Category Archives: Hartman Center

Mad Men Monday, Episode 5

Mad Men Mondays logo

Episode 5, which aired on April 28st, depicted the Mad Men characters reacting to the news that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Across the board, everyone was upset and unnerved, but there was considerable awkwardness in their interactions with each other in the aftermath.  Pete and Harry argued about what was an appropriate reaction to the death.  Joan hugged Dawn. Don tried to send Dawn home, but she really wanted to stay at work. Megan took Sally and Gene to a vigil. Don took Bobby to the movies.  Peggy fretted over an offer to purchase an apartment. Betty and Henry saw an opportunity for his political career to blossom. Ginsburg tried not to bungle a date that his father set up for him. There were references to wallpaper, formal wear, Milk Duds, Planet of the Apes, and Chinese food, among other items.  Here are a selection of ads and images that refer to some of the products and cultural references mentioned in last night’s episode of Mad Men.  We’ve even included a program from the April 4, 1968 ANDY Awards and some photos of a vigil that occurred on Duke’s campus in the days after the assassination. Paul Newman really was the keynote speaker! A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Pinterest and Flickr.

Andy Awards cover - Blog

Andy Awards progaram of events - Blog

McCarthy for President - Blog

The Duke Vigil was a silent demonstration at Duke University, April 5 - 11, 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Up to 1,400 students slept on the Chapel Quad, food services and housekeeping employees went on strike, and most students boycotted the dining halls in support of the employees. Duke University Archives, University Archives Photograph Collection, box 54.
The Duke Vigil was a silent demonstration at Duke University, April 5 – 11, 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Up to 1,400 students slept on the Chapel Quad, food services and housekeeping employees went on strike, and most students boycotted the dining halls in support of the employees. Duke University Archives, University Archives Photograph Collection, box 54.
Duke Vigil, April 5-11, 1968.  Duke University Archives, University Archives Photograph Collection, box 54.
Duke Vigil, April 5-11, 1968. Duke University Archives, University Archives Photograph Collection, box 54.

Peerless wallpaper - Blogresized

Chinese food - blog

Aftersix - Blog

 

Mad Men Monday, Episode 4

Mad Men Mondays logo

Episode 4, which aired on April 21st, featured a number of awkward moments for the characters of Mad Men. Several characters were pressured or had to do things that made them uncomfortable. Dawn was asked to clock out for Scarlett when she left early. Megan had to do her first love scene. She and Don were asked to participate in a foursome by Arlene and Mel. Peggy had to pitch a new ketchup campaign to Heinz after awkwardly running into Don and Stan at the Roosevelt Hotel. Later she and Ted have a drink at the same bar as the SCDP team. Joan had to tag along with her friend Kate when she wanted to have a fling with a younger man.

There were references to Avon, Birdseye, Dow Chemical, Joe Namath, and J. Walter Thompson, among other brands. And as usual there was lots of drinking. Here are a selection of ads that refer to some of the products and cultural references mentioned in last night’s episode of Mad Men. A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Pinterest and Flickr.

Avon Portrait of a Lady043 - blog

Birds Eye045 - blog

Dow046 - blog

joe namath

JWT Owl042 - blog

Sports Illustrated047 - blog

AAA9516 - blog2

Mad Men Monday, Episode 3

Mad Men Mondays logo

 

Episode 3, shown on April 14th, showcased a couple of client meetings in the SCDP offices, along with some personal get-togethers outside the workplace.

Last night’s episode featured references to Jaguar, Heinz Ketchup, All laundry detergent, Teflon and Clearasil, Italian food, champagne, and the most mundane product of all:  toilet paper.  Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads, outdoor advertising designs, and advertising cookbooks that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night.  A gallery of our selected images may also be found on Pinterest and Flickr.

 

clearasil033 - blog

 

heinz032 - Blog

 

Italian cooking - blog

 

jaguar036 - Blog

 

lady scott040 - blog

 

moet035 - blog

 

quilted robe031- Blog

 

teflon037 - blog

 

smirnoff038 - Blog

 

 

 

Take a Nap, Doctor’s Orders

Recently the Rubenstein Library received an inter-library loan request that was quite appropriate for a drowsy Friday afternoon: Fatigue: What It Is and How to Overcome It, by Dr. Donald Anderson Laird. This short pamphlet, collected as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, was published in 1934 as part of the Master Bedding salesman’s training course.

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Dr. Laird describes fatigue as “a diminished capacity for doing work, and diminished capacity for enjoying life,” and describes symptoms as irritability, bad temper, nervousness, and peplessness.

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If you are pepless or suffering from other symptoms of late-semester fatigue, here are some suggestions from the booklet:

“The bed equipment should be used by the housewife for a few minutes several times during the day. It is not essential to sleep, but to lie down on a cushion that makes it possible to relax.”

