Advertising - Overview
Advertising is meant to persuade, and the themes and techniques of that persuasion reveal a part of the nation's history. The Museum has preserved advertising campaigns for several familiar companies, such as Marlboro, Alka-Seltzer, Federal Express, Cover Girl, and Nike. It also holds the records of the NW Ayer Advertising Agency and business papers from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Carvel Ice Cream, and other companies. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana comprises thousands of trade cards, catalogs, labels, and other business papers and images dating back to the late 1700s.
Beyond advertising campaigns, the collections encompass thousands of examples of packaging, catalogs, and other literature from many crafts and trades, from engineering to hat making. The collections also contain an eclectic array of advertising objects, such as wooden cigar-store Indians, neon signs, and political campaign ads.
"Advertising - Overview" showing 54 items.
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Sunshine Finishes
- Description (Brief)
- Celluloid notebook. A color image on the cover shows two children entering a home with a container of finish and a paint brush. The reverse has a calendar for the year 1909. The back has a color image of a can of finish advertising Sunshine Finishes. Handwritten marks in ink are on the interior pages.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1909
- maker
- Heath & Milligan Mfg. Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0463
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0463
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lumber Scale
- Description (Brief)
- Celluloid lumber and cement scale. It is rectangular with two interior dials and is printed in blue and red. One side calculates the quantity of materials requred to make one cubic yard of rammed concrete. The other side calculates the number of feet boards contained in various sizes of lumber. Lehigh Cement Company was founded in 1897.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1920
- advertiser
- Lehigh Portland Cement Company
- maker
- Whitehead & Hoag Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0523
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0523
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Advertising notebook for health tonics
- Description (Brief)
- Plastic notebook with color advertisements on cover. One side has image of a bottle of "Tono Sumbol" and reverse has image of "Liquid Pancreopepsine."
- "Tono Sumbol", a patent medicine tonic and cordial, was a speciality of William R. Warner of Philadelphia, PA. It's active ingredient was sumbol, a stimulant and tonic made from balsamic resin.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1895
- advertiser
- William R. Warner and Company
- maker
- Whitehead & Hoag Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0753
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0753
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Drawing of Hall Mark Quirk Quality
- Description
- This original artwork in pencil, ink, and wash was created for a printed piece advertising the services of Chicago wood engraver Nicholas J. Quirk about 1900. The design, including a wood block, engraving tools, and a woodpecker as a symbol of the trade, was modified for use as a logo by the Brotherhood of Engravers in 1902.
- The Quirk Collection represents a significant body of work by N. J. Quirk (1863–1940) and his son Nicholas Paul Quirk (1898–1983), together with numerous business cards and specimen sheets from their fellow wood engravers and printing concerns, mostly in the midwestern United States, but also from Canada and Japan. Engraved wood blocks, electrotype plates, photographs, original artwork, proofs, prints, brochures, catalogs and other examples of commercial illustration and wood engraving, plus associated reference material, are included. Subjects represented include portraits (including six Presidents, Joseph Conrad, and Charles Lindbergh), machinery, jewelry, maritime and military work, holiday offerings, and printing trade and union-related items. Most of the 454 catalogued items date from the 1880s up through the 1970s.
- Evidence in the collection suggests that Nicholas J. Quirk worked as superintendent of the wood-engraving department of Henderson-Achert Lithography Company in Cincinnati and had his own business there as Quirk & Co., before moving to Chicago in the 1890s. He had his own business at several Chicago addresses and worked for the Globe Engraving and Electrotype Company and the Hawtin Engraving Company. Around 1900 he styled himself as a "marine illustrator." Nicholas Paul Quirk spent his entire working life in Chicago, first with his father and later at the Zacher Engraving Company, where wood engraver Judith Jaidinger Szesko also worked during the 1960s. Mrs Szesko donated the Quirk Collection to NMAH in 1996.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1900
- graphic artist
- Quirk, Nicholas J.
- ID Number
- 1996.0197.031
- catalog number
- 1996.0197.031
- accession number
- 1996.0197
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hochschild, Kohn & Co.
- Description (Brief)
- Notebook ("shopping memorandum") with celluloid cover. An image of a telephone appears on front, and a calendar for the year 1915 on back. It is an advertising piece for Hochschild, Kohn & Company department store, which describes itself as "Baltimore's Best Store" and "The Telephone Store."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1915
- advertiser
- Hochschild Kohn and Company
- maker
- J. B. Carroll
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0474
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0474
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Swift's Brookfield Pure Pork Sausage
- Description (Brief)
- Rectangular plastic card. The front has a blue background with color images of a plate of sausages and a white product box in yellow, white, and blue print. Reverse has a product box image, divisions for a three-inch ruler, and a calendar for 1933.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1933
- advertiser
- Swift and Company
- maker
- Parisian Novelty Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0579
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0579
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Soiler Feed Water Treatment made by Dearborn Chemical Company
- Description (Brief)
- Flat, rectangular celluloid advertisment card for the Dearborn Chemical Company's Boiler Feed Water Treatment, which "prevents scale, corrosion and foaming." A calendar for 1931 is on the front.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1931
- advertiser
- Dearborn Chemical Company
- maker
- American Art Works
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0589
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0589
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Marberc Hotel luggage tag
- Description (Brief)
- An advertising novelty for the Marberc Hotel, New Orleans, La. Made of cream celluloid, it is in two parts, which slide apart. A photograph of the hotel is engraved on one side. Advertising copy on the other side describes the hotel as "Canal Street's tallest bldg," "The home for the commercial man," "Fireproof," and "Ciruclating ice water and ceiling fans in every room."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1920-1930
- maker
- Cruver Mfg. Co
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1039
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1039
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Dixie Lye / Old Hickory
- Description (Brief)
- Cloth tape measure in round plastic case. The case is white with blue print and features an image of "Dixie Lye" on one side, and "Old Hickory Smoked Salt Curing Recipe" on the other. Both are products of the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacuring Company.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1919
- advertiser
- Pennyslvania Salt Manufacturing Company
- maker
- Parisian Novelty Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.0782
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.0782
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
American Insurance Company Fire Mark
- Description (Brief)
- Beginning in the 1750s, some American insurance companies issued metal fire marks to policyholders to signify that their property was insured against fire damage. The fire marks bore the name and/or symbol of the insurer, and some included the customer’s policy number. The company or agent would then affix the mark to the policyholder’s home or business. For owners the mark served as proof of insurance and a deterrent against arson. For insurance companies the mark served as a form of advertising, and alerted volunteer firefighters that the property was insured.
- The American Insurance Company of Chicago, Illinois issued this tinned sheet iron fire mark in 1867. The square mark has painted text that reads “AMERICAN/CHICAGO.” The American Insurance Company operated in Freeport, Illinois from 1859 until 1867, when it moved to Chicago. The company retired in 1883.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1867
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 2005.0233.0534
- accession number
- 2005.0233
- catalog number
- 2005.0233.0534
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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