An extensive collection of magazine advertisements featuring celebrities from entertainment, sports, royalty, and the arts.
Scope and Contents:
A wide-ranging collection of over 1,000 celebrity advertising endorsements, ca. 1897-1979. The endorsements were culled by a collector/hobbyist from high-end magazines publications such as Fortune, McCalls, Playbill and Vogue. They feature a wide range of celebrities from the fields of performing arts, sports, business, politics and "society." The products endorsed vary greatly with heavy concentrations of cigarettes, beauty products and electronic equipment predominating. The bulk of the collection covers the 1920s-1970s with an especially high concentration of material from the 1930s-1940s. The majority are in color.
Advertisements are filed according to the profession or background of the endorser Thereunder, ads are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the endorser. Where more than one endorser is featured, the advertisement is filed under the last name of the endorser most prominently featured in the advertisement. If they are all of equal status within the advertisement, the advertisement is filed under the last name appearing earliest in the alphabet.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into five series.
Series 1: Performing Arts
Series 2: Business/Politics
Series 3: Sports
Series 4: Society, fashio, Royalty
Series 5: Writers, Musicians, Artists, Singers
Biographical / Historical:
The use of celebrities for promoting a product is an advertising device that has been used with increasing frequency since the latter part of the 19th century. Personalities from all walks of life, society, sports, and entertainment have regularly lent their image for product endorsement. These products have ranged from alcohol to moth crystals to cigarettes and a variety of other products. The trend continues to grow and refine itself expanding from the realm of print media into television, radio, motion pictures, and the internet.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History by Gary and Sandra Baden, of Chevy Chase, D.C., in 1997.
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 collection includes thirty-eight punchboards, all unpunched and in very good to excellent condition, and featuring a range of products and imagery. The collection also includes two punchboard manufacturers' catalogs from the 1940s, which detail the money-making opportunities for jobbers and retailers.
The collection also contains correspondence, employment forms, promotional literature, photographs and sales training literature from Evan "Ding" Rangeloff=s early career as a sales representative and regional sales manager for Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. Of particular interest are sales training manuals which explore the psychology of selling in the 1950s, manuals which detail sales cigarette marketing strategies at military bases and on Indian reservations, and materials relating to Liggett & Myers sponsorship of Formula One car racing in the 1970s.
Arrangement:
Series 1: Business Records, circa 1954-1991
Series 2: Photographs, circa 1920-1970
Series 3: Sales Training Literature, circa 1955-1957, 1974, 1979
Series 4: Punchboards, circa 1910-1970
Historical:
During and after his employment as a salesman and regional sales manager with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in Duluth, Minnesota, Mr. Rangeloff began collecting the gambling and sales promotion devices known as punchboards. In 1999-2000, he donated a large and representative selection of punchboards to the Archives Center. The term "punchboard" (or in some cases "punch board," "push board," "punchcard," or "pushcard") refers to a gambling device popular in the United States from roughly 1910 until 1970. Punchboards could be used for fundraising, sales promotion and gambling--sometimes all at once. Punchboards were typically found in places where men gathered socially, such as bars, pool halls, barber shops, and men's clubs. Punchboards also could be found in beauty parlors, drug stores, and other small retail establishments. With their promise of easy money, punchboards enjoyed great success during the Depression, and continued to enjoy popularity during and after World War II. According to Scarne's Complete Guide to Gambling (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1961), approximately 30 million punchboards were sold between 1910 and 1915. Scarne estimated that 50 million punchboards were sold in 1939 alone, at the peak of their popularity. Punchboard sales declined significantly after WWII, and by the mid-1970s the boards had been outlawed in most states.
Punchboards trace their lineage to 18th century lottery game boards. These handmade boards, with the winning ticket placed by the operator, offered no safeguards against corruption, however, and their misuse may have contributed to the game=s waning popularity. In 1905, C.A. Brewer and C.G. Scannell patented a new version of the traditional game. By 1910, modern manufacturing techniques, including the invention of board stuffing machines and ticket folding machines, contributed to the reinvigoration of the punchboard. The new punchboards were constructed out of cardboard, with a sheet of paper or foil covering both front and back of the board. This covering was intended to prevent the operator from discovering where the winning tickets were or otherwise tampering with the board. Cheap, portable, disposable, and offering a ready vehicle for advertising, punchboards are an exuberant, if ephemeral, expression of 20th century mass culture.
