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

Radio and Television Pathfinder

The Role of Advertising in the Early Development
of Radio and Television


As one of the largest advertising history collections in the world, the Hartman Center has built a reputation for its resources documenting advertising, sales and marketing. The Center maintains the records of several advertising agencies and trade organizations, the professional papers of various marketing executives, collections of advertising ephemera created by private collectors, and a growing library of related books and periodicals. Information about the development of advertising on, and related to, radio and television is contained throughout many of our collections and identified in the following guide. For more information, many of the Hartman Center finding aids are searchable on the web at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/inv/.


J. Walter Thompson Company Archives.

An early innovator in radio and television advertising, the J. Walter Thompson Company quickly developed a leading edge in program production in both media. The company launched its Radio Department in 1927, then re-organized it as the Radio-Television- Film Department in 1955, with a focus on the emerging television market. JWT claimed credit for producing the first commercial TV program in 1930, and was the first agency to develop and maintain an in-house television workshop for pre-testing ideas, effects, and scripts; screen-testing new talent; and previewing commercials and programs for client approval. (For further information about the agency, refer to the Hartman Center's J. Walter Thompson Company History Web page.)

The following JWT collections are particularly rich in materials on the early development of radio and television:

J. Walter Thompson Company. Account Files Collection, 1887-1987 and undated, bulk 1920-1979
This collection documents the J. Walter Thomson Company's management of many major and minor client accounts, including deliberations about media selection, markets, and target audience for individual advertising campaigns. The Chesebrough-Pond's account file, in particular, provides a case study of how a traditional mass-market advertising portfolio was retooled in the early 1950s for the new medium of television. The file includes a snapshot of the television programming landscape during this formative period. Note these folders in Box 4, under the heading "Reports": A Study of Pond's Television Advertising, 1953; Media Recommendations, 1956-1957; and A Study of Pond's Advertising, 1956.

The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) account history (Box 16) contains a very early (circa 1948) case report on the marketing of--and market for--RCA Victor television sets. The file conveys the agency's perspective on the development of television as a public medium in the years immediately following World War II. Between 1946 and 1948, as television broadcast coverage expanded from five stations in three markets to 48 stations in 29 markets, the sale of television sets changed from a regional to a national marketing challenge.


J. Walter Thompson Company. Advertising Vertical File, 1950-1994
The Advertising Vertical File was created and maintained as an internal reference file by the Information Center in JWT's New York Office and contains subject files (primarily news clippings, articles, and pamphlets) on a wide range of advertising topics. Of particular interest are the files marked "Advertising--Expenditures--by Media--Radio and TV" (Boxes 14 and 15). In some of the early files, expenditures are broken down by mode of advertising (e.g., network programming versus 'spot' commercials), brand, product class, type of activity, and time of day.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Broadcast Business Affairs Records. Box 1 of this collection contains "Programs & Sponsors, 1934-1959, consisting of two series of large index cards arranged alphabetically by program title and by name of program sponsor. Program cards list a program's title, sponsor, broadcast, network or production company through which the sponsor's time was contracted, contract terms, broadcast network, time slot, program package price, and date of contract. Some also note contract transfers to other agencies, contract termination dates, markets in which the program was broadcast, dates on which the show was pre-empted, and option terms. Cards for Soaps (Soap Operas) and Sports are organized separately. Sponsor cards list program titles, names of talent contracted, broadcast medium, details of talent's representation (agents), dates of broadcast, type of service rendered, compensation, and contract date.

