John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History

What is the Hartman Center?

The Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke's Special Collection Library acquires and preserves printed material and collections of textual and multimedia resources and makes them available to researchers around the world. Through these collections and related programming, the Center promotes understanding of the social, cultural, and historical impact of advertising, marketing, and sales.

Newly Available Collections

The Hartman Center announces new online finding aids for the following collections:

• Compton Advertising, Inc. Records, 1915-1956
• Gotham Inc. Records, 1967-1997
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Advertising Vertical Files, 1950-1994
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Roy Glah Papers, 1976-2002
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Iconographic Collection, 1848-2005
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Ronald B. Kaatz Papers, 1915-1996
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Legal Department Records, 1936-1979
• J. Walter Thompson Company. Frankfurt Office. Advertisements Collection, 1950-1991
• J. Walter Thompson Company. New York Office. Resor Library Records, 1822-1967
• Wells Rich Greene Inc. Records, 1954-1998

For a more complete list, see our Newly Available Collections page.

These and other Hartman Center finding aids can be found and searched from the Archival Finding Aids page.

Special Projects at the Hartman Center

Ad*Access
An image database of over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.

AdViews
A digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s through the 1980s, and created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles advertising agency.

Emergence of Advertising in America
A database of over 9,000 advertising items and publications (1850 - 1920), illustrating the rise of consumer culture, and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry.

Medicine and Madison Avenue
A database of over 600 health-related advertisements printed between 1911 and 1958, as well as 35 selected historical documents relating to health-related advertising.

ROAD: Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions
A database of over 50,000 descriptions of images of outdoor advertising dating from the 1920s through the 1990s, pulled from four outdoor advertising collections including the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA). No images are available from this website.

Advertising Age Encyclopedia of Advertising
Three-volume encyclopedia available for purchase through the Routledge website.

Exhibit

Mad Men

Following up on the popular exhibit Not Just Mad Men: Real Advertising Careers in the 1960s, there are now two videos related to this exhibit available on YouTube. A short video includes highlights of the Fall 2008 exhibit. The second video documents The Reality of 'Mad Men' event, a lively discussion with panelists Charlotte Beers, Wally O'Brien, and Doug Alligood on their experiences of 1960s Madison Avenue in comparison to the television show Mad Men on AMC.

Maxwell Did It! Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s–1950s highlights Atlantic City signs and scenes.

Center Wins Award

The Hartman Center is pleased to be a co-recipient of the 2007 Leab Award (Division Three) for the printed catalog produced in conjunction with the 2006 exhibit, Maxwell Did It!  Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s-1950s.  The award is granted by the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).