SMOOTH ADVERTISING

This week a Florida International University student in the Honor’s College came to the museum to schedule a research appointment in our rare books and special collections library. In the course of our reference interview, the student expressed interest in seeing what we might have in the library pertaining to “vintage” tobacco advertising. He had decided to work on a project that would examine how tobacco companies marketed their products in early to mid-twentieth century, and how their claims then compare to those being made in present-day “pro” and “con” tobacco propaganda. The library holds a good run of Fortune magazine from the 1930s, many of which had back cover advertisements from various tobacco companies. Above is one example from our collection.

For any bloggers interested in doing their own comparisons of the same, I recommend checking out the many anti-tobacco “Truth” campaign videos readily available via Youtube.com. Here’s one of my personal favorites:

As a movie buff (fanatic?) I can also heartily recommend Thank You For Smoking for an enormously entertaining look at (and biting satire of) tobacco industry spin doctors, directed by Jason Reitman in 2005.

THE "OUT-GOING" LIBRARY EXHIBIT

This week I have been busy preparing interpretative and label texts for the installation of a new library display, Advertising American Automobiles Abroad. This display of promotional materials garnered from our library collection and loans by Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. and Leonard Lauder has been designed to complement Styled for the Road, an exhibition opening to the public in our seventh floor gallery this October 16th. The installation of a new display is always a busy and exciting time, but also bitter-sweet as it necessarily involves the dismantling of the previous display.

Today I would like to introduce those of you “out-of-towners” to our “out-going” display, Youth in Uniform: Selections from the gift of Steven Heller. Steve, an educator and prolific author of books dealing with graphic arts, donated these and many other rare items to our library following the completion of his recent publication, Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. This exhibit will continue to live on in a virtual format put together by our digital library specialist, David Almeida and can be accessed at the following web address: http://www.librarydisplays.wolfsonian.org/
You can also access a more general selection of Mr. Heller's donation at:
http://www.librarygifts.wolfsonian.org/2008.htm

As we have limited display space in our library foyer, we often have to cut some items from our original checklist even though they are perfectly suited to the theme of the display. To remedy this loss, I am adding to today’s blog an image of an item that I would have liked to have included in the show had there been sufficient space. So without further ado, here is the…

LIBRARY OBJECT(S) OF THE WEEK