What is the New Deal? During the election of 1932, Americans did not know what it was, but they knew that they wanted whatever it was. Dr. James Kimble’s research is on the history of this term from the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt first spoke it in the summer of 1932 to when he took office in March of 1933. Throughout the campaign season, FDR never defined what the “New Deal” meant and let the voters decide what it meant for themselves. One of the main ways he accomplished this was by reaching out to the electorate through the still new technology of radio, where he proved to be an effective communicator. At the same time, Chairman of the DNC, John J. Raskob and prior supporter of Democratic candidate for the presidency Alfred Smith, became a critic of FDR and the New Deal. Kimble’s research traces the origins of the term New Deal and Raskob’s evolving criticism of it and FDR.

Dr. Kimble is a Professor of Communication and Arts at Seton Hall University and is a historian of domestic propaganda with an interest in FDR’s presidency. While at Hagley he used the Ernest Dichter who collected listenership data for FDR’s radio addresses and John J. Raskob papers for his evolving views on FDR and the Democratic party. His forthcoming book on this project will be published in 2025 or 2026.

Dr. Kimble received support from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library. For more information on funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

New York City played a starring role in the story of American broadcast media, perhaps especially when it came to television. The city was both a major market for television, a proving ground for television techniques and technologies, and an on-screen character in televised news and entertainment. The very physicality of the city, with its canyon-like streets and towering steel and concrete edifices, played a material role in the development and popularization of American television.

Historian and media scholar Richard Popp, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, is working on a book project exploring the close inter-relationship between New York City and broadcast media, with a focus on television and its associated industries and politics. Using numerous Hagley collections, including the RCA archive, the David Sarnoff papers, and the Margolies collection of travel ephemera, Dr. Popp uncovers a fascinating story of first adopters, regulators, and a society grappling with new, potent technologies.

In support of his work, Popp received aid from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, please visit us online at hagley.org.

Artists bring a unique perspective to historical archives. Like any other researchers, they examine documents and collections to learn about their subject. Where their methods diverge is to use archival sources to shape the form and meaning of art created in two and three dimensions. The experiences of past people, accessed through the documents they left behind, can breathe life into the materials worked by an artist’s hands.

Visual artist Emily Baker, assistant professor of sculpture at Georgia State University, specializes in metalworking. When she encountered the repeated claim that nylon is stronger than steel, she wanted to learn more about the material, its production, and its meaning. Conducting research in the DuPont Company archives held in the Hagley Library, Baker gathered a treasure trove of context information and specific examples of nylon being linked to consumer psychology. Most notable in this connection was the frequent reference made in the archive to sex and gender roles and boundaries and their relevance to nylon.

In support of her work, Baker received a grant from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

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. For more information and more Hagley History Hangouts visit hagley.org.

In this episode of Hagley History Hangout Roger Horowitz sits down with Alex Taylor to discuss his new book, Forms of Persuasion: Art and Corporate Image in the 1960s, the first dedicated history of corporate patronage in post-war art. Taylor’s book considers how a wide range of artists were deeply immersed in the marketing strategies of big business during the 1960s and explored with multinational corporations new ways to use art for commercial gain. From Andy Warhol’s work for packaged goods manufacturers to Richard Serra’s involvement with the steel industry, Taylor demonstrates how major artists of the period provided brands with “forms of persuasion” that bolstered corporate power, prestige, and profit. Drawing on extensive original research conducted in artist, gallery, and corporate archives, Taylor recovers a flourishing field of promotional initiatives that saw artists, advertising creatives, and executives working around the same tables.

Alex J. Taylor is associate professor of art and visual culture at the University of Pittsburgh.

For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library, join us online at hagley.org.

What archive could possibly give you a total view of American business practice in the twentieth century? What industry touched and participated in nearly every other industry? What firm yields insight into a cavalcade of firms in one fell swoop? The answer to all of these questions is the BBD&O advertising agency archive held in the Hagley Museum & Library.

Cynthia Meyers, professor emerita of Communication, Art, & Media at College of Mount Saint Vincent, has dedicated her career to uncovering the incredible stories of American advertising on twentieth-century airwaves. Her work highlights the significance of the BBD&O advertising firm and its archive to our understanding of business, culture, and technology as they evolved over the twentieth century. Whether your research interest lies in firms such as GM, GE, DuPont, Lever Bros, Proctor & Gamble; or in the details of radio and television production; or in the social dynamics of race and gender; or in a multitude of other directions, the advertising agency and market research collections held in the Hagley Library hold unique promise as a rich resource.

For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library, visit us online at hagley.org.

Cognitive changes occur across the human lifespan, with consequences for economic conditions. How people have understood these changes, and managed their interaction with life and work has changed over time. As industrialization sped up work, and enhanced the wealth of society, social scientists and business leaders struggled to better understand the aging process, and to address its implications in the workplace.

In his dissertation project, James Leach, PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, uncovers the status of old age and retirement in the American corporate workplace between 1945 and 1986. During these decades, as more Americans considered pensions, social security, and freedom from poverty in old age to be theirs by right of membership in a rich, industrial, modern nation, corporations found ways to turn retirement to their own pecuniary advantage.

In support of his work, Leach received an exploratory grant from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society at the Hagley Museum & Library. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

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. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

Joe Plasky talks about his efforts interviewing as many people as he can who worked for DuPont’s Textile Fibers Department between 1950 and 2000.

Joe Plasky is a retired engineer from DuPont’s Textile Fibers Department and he has been collecting oral histories from former DuPont Textile Fibers employees for well over a decade. Every year, sometimes multiple times per year, Mr. Plasky deposits a batch of these oral histories with Hagley. Currently, the collection has approximately 260 interviews and counting. In this interview, Plasky talks about what inspired him to undertake a project of this size and how he feels the development of different kinds of polyesters, including Dacron and other fibers used for their elasticity in shapewear is an under-researched topic. He also shares some of the most interesting stories he’s heard while working on this project and shares what he hopes future researchers will be able to learn by utilizing these interviews.

The entirety of the Oral Hstory Interviews with Former Employees of DuPont Company's Textile Fibers Department collection is available here: https://digital.hagley.org/textile_fibers_interviews

For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

Even the most favored workers of the New Deal order, white male heads of households with unionized industrial jobs, faced economic uncertainty in the form of irregularity of work and earnings. These workers and their families made ends meet with a variety of “casual” work arrangements; seasonal labor, barter, family interdependence, etc. Much of the rest of the American labor force in the post-World War Two period was entirely dependent upon the casual labor sector for their livelihoods.

In her dissertation project, Maia Silber, PhD candidate in history at Princeton University, uncovers the experience of causal workers and their families in the 1940s and ‘50s United States. Drawing upon the varied archives of social workers, industrial firms, business organizations, and the labor-related institutions that emerged from the New Deal, Silber uncovers a social history of causal labor during the height of postwar American prosperity, when even relatively privileged workers had to improvise in order to survive.

To support her work, Silber received research grants from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on funding opportunities and research, visit us online at hagley.org.