About Ad*Access
The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and database information for 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 major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Research Guide
Please consult our Research Guide for Ad*Access.
Preferred Citation
Ad*Access - Ad #R0108
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
Duke University David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
https://repository.duke.edu/dc/adaccess
Copyright Information
Research, Teaching, Private Study, General Interest User Information:
The advertisements on this web site have been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. For these purposes under Fair Use, you may reproduce (print, make photocopies, or download) materials from this web site without prior permission, on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the source in all copies. Although we don't require you to contact us in advance for these purposes, we do appreciate hearing from teachers, students, and researchers who are using our resources in interesting ways. (more...)
This site includes historical materials that may contain negative stereotypes or language reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the historical record.
Why Advertising?
Ad*Access is a pilot project to make a selection of historical advertisements available for study and research. The project draws on part of a large collection of magazine and newspaper ads within the Duke library's J. Walter Thompson Company Archives. The project includes over 7,000 ads, mainly from U.S. publications dating between 1911 and 1955. The 7,000 ads included in Ad*Access are only a tiny subset of all the advertisements printed during the time period in question. Rather than include just a few ads on many topics, we elected to digitize and make available hundreds or thousands of ads that relate to one of five main categories. This enables researchers and students to have enough material to draw on to begin to understand that advertising for a certain product or time period. The categories we selected are: Beauty and Hygiene, Transportation, Radio, Television, and World WarII. Each of these categories is one we know attracts a lot of research interest, and most of them also reflect major developments in American society, culture, business, and technology.
But still: why advertising? Many commentators have noted that advertising is such a pervasive feature of American life that the 20th century can not be fully understood without studying it. Despite its perceived importance-love it or hate it-advertising has not been as thoroughly documented as other aspects of business. Not all companies that advertise hold on to their past work. Few ad agencies retain comprehensive files of their output. And relatively few libraries, museums, or archives make an effort specifically to document the industry.
Copyright and Citation
Most of the advertisements used in the Ad*Access Project were published after 1923. Therefore, the majority of advertisements are not in the public domain. All the ads may be viewed and printed out by anyone for research, teaching, private study, or general interest. For any other uses see below for permission requirements.
Copyright Information
Research, Teaching, Private Study, General Interest User Information:
The advertisements on this website have been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. For these purposes under fair use, you may reproduce (print, make photocopies, or download) materials from this web site without prior permission, on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the source in all copies. Although we don't require you to contact us in advance for these purposes, we do appreciate hearing from teachers, students, and researchers who are using our resources in interesting ways (send e-mail to the Hartman Center at hartman-center@duke.edu).
Commercial, Broadcast, Mirroring, etc. User Information:
For other uses of materials from this web site - i.e. commercial products, publication, broadcast, mirroring, and anything else that doesn't fall under "fair use" - we require that:
- Users must obtain permission from the current copyright
holder.
Individuals wishing to publish or broadcast any advertisement included on this website must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright, trademarks, or service marks. - Users must also obtain permission from the John W. Hartman Center for Sales,
Advertising & Marketing History to reproduce materials held in its
archive that are featured on this website.
A letter granting permission from the current copyright holder must be submitted along with the request to the Hartman Center.
Contact the company that owns the product(s) contained in the advertisements you would like to use. You must provide written permission from these companies before the Hartman Center can provide permission to use an advertisement for a purpose which does not fall under "fair use."
The Hartman Center charges fees to cover the cost of reproduction of items in its collections. Requests that require extensive research or preparation by Center staff may require an hourly charge, negotiated in advance. In addition, requests to publish, broadcast, or otherwise disseminate ads may be subject to a commercial use fee. Please contact the Hartman Center Reference Archivist for more information and a fee schedule.
The Fine Print
The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History can provide high quality reproductions of items from Ad*Access, with permission in advance from the copyright holder(s). We will make such copies for commercial uses, publication, broadcast, etc. uses only with prior permission.
Users may make a single copy in print or digital form of images or other material from the Ad*Access site. These copies may be used only for use in the research, teaching, or private study. They may not be made for or donated to other repositories. They may not be further reproduced without permission.
The recipient agrees to give proper acknowledgement to the Duke University David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, and further agrees to secure written permission in advance from the rights owner to publish or broadcast any item, in whole or in part, from the Ad*Access on-line collection. Persons wishing to broadcast or publish this material must assume all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright, trademark or service marks. These print advertisements fall under the "work-for-hire" stipulations of copyright law; the company that owns the product or product name, not the advertising agency which created the advertisement, holds copyright.
The recipient agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Duke University, its officers, employees and agents from and against all suits, claims, actions and expenses arising out of the use of reproductions provided by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Duke University claims no rights to the advertising images included in Ad*Access beyond ownership of the physical items.
How to cite materials from the Ad*Access Project
When using advertisements from the Ad*Access Project, please acknowledge their source by clearly stating the name of the project, the advertisement number, the collection name, and the name of the library. Also include the URL of the project page. An example is noted below:
Ad*Access - Ad #R0108
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
Duke University David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
https://repository.duke.edu/dc/adaccess
Certain advertisements have additional copyright and citation information required by the copyright holder. This information is included on the individual advertisement pages directly under the image. In some cases, supplemental citation information is included in the Rights section at the bottom of the advertisement pages. The user is responsible for including this information in all citations for those advertisements.
Acknowledgements
The Ad*Access Project, generously funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" fund, is the result of teamwork and coordination between two centers at the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript & Special Collections Library, now the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
The advertising materials are part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History; the staff of the Hartman Center provided selection, subject and processing information. The Digital Scriptorium staff dealt with the digitization of the ads, file management, image and data conversion, and placement on the web.
Staff Members:
Digital Scriptorium Staff:
- Lynn Eaton: Ad*Access Project Manager
Overall project management including workflow and scanning, interface design and Web site creation, quality control of images and data, and student management.
- Stephen Miller: Project Manager for Historic American Sheet Music
Assisted the Ad*Access Project with EAD Encoding, Perl scripting and image conversion.
- Steve Hensen: Ad*Access Project Director
- Paolo Mangiafico: Director of the Digital Scriptorium
Hartman Center Staff
- Ellen Gartrell: Former Director of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
- Ginny Daley: Hartman Center Technical Services Archivist
- Jacqueline Reid: Hartman Center Reference Archivist
- Katherine Rose: former Hartman Center staff member
Special thanks to all of the Duke University students who worked on the Ad*Access Project:
- Julia Bardzil
- Lydia Boyd
- Kirsten Braaten
- Teresa Chung
- Ryan Denniston
- Justin Essig
- Erin Graham
- Anjali Harsh
- Jamie Kelley
- Brian Leach
- Rachel Medlock
- Cat Saleeby
- Brad Siegele
- Puja Singh
- James Sizemore
- Heather Swagart
- Michael White
- Josh Wilson
- Kelly Woo
- Amy Yuen
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund
