- Digitized collections and materials are available for use in research, teaching, and private study. You may reproduce materials without further permission from the Hartman Center for these educational purposes, provided that you cite "Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History. Rubenstein Library" for your work. Learn more about citations, permissions, and copyright.
- For other uses of these materials--such as in commercial products, or for broadcast or publication--permission and licensing must be secured from the copyright holder. Duke University does not own copyright for a vast majority of the advertisements featured in our digital collections. Please contact us with questions.
Ad*Access
Collection of over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of campaigns and companies. For more information on the Ad*Access digital collection consult the Research Guide to the collection. The guide provides historical context for the products, services, and other categories highlighted in the collection, search tips, pre-set searches, and an historical timeline.
AdViews
The AdViews digital collection consists of thousands of television commercials created or acquired by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles advertising agency from the 1950s through the 1980s for a diverse range of clients including General Foods, Proctor & Gamble, Pillsbury, Anheuser-Busch, Pan-American World Airways, Mattel, and Nestle.
Cosmetic Trade Samples and Sachets
Consists of 75 trade samples and sachets of cosmetics, powders, makeup, soaps and scented paraphernalia. Companies are primarily based in the United States, but Canadian and French perfumers are also represented, including Andrew Jergens, California Perfume (later Avon), Colgate, Frederick Ingram, Furst-McNess, Johnson & Johnson, Larkin, Lehn & Fink and Richard Hudnut. Poems and testimonials on packaging from Ethel Barrymore, Kate Greenway, Mrs. Leslie Carter and Modjeska.
Emergence of Advertising in America
Collection presents over 9,000 images relating to the early history of advertising and the development of the advertising industry in the United States. For more information on the Emergence of Advertising in America consult the collection's Research Guide. The guide provides historical context for the various formats that comprise the collection, brief historical essays, and an historical timeline.
J. Walter Thompson Co. Newsletters
Collection consists of the agency's internally produced, corporate-wide newsletters from 1916 through 1986. The newsletters address issues of importance to the entire company with articles on account news, client lists and biographies, and personnel news. Also contains articles on the results of both general and client-specific market research surveys, as well as general discussions of markets and industries; developments in print, radio, and television; and news from JWT's offices around the world.
J. Walter Thompson Co. Ford Motor Company Advertisements
This collection represents advertisements in multiple formats created by JWT for Ford Motor Company's lines of cars, trucks, and SUVs; Ford Farming tractors; Genuine Ford replacement parts; and dealerships and automotive services from 1945 through 2001. Noteworthy automobile launches include the redesigned 1941 Ford, Thunderbird, Mustang, Taurus, Explorer, Ranger, and Escort. The collection also includes many well-known campaigns such as "There's a Ford in Your Future," the Peanuts campaign for Falcon, "Built for Tough," and "Have you Driven a Ford Lately?."
J. Walter Thompson Co. Timeline
This website features an interactive timeline of JWT's 150-year history that highlights key personnel, long-standing client relationships, office openings, and technical achievements and innovations. The timeline also highlights the agency's achievements and innovations in print, radio and television advertising; advocacy of trademark and brand management; and demographic study and market research; and the agencies work for clients such as Kraft, Oscar Meyer, Ford Motor Co., United States Marine Corps, and Kodak. The timeline is divided into two parts. Part One traces the company's history from it's founding in 1864 through 1930. Picking up where the second leaves off, Part Two brings us up to the company in the 2000s.
Medicine and Madison Avenue
A digital collection of over 600 images from 1850 through 1920 illustrating print advertisements for a variety of health-related products including pain relievers, vitamin supplements and tonics, laxatives, nutritional and dietary aids, and skin ointments and creams. For more information on the Medicine and Madison Avenue digital project consult the collection's Research Guide. The guide contains tools to assist instructors' use of the collection in the class room including student exercises, case studies, a historical timeline and an extended bibliography.
Pan American World Airways Advertisements
The Pan American World Airways Advertisements digital collection consists primarily of print advertisements prepared by multiple advertising agencies from 1941 through 1991 on behalf of Pan Am for publication in American newspapers and magazines. There are a significant number of German and Spanish language advertisements that appeared in international publication as well. Notable campaigns include "around the world" air service, the "Clipper" concept, the debut of the Boeing 747, and the introduction of new passenger services such as in flight entertainment and dining. Materials in the collection were digitized in partnership with the University of Miami and HistoryMiami Museum as part of an aviation portal, Cleared for Takeoff: Explore Commercial Aviation, hosted by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The project was supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) with funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
ROAD 2.0
Resource for Outdoor Advertising Database 2.0 is a portal to more than 30,000 out of home advertisements from five unique source collections. See also the original ROAD metadata only database that contains descriptions of over 50,000 images of outdoor advertising dating between the 1920s and the 1990s. Metadata includes advertiser company, product, placement company, date if known, and medium.
