LibGuides: Advertising Digital Collections: Collections by Subject

Advertising Agencies

J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
Drawn from hundreds of documents from the J. Walter Thompson Archive at the Hartman Center, the database includes print advertisements, market research and reports, writings and speeches, company newsletters, meeting minutes, brand and company profiles, and much more. Free to Duke students, faculty, and staff; available for purchase by other institutions.
J. Walter Thompson Newsletters
The J. Walter Thompson Newsletters digital collection comprises the agency's internally produced newsletters, which date from 1916 through 1986. The newsletter addressed issues of importance to the entire company, with articles on account news, client lists--or account gains and losses--and biographies and short notes on JWT staff, including professional accomplishments, promotions and transfers, visits to other JWT offices, and personal events (i.e. marriages, births, and deaths).
more...less...
Coverage of international affairs varies substantially, though all of the titles in this series provide some news from JWT's offices overseas. The richest sources of JWT international news are the newsletters of the 1970s and 1980s, when there is a substantial increase in the frequency and depth of attention paid to JWT operations globally.

American Society & Culture

Medicine and Madison Avenue
This digital collection, curated by historian Nancy Tomes, explores the complex relationship between modern medicine and modern advertising using over 600 images from twentieth-century advertising.
Protestant Children and Families
This collection includes digitized articles and advertising images of Protestant children and families in the U.S., within Protestant-supported or targeted magazines held in the Duke University Divinity School Library.
Race and Ethnicity in Advertising
Curated by Duke students in 2017, this permanent online exhibit showcases advertising materials related to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the United States. The exhibit includes documentation of people of color who worked within the advertising industry, research reports analyzing minority populations as consumers, and depictions of race and ethnicity within print advertisements.

Consumer Goods

Ad*Access
The Ad*Access digital collection consists of over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.
Cosmetic Trade Samples and Sachets
Consists of 75 trade samples and sachets of cosmetics, powders, makeup, soaps and scented paraphernalia, from the 1890s-1930s. Companies are primarily based in the United States, but Canadian and French perfumers are also represented.
Emergence of Advertising in America
Over 3,300 advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States.
J. Walter Thompson Ford Motor Co. Advertisements, 1944-2001
Includes advertisements and promotional material 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 2001.
Ration Coupons on the Home Front, 1942-1945
The World War II Ration Coupon collection consists of ration coupons, stickers and certificates for tires, bicycles, typewriters, sugar, shoes, fuel oil, gasoline, and food which were issued by the Office of Price Administration from 1942-1945.
ROAD 2.0
A portal to more than 30,000 images of outdoor advertisements from five different source collections. These outdoor advertisements promoted a wide variety of consumer goods, including sodas, cigarettes, automobiles, and alcoholic beverages.
W. Duke and Sons
The W. Duke, Sons & Co. digital collection features over 1800 individual cigarette cards, as well as two large scrapbooks that contain several hundred additional cards. The collection also includes images of other tobacco advertising ephemera such as pins, tobacco tags, silk, and souvenir albums. Companies represented here include W. Duke, Sons & Co., Allen & Ginter, Kinney Bros. Co., and Liggett & Myers.

Political Advertising

Italian Cultural Posters
This collection includes Italian cultural and political posters mostly dating from the 1970s-1980s. Nearly half of the posters were printed by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) offices in Milan and Rome and address themes such as labor issues, voting rights, and political corruption. Other posters in the collection advertise art exhibits, celebrations, and civic events held throughout Italy, chiefly in Milan and Urbino.
Russian Posters Collection, 1919-1989 and undated
This collection of 20th-century Russian posters spans almost the entire history of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). It can be divided into three main series, each representing distinct eras in the history of Communist political advertising.

Student Curated Projects

The following online projects are the work of Duke University undergraduate students as part of the Story+ initiative, a 6-week paid summer research experience introducing students to a variety of research methodologies and modes of publishing that research.

Race & Ethnicity in Advertising

This project seeks to showcase materials housed in the Hartman Center related to race and ethnicity in advertising in the United States. Focusing specifically on underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, this website serves as a resource for researchers that highlights relevant materials through item and collection descriptions, images, and student researched and curated exhibits. The site was created by Duke undergraduates Elizabeth Butcher, Jessica Chen, and Cyan DeVeaux with support from Graduate student Meghan O'Neil.

Consuming Women, Liberating Women: Women and Advertising in the Mid 20th Century

This project utilizes digital and physical archival collections from the Rubenstein Library to document the turbulent relationship between women, feminism, and the advertising industry in the decades following the Second World War and the emergence of the Women's Movement. The website serves as a tool to bring together collections from the Hartman Center and Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture and demonstrate the research possibilities offered by these respective collecting areas. The site was created by Duke undergraduates Sonia Fillipow, Julia Nasco, and Sandra Luksic with support from Graduate student Meggan Farrish.