Related Library Resources

Photograph Collections

The photograph holdings at Baker Library Historical Collections are the result of a tradition of extensive collecting efforts for research and teaching that began with the founding of Harvard Business School (HBS) in 1908. The holdings included in the Web Guide to Photograph Collections focus on discrete collections containing photographs only, with a few collections highlighted below for their relevance to research in advertising and marketing.

  • Industrial Life Photograph Collection

    Photographs from 115 leading companies (International Harvester, Hershey's Chocolate, Kraft-Phenix Cheese Corporation, U.S. Steel, and General Motors among them), as well as industries in Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia that were produced originally for publicity purposes, including annual reports, company histories, and advertising materials as well as illustrations for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.

  • Automobile Industry Photograph Collection

    The holdings represent intriguing examples of advertising photography with models demonstrating special features of the cars as well as publicity stunts and events including cross-country races, goodwill tours, and celebrity appearances. The collection also contains printed materials from auto show press kits.

  • Caterpillar Tractor Company Photographs

    The Caterpillar Tractor Company, one of the world's leading manufacturers of tractors, was formed in 1925. From early on the company mounted extensive marketing campaigns advertising their products for farming, logging, quarrying, mining, road building, and construction.

HBS Archival Resources

Industry, marketing and advertising have long been topics of interest at HBS, where marketing has been part of the curriculum since 1914 and advertising courses started offering an intensive study of the place and function of advertising in business administration in 1932. In addition to course related materials, faculty papers from pioneers and leaders in the fields of marketing and advertising education include

  • Malcolm P. McNair Papers

    Malcolm Perrine McNair was a pioneer in marketing, retailing and forecasting trends. He taught at Harvard Business School for forty three years and played a key role in the development of marketing and retailing courses. The collection contains teaching records and includes memorandum, notes and lectures for such classes as Retail Distribution, Retail Store Management, Marketing, and Elements of Administration, among others. The collection reflects the development of marketing and retailing as fields of study.

  • Paul T. Cherington Papers

    The papers of Paul T. Cherington, instructor of the first marketing courses taught at HBS, documents the years he taught at HBS and continue through the end of his business career. These records document early examples of HBS marketing courses taught by Professor Cherington and his subsequent career as marketing consultant, economist, and author. Of particular interest are the materials pertaining to speeches and articles written while Cherington was Director of Research at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.

  • Melvin T. Copeland Papers

    Melvin Thomas Copeland was Professor of Marketing at HBS from 1919 to 1953 Instrumental in the development of the case method of instruction, Copeland also had a significant impact on the structure of the marketing courses at HBS and throughout the United States, placing the consumer in a central role. The collection includes Melvin T. Copeland's teaching notes regarding business policy cases used in classroom instruction at HBS, as well as administrative correspondence regarding the Harvard Advertising Awards.

Print Resources

In addition to the photographic and archival materials available, the Baker Old Class Collection is a valuable print based resource for researching the development of marketing and advertising in the interwar period. The collection mainly includes but is not limited to trade publications and handbooks. The unique arrangement of the collection brings together books, periodicals, and pamphlets by industry or topic, allowing researchers to readily browse related research materials and extensive serial runs. There are over 2000 titles in the Baker Old Class collection on advertising covering topics such as advertising for special products and industries, advertising contests and awards, advertising mediums (catalogs, magazines, billboards), and art in advertising.

The Trade Catalog Collection is also a helpful resource for tracing the development of advertising and the increasing use of photography in advertising. Although the collection's date range covers 130 years, several hundred catalogs date from the 1920s-1930s. A wide range of products and services available to the trades are represented during these decades-airplanes, automobiles, engines, hardware, jewelry, machinery, musical instruments, mail-order catalogs.

See the Finding Resources section of the Baker Library Historical Collections Web site for more information on locating materials in these collections through HOLLIS

Related Research Collections at Other Institutions

The research collections listed below are not meant to be a comprehensive listing of materials related to photography, marketing, and advertising. These collections are featured due to their relationships with the 1934 National Alliance of Art and Industry (NAAI) Exhibit.

Syracuse University Library, Special Collections Research Center (SCRC)

SCRC maintains and provides access to rare books, manuscripts, and other archival materials consisting of more than 100,000 printed works and 2000 archival collections, including important editions, manuscripts, documents, letters, diaries, drawings, photographs, and memorabilia. Although the SCRC holds many collections on Photography and Photographers, collections of particular interest to those doing research on photography and advertising related to the 1934 NAAI exhibit include

  • Margaret Bourke White Papers

    Papers of the American industrial photographer, photojournalist, war correspondent and author, including biographical material, correspondence, writings, memorabilia. Bourke-White's photographs and negatives are held in a separate collection, also located in SCRC.

  • Victor Keppler Papers

    Papers of the American commercial photographer (1904-1987), including color slides, transparencies, negatives, photographs, contact sheets and working proofs, receipts relating to commercial and travel subjects.

  • Egmont Arens Papers

    Papers of the American industrial designer and author of the introduction in the 1934 National Arts Alliance and Industry and Photographic Illustrators, Inc. Photographic Exhibition. The collection includes correspondence, research material, manuscripts, photographs, and sketches, reflecting Arens' career in industrial design.

University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center

  • RR Donnelley & Sons Company Archive

    This archive of the renowned printing company contains business records, product samples and promotional material, biographical files and personal papers, historical writings and oral histories, artifacts, and documentary photographs. One series notably relevant to the 1934 NAAI Exhibit is Series VI (Exhibitions), which features material related to displays of fine art, book arts and graphic design, which were held at RR Donnelley beginning in 1930. This series focuses particularly on Lakeside Press Galleries exhibitions. The archive was featured in an online University of Chicago Library exhibit "Printing for the Modern Age: Commerce, Craft, and Culture in the RR Donnelley Archive" which features the public exhibitions held in the Lakeside Press Galleries.