Consumerism and Consumption in America
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University
This collection presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture.
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
American Memory, Library of Congress
Assembled here are a wide array of Library of Congress source materials from the 1920s that document the widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition to a mass consumer economy, and the role of government in this transition. The collection includes nearly 150 selections from twelve collections of personal papers and two collections of institutional papers from the Manuscript Division; 74 books, pamphlets, and legislative documents from the General Collections, along with selections from 34 consumer and trade journals; 185 photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division and the Manuscript Division; and 5 short films and 7 audio selections of Coolidge speeches from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The collection is particularly strong in advertising and mass-market materials and will be of special interest to those seeking to understand economic and political forces at work in the 1920s.
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University
This online database contains over 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1958, as well as 35 selected historical documents relating to the creation and influence of health-related advertisements. The collection represents a wide range of products such as cough and cold remedies, laxatives and indigestion aids, and vitamins and tonics, among others. The images are drawn from the collections of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, with the bulk of the ads originating in the J. Walter Thompson Company's Competitive Advertising File.
The Commercial Closet: The World's Largest Collection of Gay Advertising
Commercial Closet Association
This site contains over 750 worldwide television and print advertisements spanning more than 30 years that reflect Western society's changing views of the gay community.