The second box, "Talent, Music & Contract Cards, 1936-1962 contains a detailed card series describing the terms of the agency's contracts with individual performers, a second series documenting musical works for which JWT purchased performance rights, and a complete contract card index to individual paragraphs of the terms of talent and music contracts. The paragraphs are in numerical order, followed by clauses, amendments, extensions, and cancellation letters. Contract terms requested by individual artists but denied by JWT are also recorded on individual cards. The last series in the box lists artists' agents, including the names of agency principals, the artists they represent, and the names of the JWT clients to whom the artists are contracted. Additional information and contracts may be found in the JWT Microfilm Collection.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Carroll Carroll Papers, 1937-1946, 1953-1956
During radio's golden age, Carroll Carroll was involved with all of JWT's comedy and variety shows. He joined JWT's Broadcasting Department in 1932 and immediately went on the road with the Burns & Allen-Guy Lombardo radio show. He is most identified with "Kraft Music Hall," the top-rated show he created and wrote in 1934 and remained in charge of until 1946. Carroll became a consultant to the Office of War Information in 1942, and was on the Writers' War Board. He also worked on the Chase & Sanborn Hour, Rudy Vallee Hour, and Shell Chateau with such stars as Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Joe Penner, Al Jolson, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

Other JWT collections containing information on or materials by Carroll Carroll:
Howard Henderson Papers. Correspondence Series, 1914-1978.
Colin Dawkins Papers. Officers and Staff Series, 1873-1986 (bulk 1920s-1979).
Biographical Information. Main Files Series, 1916-1998 (bulk 1960s-1980s).
Broadcast Business Affairs Records (U. S. Offices. New York Office. Broadcasting Department).


J. Walter Thompson Company. John F. Devine Papers, 1952-1974 and undated, bulk 1956-1970
John 'Jack' Devine managed JWT's Radio/Television Department from 1954 to 1960, and was also responsible for the development of television programs for specific clients, including Eastman Kodak Company ("The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," "Screen Directors Playhouse," and "The Ed Sullivan Show"), Ford Motor Company ("Ford Theatre," "The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show," and "Suspicion"), Kraft Foods Company ("Kraft Television Theatre"), Lever Brothers Company ("The Lux Show Starring Rosemary Clooney" and "Lux Video Theatre"), and others. In addition to his employment at JWT, Devine was an advertising industry representative to negotiations between television networks and organized labor groups during the period from 1956 to 1960.

Correspondence, memoranda, and research reports in this collection provide exceptional insight into media advertising operations during the period of transition from radio to television as the dominant medium for product-sponsored advertising and programming. The Radio/Television Department Series, in particular, contains materials on such topics as the critical role of emerging audience research and ratings services in this new advertising environment; the inception and growth of organized labor groups within broadcasting and JWT's necessary involvement with these; the development of specialized departments within JWT to deal with the expanding needs of clients; the co-ordination of the company's far-flung production enterprises (in New York, Hollywood, Chicago, and Detroit); the emergence and evolving roles of regional and national networks; the development of codes of practice and broadcasting standards in the wake of the quiz show scandals of the 1950s; the development and operation of the JWT Television Workshop; and the continual pressure to adopt new technologies such as "colorcasting" and video tape in order to retain clients and compete for new accounts. Materials relating to specific clients and programming are primarily concentrated in the Client Subseries of the Radio/Television Department Series.

For other materials on Devine, see:
JWT. Sidney Ralph Bernstein Company History Files. Oral Interview Transcripts Series.( 1964 Sept.)
JWT. Colin Dawkins papers - Interview, Aug. 1979


J. Walter Thompson Company. Maury Holland Papers, 1948-1959
Former vaudevillian and Broadway and film actor Maury (C. Maurice) Holland joined the JWT New York Office's Radio-Television Department in 1936 to direct radio shows for the agency. Among other programs, Holland directed "Kraft Television Theatre," a live anthology drama series on NBC, from 1948 to the show's cancellation in 1958, but he was also responsible for script review and casting recommendations for a number of other shows (and their commercials), including "Bat Masterson," "The Jackie Gleason Show," "Naked City," and "The Price Is Right." His papers consist of correspondence with script writers (and would-be script writers), network representatives, actors, and the JWT Chicago office, as well as copies of reviewed scripts. 

J. Walter Thompson Company. Microfilm Collection, circa 1910s-1958.
The Microfilm Collection contains company records such as advertising proofs; administrative records including contracts; and, broadcast scripts and commercials for radio and television (1928-1958). Access points and the full inventory of the contracts are found in the Legal Microfilm booklets, located in the Reading Room. The booklets index radio contracts and other contracts for broadcasting (copyright releases, consents, production rights, sports) on microfilm. In some cases, related correspondence is included in a performer's contract file. For some shows, contracts are grouped by broadcast date.

