Pan American World Airways Advertisements

The Pan American World Airways Advertisements digital collection consists primarily of print advertisements created by multiple advertising agencies from 1940 through 1991 for publication in American newspapers and magazines. There are a significant number of German and Spanish language advertisements represented that appeared in international publications as well. The bulk of the advertisements represented in the collection were created by the J. Walter Thompson Co., including their office located in Frankfurt, Germany, and by Wells Rich Greene on behalf of Pan American World Airways. Passenger and freight services can be found in the collection as well as joint ventures such as Pan American-Grace Airways, a partnership with Grace Shipping, focused on service to South America. Notable campaigns emphasize “around the world” air service, the “Clipper” concept, the debut of the Boeing 747 in 1967 and the launch of new passenger services such as in-flight entertainment. The collection is searchable by arrival and departure location, aircraft type and manufacturer, advertising agency, and language.

Materials in the Pan American World Airways Advertisements digital collection were digitized in partnership with 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 W. Mellon Foundation.