Tag: Hagley Library & Archives

Hagley History Hangouts

Steph

 The American tobacco oligopoly of five firms loomed large in the mid-twentieth century thanks to the addictive qualities of their products and the massive investment they made in broadcast marketing communications, influencing the media experience of millions of Americans and the wider landscape of American media for generations.  Media historian Peter Kovacs is conducting research on the influence of American tobacco firms on broadcast media and argues that the tobacco company sponsorship of broadcast programs on radio and television profoundly shaped the form and content of both individual programs and the broadcast media industry at large. Using Hagley’s unrivalled collection of marketing and advertising archives, including the papers of ad agency giant BBD&O, Kovacs assembles a story of corporate competition over the airwaves from the first tobacco -sponsored radio program in 1924 to the banning of broadcast tobacco advertising in 1971. 

Dr. Kovacs received support for his research from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library.

The audio only version of this program is available on our podcast.

The link to this Hagley History Hangout is https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-peter-kovacs.

Recorded on Zoom and available anywhere once they are released, our History Hangouts include interviews with authors of books and other researchers who have use of our collections, and members of Hagley staff with their special knowledge of what we have in our stacks. We began the History Hangouts earlier this summer and now are releasing programs every two weeks on alternate Mondays. Our series is part of the Hagley from Home initiative by the Hagley Museum and Library. The schedule for upcoming episodes, as well as those already released, is available at  https://www.hagley.org/hagley-history-hangout. 

NEH-Hagley Fellowship on Business, Culture, and Society

Steph

The NEH-Hagley Fellowship on Business, Culture, and Society supports residencies at the Hagley Library in Wilmington, Delaware for junior and senior scholars whose projects make use of Hagley’s substantial research collections. Scholars must have completed all requirements for their doctoral degrees by the February 15 application deadline. In accordance with NEH requirements, these fellowships are restricted to United States citizens or to foreign nationals who have been living in the United States for at least three years. These fellowships are made possible by support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Fellowships may be four to twelve months in length and will provide a monthly stipend of $5,000 and complimentary lodging in housing on Hagley’s property. Hagley also will provide supplemental funds for local off-site accommodations to NEH fellowship recipients who can make a compelling case that special circumstance (e.g. disability or family needs) would make it impossible to make use of our scholar’s housing. Scholars receive office space, Internet access, Inter-Library Loan privileges, and the full benefits of visiting scholars, including special access to Hagley’s research collections. They are expected to be in regular and continuous residence and to participate in the Center’s scholarly programs. They must devote full time to their study and may not accept teaching assignments or undertake any other major activities during their residency. Fellows may hold other major fellowships or grants during fellowship tenure, in addition to sabbaticals and supplemental grants from their own institutions, but only those that do not interfere with their residency at Hagley. Other NEH-funded grants may be held serially, but not concurrently.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE FOR THE NEH-HAGLEY FELLOWSHIP ON BUSINESS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY

Deadline: February 15, 2023

Requirements for application: (Apply online at https://www.hagley.org/research/grants-fellowships/funding-application ).

·        Current curriculum vitae.

·        A 3,000-word explanation of the project and its contributions to pertinent scholarship.

·        A statement of no more than 500 words explaining how residency at Hagley would advance the project, particularly the relevance of our research collections.

·        A statement indicating the preferred duration of the fellowship.

Applicants also should arrange for two letters of recommendation to arrive separately by the application deadline. These should be sent directly to Carol Lockman,  clockman@Hagley.org. Questions regarding this fellowship may be sent to Carol Lockman as well.  Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Roger Horowitz, Director of the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society in advance of submitting an application—rhorowitz@hagley.org.

Hagley History Hangout: Kerosene and consumer protests

Steph

How does a movement unite the disparate interests of producer and consumers? By directing their shared ire against a powerful middleman. That is how opponents of the Standard Oil monopoly on kerosene refining and distribution joined forces to take on the corporate giant. In his dissertation project, Minseok Jang, PhD candidate at the University of Albany, explores the materiality of kerosene and its impacts on people at every link in the commodity chain, from oil fields through refineries and pipelines to the homes and businesses of end-users. Jang argues that the unique qualities contemporaries perceived in kerosene created both opportunities and risks. When Standard Oil attempted to monopolize the opportunities while externalizing the risks, the firm goaded an array of people into united anti-monopolist action. 

In support of his work, Jang received an exploratory grant from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library.

The audio only version of this program is available on our podcast. The link to this Hagley History Hangout is https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-minseok-jang

Recorded on Zoom and available anywhere once they are released, our History Hangouts include interviews with authors of books and other researchers who have use of our collections, and members of Hagley staff with their special knowledge of what we have in our stacks. We began the History Hangouts earlier this summer and now are releasing programs every two weeks on alternate Mondays. Our series is part of the Hagley from Home initiative by the Hagley Museum and Library. The schedule for upcoming episodes, as well as those already released, is available at  https://www.hagley.org/hagley-history-hangout. 