The radio and television scripts are indexed in the “As Broadcast” Microfilm booklet, also located in the Reading Room. For assistance in locating specific scripts, please contact the Reference Archivist. Broadcast date and title of the show are necessary for locating any scripts in this collection.


J. Walter Thompson Company. Dan Seymour Papers, 1951-1974
In 1955 Dan Seymour was hired away from Young & Rubicam, where he had been head of radio-television programming and production, to re-organize JWT's broadcasting operations into a combined Radio-Television Department. As a whole, the collection documents television advertising history and the management of client accounts; the development of television shows and other aspects of television programming, including actor selection and audience profiles; and client account histories. The process of reorganization and overall administration of the Radio-Television Department is primarily documented in the Radio- Television Department Series (Office Files and Thompson Company Offices). Other materials in this series describe the planning and production of specific television programs; scripting, casting, and production decisions; the scheduling of client advertising; interactions among JWT's various production offices; and the company's business dealings with television networks. The Reports Subseries contains materials on the pre-testing of television commercials, radio and television program ratings services, and performer popularity analysis.

Considerable overlap in content exists between the Radio-Television Department Series and the Corporate Administration Series, especially concerning television advertising produced by the New York office. This overlap also reflects Seymour's increasing involvement, by the mid 1960s, in company-wide management, leading to his eventual election as the fourth president of JWT, succeeding Norman Strouse.

The Clients Series, 1951-1970, documents television programming and media strategies for major JWT clients, including Ford Motor Company, Kraft Foods, Eastman Kodak, Lever Brothers, Liggett & Myers, and Scott Paper Company. Correspondence and memoranda in individual television program files reveal the level of agency control over scripts, plots, characterization, and choice of actors, regardless if the show was developed by JWT or already established but taking on a JWT client as sponsor. Client files also document how ad expenditures were distributed among various media and advertising options per medium (e.g., network television versus spot television, print ads in popular magazines versus industry journals), and the basis for these advertising decisions.

Materials on radio programming in the collection are minimal but include, in the Clients Series, a folder on the "Arthur Godfrey Time" radio show for the Schlitz Brewing Company, and several presentations and speeches about radio advertising in the Office Files and Miscellaneous subseries of the Corporate Administration Series, 1955-1973.

For additional materials on Dan Seymour, see:
JWT. Sidney Ralph Bernstein Company History Files. Oral Interview Transcripts Series. ( Oct. 1963, Nov. 1964.)
JWT. Colin Dawkins Papers, Officers and Staff Series and Alphabetical Files Series
JWT. Frankfurt Office. Peter Gilow Papers, 1960-1978, Writings and Speeches Series.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Staff Meeting Minutes, 1927-1938
This collection consists of verbatim minutes of regular meetings of various JWT staff groups. Topics discussed at these meetings include account histories, new business prospects, market research, social trends, general business conditions, and advertising strategies for different media. Advertisements, photographs, articles, market research reports, and graphic materials used as background or reference materials in these meetings are also included.

The Account Representatives' Meetings and Creative Organization Meetings series are particularly rich in materials pertaining to radio advertising, with occasional references to the emerging television market. Account Representatives' Meetings usually featured a staff member's presentation on a specific account or the dealings of a specific agency department, or with business conditions in general, followed by discussion and other points of business. Creative Organization Meetings featured a lecture by a staff member on advertising practices and account histories. For a summary list of meetings and index of discussion topics and speakers, refer to the paper finding aid in the Reading Room.

