The R.C. Maxwell Company Records span the years 1891-2001 and include photographs and negatives, videocassettes, ledgers and account books, scrapbooks, correspondence and legal papers relating to the company's operations in outdoor advertising. Photographs and negatives in several formats (film, glass negatives, polaroid prints) document billboard designs for a variety of advertisers as well as depicting billboard and electric sign structures and their location relative to the surrounding environment. Urban locations include Times Square in New York and the Atlantic City, N.J., Boardwalk, where a number of photographs also document the Miss America beauty pageant parade and other parades in which the R.C. Maxwell Company participated. A few photographs document billboard construction and erection; there are also photographs of the Maxwell family and of Maxwell company staff and employees. Scrapbooks contain images of billboards and wall paintings produced by the Maxwell company as well as by David L. Clark, a High Point, N.C. artist and sign painter who was R.C. Maxwell's guardian. Other scrapbooks document primarily Coca-Cola signs of the early 20th century, as well as World War I support efforts including the U.S. Food Administration (under the direction of Herbert Hoover), the U.S. Fuel Administration, and Liberty Bond campaigns. Companies represented in the collection include the Boardwalk Advertising Signs Co., C&B Electric Signs Co., Trenton Advertising Co., and Trenton Poster Advertising Co.
Approximately 15,000 photographs, dating up to around 1952, have been described in the searchable ROAD Database (Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions). The numbered and indexed black-and-white photographs and negatives (along with a limited number of glass negatives) include images of billboard and electric spectacular executions (illuminated billboards); road shots showing the approach views to billboard structures; images of Maxwell advertising structures; and images of urban and rural billboard displays in various states, primarily Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including a number of images of Times Square in New York and the Atlantic City, N.J. boardwalk. Because the majority of photographs show the billboards in their surroundings, the images provide a snapshot of the people and buildings near the billboard.
| Date |
Event |
| 1873 | R. (Robert) C. (Chester) Maxwell born |
| 1870s? | David L. Clark, an artist who worked in the southeastern US and lived in High Point, N.C., adopted R.C. Maxwell. |
| 1880s? | Ran away from the home of David L. Clark; eventually became a sign painter. |
| 1894 | Founded an outdoor advertising firm, the R.C. Maxwell Company of Trenton, N.J., at age 21. |
| 1917-1918 | During World War I, he served as chief of the Outdoor Advertising Section of the Public Information Division, U.S. Food Administration |
| 1919 | The company began creating electric advertising signs. |
| 1923 | R.C. Maxwell Company merged with the Trenton Poster Advertising Company and moved to the building at 725 E. State Street in Trenton, N.J. |
| 1920s | R.C. Maxwell Company established the Electric Sign Manufacturing Plant in Atlantic City, N.J. to create electric "spectacular" signs. |
| 1954 | R.C. Maxwell died. |
| 2000 | R.C. Maxwell Company sold to Interstate Outdoor. |
R.C. Maxwell Company of Trenton, N.J., was one of the earliest enduring outdoor advertising companies. Founded in 1894 by Robert Chester Maxwell (1873-1954), the business followed burgeoning industry trends, beginning with a variety of outdoor advertising signage along New Jersey and New York roadways as well as at tourist destinations like Atlantic City, N.J., and New York's Times Square. With the commercial development of the incandescent bulb after World War I, the company began creating electric advertising signs in 1919. Maxwell saw great potential in these "spectacular" signs and established the Electric Sign Manufacturing Plant in Atlantic City, N.J. in the 1920s. This subsidiary created such giant ads as a 50-foot Colgate thermometer that was placed atop a building on the Atlantic City Boardwalk in 1922. The billboards and spectaculars themselves served as a form of advertising for the company, which displayed slogans such as "Maxwell Did It" and "Maxwell Hits" alongside its client's signs. R.C. Maxwell owned numerous billboards in Atlantic City, N.J., and a large number of pictures in this collection are located on the Atlantic City boardwalk.
Processed by Po Chin Tan, Stacey Clarke, Ginny Daley, Stephen Dobson, Lynn Eaton, Tony Cashman, Andrew Van Kirk, Sarah Van Kirk, June 10, 2003; additional processing by Richard Collier, January 2011
Encoded by Po Chin Tan, Richard Collier, Lynn Eaton, Sarah Van Kirk
Completed January 2011
Accessions 96-158, 96-173, 98-271, 98-277, 98-369, 98-463, 2000-0386, 2001-0176, 2001-0238, 2002-0129, 2005-0114 were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
Processing of this collection was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thanks are extented to Mr. Maxwell's son, David Maxwell, for providing background information for the collection.