Hagley Grants & Fellowships

Steph

The Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware is pleased to announce the recipients of grants and fellowships awarded in April 2023.  Please note that the next deadline for applications for the exploratory and Henry Belin du Pont Fellowship is June 30th. The H. B. du Pont Dissertation Fellowship deadline is November 15th.  Here is the link on Hagley Museum and Library’s website for further info and to apply…. https://www.hagley.org/research/grants-fellowships. 

Exploratory Grant

Nicolas Allen

Ph.D. Candidate

SUNY at Stony Brook

A Voz do dono:  RCA-Victor in Brazil

Roland Betancourt

Professor

University of California, Irvine

A Plurality of Means:  Disneyland and the Aesthetics of Automation

Sam Bisco

AB Candidate

Princeton University

Evolution of the Cotton Gin Production

Espen Brandt

Masters

University of Oslo

International Trade Organization

Stephen Case

Professor

Olivet Nazarene University

Icons of the Idyllic:  Windpumps and the American Pastoral Ideal

Leo Garofalo

Associate Professor

Connecticut College

Afro-Andeans in a Black Pacific:  Afro-Pervian Sailors, Smugglers, & Shipbuiders in Spanish America & Transpacific

Katlin Harris

Ph.D. Candidate

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Sounding Industrial Empires:  Welfare Capitalism, Sponsored Bands, and the Construction of Company

Stefka Hristova

Associate Professor

Michigan Technological University

Negating Visions:  Cultural Memory and Media Negatives

Rebecca Janzen

Associate Professor

University of South Carolina

Mining Religion Sites and Extractive Industries Across the Americas

Liz Kambas

Ph.D. Candidate

Indiana University

A Tale of Two Families:  The Lavoisiers, the du Ponts, and the Arsenal Laboratory

William Krause

Ph.D. Candidate

Vanderbilt University

Scientific Genius:  A Cultural and Intellectual History of the Idea in Modern America, 1880-1990

Elizabeth McCague

Ph.D. Candidate

University of Maryland, College Park

Equestrian Culture and Labor during the du Pont era at James Madison’s Montpelier

Christopher Miller

Lecturer

The University of Glasgow

Independent Inventors to International Industries–The Birth and Development of the Modern Private Armaments Sector, 1860-1914

Fabienne Müller

Doctoral Researcher

University of Bremen

Neoliberal Idealogy in Trade Policy and Social Policy:  The Examples of NAFTA and Health Care Reform in the 1990s

Frances O’Shaughnessy

Ph.D. Candidate

University of Washington

Black Revolution on the Sea Islands:  Empire, Property, and the Emancipation of Humanity

Lauren Owens

Ph.D. Candidate

Florida State University

Managing Fertility and Reproductive Health in Eighteenth-Century France

Fabian Prieto-Ñañez

Assistant Professor

Virginia Tech

Infrastructures for Open Skies:  The Impact of US Domestic Satellites on Media Distribution in the Americas in the 1980s

Amy Sopcak-Joseph

Assistant Professor

Wilkes University

Fashioning American Women:  Godey’s Lady’s Book, Consumers, and Periodical Publishing in the Nineteenth Century

H. B. du Pont Fellowship

Peter Kovacs

Independent Scholar

Big Tobacco and American Broadcasting, 1923-1971

Jayita Sarkar

Senior Lecturer

University of Glasgow

Atomic Capitalism:  A Global History

Sydney Watts

Associate Professor

University of Richmond

The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey:  Borderlands Migration in the Atlantic World, 1763-1815

Che Yeun

Ph.D. Candidate

Harvard University

Technologies of Cleanliness and Modern American Bodies, 1890-1970

Hagley Exploratory Research Grants

These grants support one-week visits by scholars who believe that their project will benefit from Hagley research collections, but need the opportunity to explore them on-site to determine if a Henry Belin du Pont Fellowship application is warranted. Priority will be given to junior scholars with innovative projects that seek to expand on existing scholarship. Applicants should reside more than 50 miles from Hagley, and the stipend is $400. Application deadlines: March 31, June 30 and October 31

Henry Belin du Pont Fellowships

These research grants enable scholars to pursue advanced research and study in the collections of the Hagley Library. They are awarded for the length of time needed to make use of Hagley collections for a specific project. The stipends are for a maximum of eight weeks and are pro-rated at $400/week for recipients who reside further than 50 miles from Hagley, and $200/week for those within 50 miles. Application deadlines: March 31, June 30 and October 31

Henry Belin du Pont Dissertation Fellowships

This fellowship is designed for graduate students who have completed all course work for the doctoral degree and are conducting research on their dissertation. Applications should demonstrate superior intellectual quality, present a persuasive methodology for the project, and show that there are significant research materials at Hagley pertinent to the dissertation. This is a residential fellowship with a term of four months. The fellowship provides $6,500, free housing on Hagley’s grounds, mail and internet access, and an office. Application deadline: November 15

Hagley Seminar on Business, Culture & Politics

Steph

Building on the long legacy of the Hagley Research seminar, the Hagley Seminar on Business, Culture, and Politics features original and creative work-in-progress essays that make use of business history sources. 