A modern punchboard typically consists of a square or rectangular piece of pressed wood or cardboard (from 2 inch to one inch in thickness) in which hundreds or thousands of holes have been drilled in a regular pattern, then loaded with tiny slips of rolled or folded paper. Each slip of paper had a number or symbol printed on it. Both front and back of the board were covered with a foil or paper seal. The front of the board typically featured some form of attention-getting commercial imagery and a chart listing the winning number or combination of numbers and symbols, along with the prizes or cash amounts to be awarded to the winners. The boards were sold with a metal stylus or "punch" for the players to use.
A player paid the punchboard's operator a set amount of money (typically a nickel, dime, or quarter) for a chance to use a metal stylus to break the seal on the hole of his choice, and punch one of the slips of paper out of the board. If the number or symbols found on the slip of paper matched one of the pre determined winning combinations, the player was awarded the corresponding prize.
Punchboard manufacturers sold the boards blank or preprinted. Blank boards were sold to "jobbers" or salesmen who then added their own imagery or advertisement, and many surviving punchboards feature advertisements for products that were inexpensive and had mass appeal, such as peanuts, candy and cigarettes. Some of these boards offered the advertised product as the prize; these came to be known as prizeboards. Some prizeboards were constructed with a shadow box meant to contain prizes such as rhinestone sunglasses, wristwatches, Bowie knives, or even handguns. Punchboard manufacturers also sold the board pre-printed with various kinds of commercial imagery--sports, gambling, and patriotic imagery were well-represented, as were folk figures, racial and ethnic stereotypes, and the ubiquitous pin-up girls. Most of these boards were played for cash.
Provenance:
Gift of Evan Rangeloff, October 1999.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
Advertising materials relating to pharmaceutical and other supplies as part of the stock of retail pharmacies from 1920 to the early 1960s, mostly advertisements for cigars, cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Kodak, veterinary supplies, and patent medicines.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists primarily of advertising materials related to pharmaceutical and other supplies part of the stock of retail pharmacies during the period from the 1920s to the 1960s. Much of it was in the store when the Levitts purchased the Sherman Pharmacy.
The majority is advertisements for such items as cigars, cigarettes, Coca Cola, Kodak products, veterinary supplies, and patent medicines. There are a few photographs of local (Sherman) interest and a few booklets and pamphlets, including a high school yearbook.
The material is in excellent condition. It has been left in the boxes and folders in which it was received from the Division of Medical Sciences.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into two series.
Series 1: Organizational Files, 1922-1995
Subseries 1.1: Administration, 1923-1994
Subseries 1.2: Affiliates and Offices, 1922-1964
Series 2: Subject Files, 1851-1990
Biographical / Historical:
Alan Levitt, who owned and operated a pharmacy in Sherman (Chautauqua County), New York, and his wife Elaine, gave to the National Museum of American History a number of pharmaceutically related objects and a collection of archival graphic materials, primarily advertising in nature. The pharmacy from which the materials came was known as Sherman Pharmacy and was located at 105 West Main Street, Sherman, New York. It was opened by James Tuft on May 9, 1895. The Levitts' decision to sell and leave Sherman was made in 1983 after about ten years of operating the store. The correspondence with respect to making the gift to the Smithsonian indicates the move was related to a desire to be part of the Jewish culture in a larger community than Sherman, which has no synagogue, for example. The Levitts had one small child and a second was on the way. By early January 1986, the Levitts had sold the pharmacy and bought a house at 2551 East 26th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11235. Mr. Levitt was employed as a pharmacist in a state institution in Manhattan.
Provenance:
The materials were given by Alan and Elaine Levitt, September 1984.
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.