Significant relevant presentations in the Account Representatives' Meetings (1927-1932) series include:

  • 11 July 1928 - A report on the latest developments in radio, including an overview of other agencies' activities in radio, discussion of JWT accounts already "on the air," and the technical aspects of transmitting programs by wire or short wave between cities.
  • 3 April 1929 - A presentation on the different varieties of radio ads and the effectiveness of different approaches.
  • 10 April 1929 - A talk on the value of radio as an advertising medium, with statistics on radio ownership, audience demographics, and audience survey results for Royal Baking Powder ads
  • 8 July 1930 - "Radio Plan Work," a primer on rethinking print copywriting strategies and practices for radio and a listening audience.
  • 12 August 1930 - "Showmanship in Radio"--a continuation of the July 8 talk, with introductory remarks about JWT's expectations for television as an emerging commercial broadcast medium.
  • 16 September 1930 - Reference to a Time magazine article on the first commercial television broadcast (a JWT production).
  • 13 January 1931 - The presentation "Media Aspects of Radio Advertising" paints a detailed picture of radio as an advertising terrain, and the Radio Department's strategies for navigating it, as well as how other networks are operating in the medium.
  • 14 April 1931 - Detailed description of how a radio program gets produced, and how Radio Department personnel knit advertising into both process and product.
  • 2 February 1932 - An overview of the radio advertising market: why clients are interested, how advertising is handled, what other agencies are doing and a critical assessment of their approaches.
In the Creative Organization Meetings (1932-1934) series, see:
  • 26 March 1932 - A talk on "showmanship" in radio advertising, the unique challenges of writing for a radio audience, and how to exploit radio as a medium for propaganda.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Writings and Speeches, 1912-2000.
The J. Walter Thompson Company Writings and Speeches collection spans 1912 through 2000 and includes primarily printed texts of speeches given by advertising executives employed at the J. Walter Thompson Company. Also included to a lesser extent are clippings or reprints of articles, reports, and white papers, along with some books written in whole or in part by JWT staff. Topics include general trends in advertising and marketing, specific themes related to JWT's policies and philosophies, year-end reports, specific marketing strategies.

Examples of relevant contents include: William L. Day, "What About Radio?" (1930s); Linnea Nelson "Why Radio Time Buying is Hell" (1944) and "How Should Television Be Sold?" (1949); Arthur A. Porter, "New Dimension of Radio" (1957); and Jack B. Landis, "Measuring the Effectiveness of Television Advertising" (1961).


Non-JWT Collections:

Jim Brown Papers, 1945-1962
Jim Brown was an advertising copy writer for the advertising firm Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne. This small collection contains several "total exploitation publicity-promotion plans" produced by the agency's Public Relations Department for television shows sponsored by BBDO clients, including "Du Pont Presents," "General Electric Theater," "Playhouse 90" (for Bristol Myers), and "Lassie" and "The Donna Reed Show" (for Campbell's Soup). The promotion plans, which date from 1955 to 1958, detail a range of strategies for targeting specific viewing audiences, establishing a strong identification between show and sponsor, and exploiting every aspect of a show that might be useful in product promotion, from the setting, storyline and characters to the real lives and celebrity of the actors portraying those characters. Included is a plan for promoting "Wonderful Town" (1958), the first television presentation of an entire Broadway musical with its original star.


D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) Archives, 1929-1989 (bulk 1950s-mid 1980s)
The DMB&B Archives includes material that documents aspects of three advertising agencies: D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, Benton & Bowles (B&B), and D’Arcy MacManus & Masius (D-MM). The Benton & Bowles (B&B) files in this collection are the only materials relevant to the early development of radio and television advertising. Founded in 1929, B&B entered the radio market in 1932 with the highly successful "Maxwell House Show Boat" program. The agency was one of the first to create and produce its own shows, with an early emphasis on daytime serial radio programs targeting female consumers, and from the beginning maintained a separate copy department for the preparation of radio commercials. By 1948 it had added television production to its New York and Hollywood operations, opened a production office in Toronto, and assembled a large staff of directors, producers, and writers to support television commercial and program production. In keeping with its "total programming" philosophy, B&B was the first agency to develop product testing for clients and, like the J. Walter Thompson Company, maintained its own Television Workshop.