All seminars are held on Zoom between noon and 1:30 p.m. Eastern USA time. Seminars are based on a paper that is circulated in advance. Preregistration is required and space is limited. To find registration links as well as additional information on the seminars, please go to https://www.hagley.org/research/research-seminars. Questions may be sent to Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org. 

2023 Spring Seminar Series

February 22, noon-1:30

Moeko Yamazaki, University of Oregon

“Making the World on Time: The Vietnam War, Deregulation and the Birth of FedEx”

Comment: Marc Levinson, Independent Scholar

April 5, noon-1:30

Angus McLeod, University of Pennsylvania

“Schools and Economic Development in Antebellum Texas”

Comment: John Majewski, University of California, Santa Barbara

May 3, noon-1:30

Brent Cebul, University of Pennsylvania

 “Creating the Intern: Philanthropy, Universities, and the New Deal”

Comment: Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Loyola University of Chicago

Call for Proposals – the Hagley Seminar on Business, Culture, and Politics

Steph

Building on the 30-year legacy of the Hagley Research seminar, The Hagley Seminar on Business and Culture will feature innovative work in progress essays that expand the boundaries of studies using business history sources. The seminar seeks unpublished papers that place commercial activity, and the institutions that generate and regulate such, within the dynamics of the cultures in which they are embedded. 

Papers should be empirically rich, conceptually framed, and offer an original argument or set of insights. Ideally papers will be at a point of development that the author will be able to change the text in response to seminary comments. Papers eithers accepted or under consideration for publication are not eligible. While we look forward to sharing work that makes use of Hagley’s research collections, papers need not do so to be considered for inclusion in the seminar series. 

The papers will be pre-circulated to seminar participants and commentators. It will meet virtually, facilitating the participation of scholars outside of the immediate neighborhood of Hagley’s Wilmington, Delaware campus. It will meet from noon until 1:30 EST to facilitate participation of scholars from a range of time zones. 

To propose a paper, please submit a draft of between 4,000 and 14,000 words (including notes); if you plan to expand the text for the seminar, also include information on your plans to do so. Please also include a 150 word abstract, brief summary of sources used, and a cv of no more than 2 pages. These materials should go to Carol Lockman, clockman@Hagley.org. Suggestions for commentators on the paper are welcome. Currently we are scheduling papers for our spring 2023 series, but proposals will be considered on a rolling basis and the author is encouraged to suggest a good month for them to present. 

Hagley Library – Avon Archive event 7 May (Zoom)

Steph

AVON: AN INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON ITS ARCHIVE

Sponsored by the Hagley Library, Wilmington DE

Friday May 7, 9 am – 12 noon EST via Zoom

In the 20 years since Avon Products, Inc., deposited its records at Hagley Library they have become one of our most popular research collections. A virtual event on May 7 will bring attention to their contribution to history. 

Avon Products, Inc., is one of the oldest direct selling companies in America. It traces its origins to 1886, when David H. McConnell bought the Union Publishing Company and started manufacturing perfumes to give away with his books. McConnell discovered that his customers were more interested in the fragrances than the books, so he decided to concentrate on selling perfumes. The business was renamed the California Perfume Company (CPC) in an effort to associate its products with the perceived beauty of the Golden State.

From the beginning, CPC sold directly to the consumer through a national network of sales representatives, primarily women, who were looking for economic opportunity and flexible part-time employment. In 1929, CPC introduced the Avon brand in an effort to modernize its image. The corporation was renamed Avon Products, Inc. in 1950. Avon rapidly expanded into the international market during the 1950s and 1960s, principally Latin America and Europe. By the early 1970s, Avon International operated in sixteen countries. 

Speakers at the event will come from around the USA and Europe and discuss Avon’s activities in the United States, Brazil, and Italy, as well as its efforts to reach out to African American women and diversity its American salesforce. The event’s keynote will be offered by Katina Manko, who helped bring the Avon Collection to Hagley. Manko’s book, Ding Dong! Avon Calling!: The Women and Men of Avon Products, Incorporated will be published in June.  Full details of the forum at https://www.hagley.org/avon-international-forum-its-archive .

Katina Manko, Independent Scholar, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!: The Women and Men of Avon Products, Incorporated”

Jessica Burch, Denison University, “‘Soap and Hope’: Direct Sales and the Culture of Work and Capitalism in Postwar America”

Jessica Chelekis, Brunel Business School, “Avon in the Brazilian Amazon: Direct Sales and Consumption among Vulnerable Communities”

Lindsey Feitz, University of Denver, “Creating a Multicultural Soul: Avon, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Race in the 1970s”

Shawn Moura, Director of Research at NAIOP, “Exploring Avon’s Encounter with Gender, Race, and Class in Brazil, 1958-1975”

Emanuela Scarpellini, University of Milan, “Transnational Beauty: Avon International and the Case of Italy”

Advance registration is required to view the pre-circulated papers and to participate in the conference sessions; there is no fee to register.  Register at https://www.hagley.org/research/conferences/avon-forum-conference-registration