone, and a direct mail piece.
Subseries 1.3, Advertising Campaigns, circa 1962-1990s, undated, contains an assortment of advertisements sponsored by Henry J. Kaufman and Associates. Highlights are the Porsche Corporation, The Wall Street Journal, and a portfolio of advertising samples from 1977-1979.
Subseries 1.4, Other Materials, 1951-1984, undated, contains a variety of business papers, correspondence, photographs, personnel lists, and press coverage related to the agency. Henry J. Kaufman and Associates relocated to the Canal Street Building in 1963, and a number of the documents and photographs in this subseries are related to the move.
Series 2, Kaufman's Personal Papers, 1950s-1990s, undated, contains information pertaining more to Henry J. Kaufman than to the company. The most substantive parts of the series are photographs of Kaufman and tributes relating to his birthdays and death.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1, Business Papers, 1930s-1980s
Series 2, Kaufman's Personal Papers, 1950s-1990s, undated
Biographical/Historical note:
Henry J. Kaufman (1906-1997) founded his Washington, D.C. based advertising agency in 1929, only months before the stock market crash. Business in some companies was quite poor after the collapse, and many desperate executives were willing to risk money on advertising. The agency Henry J. Kaufman and Associates profited from the risk and grew rapidly, adding public relations and other services and eventually became the largest advertising firm in the Washington, D.C. area. The company had both local and national clients and campaigns, including the Porsche Corporation and the Society of American Florists. In addition to its print media, the agency was especially successful in the field of radio advertising, sponsoring an award in commercial radio announcing as well as regularly winning awards of its own. Kaufman was a member of the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington, Incorporated (known as the Ad Club) and served as president in the 1940s. He was considered the founder and "dean" of Washington, D.C. advertising and headed Henry J. Kaufman and Associates for fifty years until he sold it in the late 1970s. He stayed active in consulting work and acted as a mentor to others in the advertising field until his death in 1997. Kaufman and his wife Irma were married sixty-six years.
Related Materials:
Mateials in the Archives Center
NW Ayer Advertising Agency Records (NMAH.AC.0059)
Caroline R. Jones Collection (NMAH.AC.0552)
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives Center in June 2003 by Mr. Kaufman's nephew, Kenneth J. Luchs.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
Printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials primarily documenting the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of the Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated. Collection also documents the professional and private lives of the Hills family; insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee; and construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials. These materials primarily document the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated. Correspondence, genealogies, and home movies reveal a more domestic and social Hills family while company records document business activities outside of the home. Company records also provide insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee, and the company's technological responses to the changes in the coffee trade, and consumer consumption demands. Of interest is the company's participation in social and cultural events including the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. In addition, the collection includes the company's documentation of the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936. The collection is arranged into thirteen series.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into thirteen series.
Series 1, Hills Family Papers, 1856-1942, undated
Subseries 1.1, Austin Herbert Hills, Sr. Papers, 1856-1875, undated
Subseries 1.2, Austin Herbert Hills, Jr. Papers, 1875-1923
Subseries 1.3, Herbert Gray Hills Correspondence, 1923-1942
Series 2, Background Materials, 1896-1988, undated
Series 3, Coffee Reference Files, 1921-1980, undated
Subseries 3.1, Hills Bros. Coffee Company Literature, 1921-1976, undated
Subseries 3.2, Coffee Industry Literature, 1924-1980, undated
Series 4, Advertising Materials, circa 1890s-1987, undated
Reuben Hills, on one occasion, stated regarding his company's growth; ...success in business is fifty per cent judgment and fifty per cent propitious circumstances." The rise of Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated from a retail dairy stall in San Francisco's old Bay City Public Market reflects the reality of Reuben's statement. Aided by brother Austin's three years of experience in the retail dairy business the early success of the brothers was in Reuben's own words both circumstance and hard work. When Reuben and Austin began to produce roasted coffee there were at least twenty-five other companies already engaged in some form of coffee production and distribution in San Francisco including, of course, the well-known Folger Company started by William Bovee (which began in San Francisco thirty years earlier). Most of these coffee businesses were started by family groups which contributed to the growth of San Francisco.