“Sometimes excitement from the day makes it difficult to relax, even on a well-designed sleep cushion. The condition will be helped by a sleeping room that is designed and decorated to promote calming down emotionally by the judicious use of blues and greens.”

“The muscular relaxation coaxed by the bed cushion, in fact, will help mental calming down, just as a good way to overcome anger is to try to smile and not act angry.”

While this pamphlet was published almost 80 years ago and some of the advice seems less than scientific, this section seemed especially appropriate even today:

“The present generation probably needs at least better sleep than the previous generations. Radio programs, sleep-disturbing night noises from traffic, a greater assortment of time and energy consuming evening pleasures made possible by electricity all probably keep us from getting as much sleep as our fathers did. Then the emotional strain of modern high speed automobile traffic, and the present gnawing apprehension caused by the depression, also conspire to make us need the safety-valve of dreams as never before.”

Replace “radio programs” with “the internet” and “evening pleasures made possible by electricity” with “smartphones,” and that sentence is quite modern sounding.

The final section of the pamphlet gives advice to the Master Bedding salesman on prescribing the appropriate kind of mattress just as a doctor would prescribe a medicine. Naturally, the booklet warns against selling the cheapest mattress: “One’s bed is in reality one’s best friend, and to practice false economy at its expense is indeed false reasoning.” You wouldn’t be cheap with your best friend, would you?

Smile, paint your bedroom blue, and lie down for a bit. Doctor’s orders.

If you’d like to learn more, the Rubenstein Library also holds the companion pamphlet in the Master Bedding salesman’s training course: A New Mattress Era by Marvin C. Lindeman.

Post contributed by Rachel Penniman, Rubenstein Library Assistant for Research and Technical Services.

Mad Men Monday

MadMenLogo1

Don Draper and the whole gang were back last night with the premiere of Mad Men’s Season Six. If you are big fans of the show, like us, then join us as we look back at some ads that resonate with each episode of the new season in what we are calling Mad Men Mondays.

Last night’s episode featured references to the Royal Hawaiian Sheraton, Dow Oven Cleaner, fondue, Canadian Club Whiskey, and dieting, among other things. Enjoy our selection of highlighted ads and advertising cookbooks that reflect the brands and themes that Mad Men characters interacted with last night. A gallery of our selected images can also be found on Pinterest and Flickr.

CanClub-compAdsF330006

DowOven-compAdsH430007

Fondue-CompAds-1

FondueCookbook1960s-0097003  Reduce-compAdsF120009

SeagramCookbook1960sA-0011002

SheratonCompAds-T431010

Whiskey-CompAdsF330005

 

Come Visit! We’re Now Taking Applications for Travel Grants

Researchers! The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library is now accepting applications for our 2013-2014 travel grants.

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History will award up to $1,000 per recipient to fund travel and other expenses related to visiting the Rubenstein Library.

The grants are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, independent scholars, artists, and activists who live more than 100 miles from Durham, NC and whose research projects would benefit from access to collections held by one of the centers.

More details—and the grant application—may be found on our grants website. Applications must be postmarked or e-mailed no later than 5:00 PM EST on March 29, 2013. Recipients will be announced in April 2013.

NC Travel Billboard, "Only a Day's Drive," undated. From the Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives.
NC Travel Billboard, “Only a Day’s Drive,” undated. From the Outdoor Advertising Association of America Archives.

Some of last year’s recipients include:

At the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture:

  • Bridget Collins, a graduate student in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used prescriptive literature held by the Bingham Center as part of her research for her dissertation, “From the Cradle to the Grave: Infectious Disease in the Twentieth Century American Home.”
  • Laura Foxworth, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of South Carolina, for research for her dissertation, “The Spiritual is Political: How the Southern Baptist Convention Debated Feminism and Found the New Right.” You can read more about her visit here.
  • Jessica Lancia, a graduate student at the University of Florida, conducted research for her dissertation, “Borderless Feminisms: A Transnational History of the U.S. Women’s Movement, 1967-1985.” You can read more about her visit in the Fall 2012 issue of the Bingham Center newsletter.

At the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture:

  • Brooke N. Newman, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, for a study on gender, race, and power in the eighteenth century British Caribbean.
  • Kathryn Banks, Assistant Professor in the History and Political Science Department at Andrews University, for an examination of African-American employment in the Southern textile industry from 1895 to 1945.
  • Max L. Grivno, Associate Professor from the Department of History at the University of Southern Mississippi, for an analysis of slavery in Mississippi, 1690-1865.

