Guide to Collections Related to the Ford Motor Company: Digital Collections

This database provides a portal to the descriptions of over 50,000 images of outdoor advertising drawn from the OAAA Archives, OAAA Slide Library, Brennan Survey Reports, John Paver Papers, and RC Maxwell Company Records. Over a thousand of the records refer to Ford vehicles and Ford Dealerships. Those items that have been digitized can now be accessed via links in this database. The search interface allows for general keyword searching, advanced search functions which may aid in narrowing the search results.

This database contains a subset of over 30,000 of the images described in ROAD. Several hundred billboards advertising Ford products and Ford Dealerships can be accessed through this database. The search interface allows for general keyword searching, and advanced search functions which may aid in narrowing search results.

This collection represents advertisements in multiple formats created by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency for Ford Motor Company's lines of cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs; Ford Farming line of tractors; Genuine Ford Parts; and dealerships and automotive services from 1945 through 2007. A majority of the collection consists of magazine and newspaper advertisements but there are examples of promotional literature, outdoor advertising, and insertion scheduled for scattered years. Noteworthy automobile launches include the redesigned 1949 Ford, Thunderbird, Mustang, Taurus, Explorer, Ranger, and Escort. The collection also includes many examples of several well-known Ford campaigns such as "There's a Ford in Your Future," the Peanuts campaign for the Falcon, "Built Ford Tough," and "Have you Driven a Ford Lately?"