San Francisco in the nineteenth century was ripe for the importing and roasting of coffee. The foundation for commercial production of coffee dated back to the 1820s when English planters brought coffee to Costa Rica. By the early 1840s German and Belgian planters followed with coffee plantations in Guatemala and El Salvador, two of the several Central American countries where Hills Bros. would obtain its mild coffee beans. During the Gold Rush (1849) San Francisco rapidly expanded and grew. Coffee was imported and sold, after roasting, to restaurants and hotels. Yankee gold miners and others without equipment to roast and brew their own coffee, populated "coffee houses." In 1873 two brothers, Austin Herbert and Reuben Wilmarth Hills arrived in San Francisco from their home in Rockland, Maine with their father Austin who had come to California some years earlier. Five years later in 1878 A. H. and R. W. Hills established a retail stall to sell dairy products in the Bay City Market under the name of their new partnership "Hills Bros." Their small business expanded in less than four years with the acquisition of a retail coffee store titled Arabian Coffee & Spice Mills on Fourth Street in San Francisco. In two more years (1884) still larger quarters were occupied at Sacramento and Sansome Streets. Soon after this they disposed of their retail dairy business but continued as wholesale distributors of some dairy products including butter. Their coffee was labeled "Arabian Roast"' supported by the now famous trademark design of a man in turban and beard with a flowing yellow gown. This was created by a San Francisco artist named Briggs and since then (1897) has remained as the official trademark of Hills Bros. Coffee - a lasting symbol of coffee quality. Hills Bros. dairy division was eliminated in 1908 after company destruction by the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. By 1924 all miscellaneous products including tea, had been dropped by the company which from then on referred to itself as "coffee only."
Emphasis on the quality of the finished product has long been a major selling point in the history of Hills Bros. advertising and marketing. The company's desire to keep abreast of technological advances in coffee production is a legacy of Austin and Reuben Hills, and is reflected in the company records, in its advertising and its self-perception. It was probably 1898 when Austin Hills and Thomas Hodge, partners who managed the wholesale dairy product operations were looking for a suitable can for exporting butter that could not be manufactured in San Francisco at that time, decided to consult Norton Brothers, a progressive can manufacture company in Chicago. Whether Austin traveled to Chicago or arranged with his brother Reuben to stop off there in route to New York (where he frequently spent time at the New York Green Coffee Exchange) to present the problem to Norton Brothers, which brother made the actual contact with Norton Brothers is not important today, but the results of that visit were real. Norton Brothers had just received patents on a process for packing foods in vacuum and thought it might solve the butter problem. In short order arrangements were made for shipping cans and machinery from Chicago to San Francisco including agreement for exclusive use on the West Coast for a reasonable period. Thus, Hills Bros. butter became the first known food product to ever be packed in vacuum. Once this started Reuben Hills had the idea that what worked well with butter might also be used for coffee. Experimental vacuum-packing of coffee in butter cans supported the theory that taking the air out of coffee would keep the product fresh for indefinite periods. No time was lost in getting new cans and more machinery and in July 1900 Hills Bros. Coffee as "the original vacuum-pack" was placed on the market. With the advent of this technology Hills Bros. changed the product name from "Arabian Roast" to "Hills Bros. Highest Grade Java and Mocha Coffee" and continued with the new trademark that had been started in 1897. Vacuum-packing extended the shelf life and travel ability of the product, thus new markets, national and international, were opened.
A change in the coffee industry of America was on the way. Hills Bros. remained the pioneer of vacuum-packing for thirteen years until a similar process was adopted by M.J.B., another leading coffee company in San Francisco. Other packers on the West Coast soon followed, but it was not until after World War I that East Coast coffee producers turned to vacuum-packaging.