The collection is strong on agency history, but contains little material on the creative or business processes behind B&B's accomplishments. The Officers and Staff Series contains presentations on television program production and the exploitation of color (Speeches Subseries) and other materials on media management, test marketing, and talent casting (Staff Resources Subseries). The Corporate Publications Series contains several histories of the agency produced as marketing materials from 1938 through the early 1960s, each describing B&B's radio and television strategies, production growth, and accomplishments to date. In the History Series, the Frank Smith Subseries includes William Benton's account of the early days of radio and B&B's foray into radio advertising. Also in this subseries, the shooting script "Television: An Autobiography" (May 3, 1963), located in the folder "Resource materials about 1958-1966, 1958-1968," is a creative summary of B&B's successes in television advertising and program production. The Gordon Webber Project, Our Kind of People Subseries contains additional documentation of the agency's first fifty years. The Clients Series, 1931-1985, includes materials on individual radio and television programs and other productions for such clients as General Foods, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, American Express, Philip-Morris, and S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.


Kensinger Jones Papers, 1934-2001 and undated
Jones had a dual career in advertising: as a scriptwriter and, later, an executive for several major agencies in Chicago and Detroit, and as a professor of advertising at Michigan State University. Much of his creative work in advertising was produced for the broadcast media, especially the early days of television advertising in the 1950s and 1960s. The Leo Burnett Company Subseries contains Jones' scripts for a 13-week series promoting the Democratic Party's agenda in the 1952 Presidential election and a series of commercials touting the Republican Party's farm policies in the 1956 campaign. Also of interest in this subseries is a meeting memorandum in which representatives of the creative and technical departments discuss the potential advertising benefits of introducing color broadcasting, along with its new requirements and the technical difficulties to be overcome.

Jones also lectured widely on advertising methods and strategies. The Speeches 1955-1974 Subseries includes such titles as "Television Commercials From Confusion to Conclusion" (1955), "Creation of Television's and Radio's Advertising Effectiveness" (1957), and "How to Create More Effective Radio Commercials" (1959).


Hartman Center collections containing radio and/or television scripts:

Margaret Fishback Papers, 1863-1978 (bulk 1920-1973)
Radio scripts. Fishback was an advertising copywriter for Macy's, Cecil & Presbrey, Warwick & Legler, Young & Rubicam, Doyle Dane Bernbach, and a number of freelance clients.

Kensinger Jones Papers, 1934-2001.
Advertising Agencies (Campbell-Ewald Company subseries) and Writings and Speeches (Other Writings, St. Louis, 1944-1951 subseries) - Radio and television scripts, late 1950s-early 1960s, and 1940s radio scripts for local St. Louis stations.

Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company Records, 1908-1980s
Scripts for radio and television commercials, 1949-1961.

O. Milton Gossett Papers, 1951-2004.
Administrative Files - Television scripts and storyboards, 1953-1969, produced for clients of Compton Advertising.

Lore Parker Papers, 1950-1979
Radio and television scripts. Parker was a copy writer for Doyle Dane Bernbach, the Robert W. Orr Agency, and Dowd Redfield & Johnstone from 1952 to 1959, and eventually rose to the position of vice president and creative management supervisor at Doyle Dane Bernbach.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Nan Findlow Papers, 1930-1995 (bulk 1959-1967)
Scripts and storyboards for television commercials, 1959-1979.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Lois Gaeta Papers, 1956-1961
Gaeta wrote radio and television commercial scripts.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Edgar Hatcher Papers, 1952-1992.
Clients - Hatcher was a copy writer and creative director for several major advertising agencies, including G.M. Basford Co.; Benton and Bowles; Ogilvy, Benson, and Mather; Kenyon and Eckhardt; Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (San Francisco); McCann-Erickson; and J. Walter Thompson Company.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Maury Holland Papers, 1948-1959
Holland reviewed and approved television program and commercial scripts on behalf of JWT clients.

J. Walter Thompson Company. Microfilm Collection, circa 1910s-1958
Scripts for radio and television shows and commercials. An in-house inventory and partial index of "As Broadcast" scripts of radio and television shows and commercials is available for items found on microfilm. Nearly complete coverage of some shows (e.g., "Lux Radio Theatre," 1934-1955; "Kraft Music Hall," 1933-1955).

J. Walter Thompson Company. Dan Seymour Papers, 1951-1974.
Radio-Television Department Series (Programming subseries), and Client Series - Television scripts, early 1950s-mid 1960s.

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