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

  • Anne Schmidt of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, for research for her book about the meaning and importance of emotions in advertising throughout the twentieth century in Germany and ways emotions were a constitutive element of capitalist practices of production and consumption.
  • Marcia Chatelain, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University, conducted research on the ways in which segregation shaped African-American food culture in the South for her book, A Taste of Freedom: African-American Dining Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
  • Rochelle Pereira-Alvares, a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Guelph, Canada, exploring how the marketing and advertising initiatives of Hiram Walker and Seagram influenced the way in which consumers purchased and imbibed spirits, and the impact consumers’ changing tastes had on the companies’ marketing and product development decisions, 1950-1990.
  • Bryce C. Lowery, a graduate student in Public Policy at the University of Southern California, for research for his dissertation, “The Consumable Landscapes of Los Angeles: How the Spatial Ecology of Outdoor Advertising Influences the Quality of Life.”

Post contributed by Stephanie Barnwell, Bingham Center intern.

Collections for a rainy day

The weather for the past week has been nothing but rain here in North Carolina. Just for fun, I looked up the January 17, 1862 entry in this diary from Philadelphia, and guess what I found?

January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant.
January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant.

January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant. (It was also “rainy and unpleasant” on January 18.) Perhaps this woman should have borrowed J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella, from the J. Walter Thompson Artifacts and Memorabilia collection.

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J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella.

Despite the rain, both of these collections safely made it to swing space today.

Nancy Fletcher on Outdoor Advertising

Date: Thursday, November 8, 2012
Time: 5:00 PM reception, 6:00 PM talk
Location: Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library
Contact information: Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, 919-660-5836 or j.reid(at)duke.edu.

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2012 with a lecture series of advertising luminaries. Please join us next Thursday for the fourth talk in the series.

Nancy Fletcher, CEO of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) will talk about Outdoor Advertising: Unified Vision. Bold Future. Outdoor advertising is one of the oldest forms of media in existence, dating back to the circus posters of the 1800’s. Since those early days, outdoor advertising has constantly evolved to adapt to new markets, formats, technology, and opportunities. Please join us and take another look at one of the fastest-growing advertising media around. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the lecture series website.

This 20th Anniversary Lecture Series event is sponsored by the Duke University Office of the Provost, Fuqua School of Business, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, Markets & Management Studies, Duke Marketing Club, NCOAA, SCOAA, Fairway Outdoor Advertising, and Adams Outdoor.

Post contributed by Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, Director of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.

Two Words for Halloween: Scary Clowns!

Cover of Merchant’s Gargling Oil Dream and Fate, Palmistry, &c. Songster, Lockport, NY, ca. 1880-1890s.

We’ve seen many advertising campaigns of yesteryear here at the Rubenstein Library, thanks to the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.  Our History of Medicine Collections contain many examples of promotional items for patent medicines and related remedies.  And the Library holds an extensive collection of American songsters, or ephemeral booklets of song lyrics popular in the nineteenth century.  But never have we seen more terrifying examples of any of these genres than the Merchant’s Gargling Oil Songsters, which feature scary clowns on their covers.

We have the Merchant’s Gargling Oil Co. to thank for these frightful specimens.  The Hagley Museum and Library’s online exhibit on patent medicines tells us that the oil was “primarily used as a topical ointment to treat horses and other animals for burns, scalds, sprains, and bruises,” but could also be used to treat other odd ailments, from foot rot to mange.  The oil was not, apparently, gargled.

We know what you’re asking: why use scary clowns to promote veterinary medicine?  We presume that the clowns used to promote the Merchant’s Gargling Oil Liniment were not intentionally scary.   Perhaps they were not creepy at all to the nineteenth-century eye, but rather appeared amusing, colorful, and whimsical.  However, the fact that these particular songsters combined popular song lyrics with instruction on dream interpretation and fortune telling lends itself to the belief that there’s more to these clowns than meets the eye. Not to mention the owl on the shoulder of one of the clowns, and the deranged look in the eyes of the other.

Cover of Merchant’s Gargling Oil Songster, Lockport, NY, ca. 1880-1890s.

We wouldn’t want to meet either of these clowns on a dark Halloween night, but you’re welcome to come see them in person in the Library’s reading room… if you dare. Happy Halloween!

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections. 

 

Conversation with an Advertising Legend

Date: Thursday, October 25, 2012
Time: 3:00 to 4:30 PM
Location: Biddle Rare Book Room, Perkins Library
Contact information: Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, 919-660-5836 or j.reid(at)duke.edu.

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University will be hosting “Tea and Conversation with Carl Spielvogel.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill James L. Knight advertising professor, Robert Lauterborn will moderate and lead the Ambassador in a discussion of his career in advertising.  Spielvogel’s journey from the NY Times, to McCann Erickson, Interpublic, and Backer Spielvogel ultimately lead to his appointment as Ambassador to the Slovak Republic by President Clinton. Please join us for this fascinating discussion.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.  For more information, visit the Hartman Center homepage or contact Jacqueline Wachholz.

Post contributed by Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, Director of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History.