Benton & Bowles, 1929-1986 and undated

Scope and content:

The Benton and Bowles Files comprise the largest part of the Archives. They include print advertisements; over 500 films; significant documents relating to the work of the agency; photographs; and corporate publications. The series spans the years 1929 to 1985 with most of the material dating from the 1950s-on. Materials include internal memoranda; reports; speeches; printed material (manuals, leaflets, pamphlets, and house organs); photographs; research notes; credentials; employee training material; press releases and clippings; book manuscripts; audio tapes of oral history interviews; and financial papers. The Benton & Bowles Files provide documentation of the history of print and television advertising; television programming; the history of the B&B agency and its corporate culture; corporate communications; marketing research; and advertising executives. The earliest Items in the B&B Files are two small bank books recording account activity of the fledgling agency from 1929 to 1935 and copies of William ("Billie") Benton's long letters to his mother (1929-1938) in which he confides details of his new advertising agency as well as family matters. A small number of other Items date from the 1930s and 1940s and illustrate isolated aspects of the agency's business in that period. Files of various agency in-house publications begin in 1947 and provide the most complete and continuous views of Benton & Bowles, its clients, advertising campaigns, personnel, and various offices in the U.S. and abroad.

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