Production and advertising of coffee continued to change with new technology. In the late 1880s San Francisco coffee importers began to "cup test" coffee beans for quality but the majority still depended on sight and smell. Reuben Hills and a few other coffee personalities in San Francisco are credited with the cup test method of appraising coffee quality. In its new home office and plant opened in San Francisco in 1926, Hills Bros. adopted "controlled roasting" in which coffee was roasted a few pounds at a time, but continuously. Developed in 1923 under the direction of Leslie Hills and Lee Maede, company engineer, "controlled roasting" employed the use of instruments to control the temperature and speed of operations, resulting in perfect roasting control that could not be depended on from batch to batch by even the most experienced coffee roasting expert. In 1914 the partnership known as Hills Bros. was incorporated under the same name. In 1928 a sales organization was formed under the name of Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated, but within four to five years the parent company absorbed Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated and adopted its name. A second plant was built in Edgewater, New Jersey, completed in 1941 to meet the needs of the increasing growth of areas between Chicago and the East Coast.
During World War II Hills Bros. faced conservation rules restricting use of tin for coffee cans. A timely method of high-speed packing in glass jars by Owens Illinois Glass Company made it possible for Hills Bros. as well as other companies in the industry to continue vacuum-packing during this period. Price control and coffee rationing were other war time necessities to which the industry adjusted.
Princeton University Posters Collection, NMAH.AC0433
Landor Design Collection, NMAH.AC0500
Industry on Parade Film Collection, NMAH.AC0507
Sandra and Gary Baden Collection of Celebrity Endorsements in Advertising, NMAH.AC0611
Fletcher and Horace Henderson Collection, NMAH.AC0797
Division of Cultural History Lantern Slides and Stereographs, NMAH.AC0945
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Records, NMAH.AC1086
Alice Weber Photograph Albums, NMAH.AC1144
Henry "Buddy" Graf and George Cahill Vaudeville and Burlesque Collections, NMAH.AC1484
Division of Cultural History, National Museum of American History
Artifacts include coffee packaging, Golden Gate International Exposition sampling cups and saucers, a bowling shirt, and coffee cans.
Provenance:
These records were donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History by Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but the negatives and audiovisual materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
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.
The Hector and Norma Orcà Advertising Agency Records document the history, educational, and creative output produced by Hector and Norma Orcà throughout their extensive career in advertising. The OrcÃs founded their own independent agency in 1986 in Los Angeles. The Orcà Advertising Agency successfully introduced various products to Latinos in the United States and developed a reputation as one of the top advertising agencies to understand the US Latino market. The collection showcases the agency's history and awards, advertising and marketing campaigns, and its role in educating advertising agencies on the importance of the US Latino market.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the Orcà Advertising Agency and its work in helping clients market their products to U.S. Latinos, its marketing methods and creative philosophy, and its role in educating other advertising companies about the Latino consumer market in the United States. The collection includes the founding and history of the agency, business records, awards and press clippings, training materials for staff, reports on the US Latino market for various products, training and curriculum materials for a UCLA Extension course on advertising in the US Latino market, account reports, conference materials, slides and photographs, and campaigns and advertising materials developed for clients such as Allstate, Honda, and Pepsi. Video footage of Spanish-language commercials developed by the Orcà Advertising Agency is also part of the collection.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into five series.
Series 1: Background Materials, 1979-2010, undated
Series 2: Advertising and Marketing Materials, 1986-2003, undated
Series 3: Teaching Materials, 1985-2012, undated
Series 4: Conference Materials, 1984-1999, undated
Series 5: Audiovisual Materials, 1986-2016
Biographical / Historical:
Once employees of La AgencÃa de McCann-Erickson advertising company, Hector and Norma Orcà founded their own independent agency in 1986. The Orcà Advertising Agency, also known as La AgencÃa de Orcà & Asociados, is based in Los Angeles. Since its inception, the Orcà Advertising Agency has devoted itself to US Latino marketing and teaching other advertising agencies how to effectively advertise and sell products to US Latinos. The OrcÃs quickly developed an impressive roster of successful campaigns for major clients and continue to be a well-respected agency in the advertising sector.
Separated Materials:
The Division of Work and Industry holds the following artifacts related to this collection:
Virgin of Guadalupe Painting, Accession #: 2015.0306.01
INS Eagle Painting, Accession #: 2015.0306.02
Don Quixote Figurine, Accession #: 2015.0306.03
Provenance:
Collection donated by Hector and Norma OrcÃ, 2016.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
