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Cities Service Oil Company "Dealerama" album

Creation: 1959 January Creation: 1962 Creation: undated
 Collection
Accession: 2020-211

Abstract

Cities Service Oil Company was an oil and natural gas company formed in 1959 after a Federal Court mandated that Cities Services Company divest its holdings as a result of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. A souvenir album from the first annual Dealerama, a trade show held by Cities Service Oil Company to encourage service stations to increase their advertising. The trade show was a two day event in January of 1959 that took place at the Hotel Statler-Hilton in New York. The materials in the album are primarily photographs of exhibitions or booths that demonstrate a varity of products. There are a small set of materials that were laid into the album.

Dates

  • Creation: 1959 January
  • Creation: 1962
  • Creation: undated

Extent

1 volume(s)

Physical Description

6 photographic prints : b&w ; 8 x 10 in. 3 contact sheets. 1 newsletter. 1 album ; 9 x 12 in. (closed) containing ; 20 photographic prints : color ; 7.5 x 9.5 in. 23 photographic prints : b&w ; 7.5 x 9.5 in. 1 exhibit map. 1 postcard. 1 folded double-sided poster brochure, lithograph : color ; 22 x 34 in. laid in (offsetting on one panel from old glue). 1 newspaper clipping.

Historical Note

Cities Service Oil Company was an oil and natural gas company formed in 1959 after a Federal Court mandated that Cities Services Company divest its holdings as a result of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

Cities Service Company was established in 1910 by Henry Latham Doherty (1870-1939) as a public utility holding company. The company was headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Cities Services owned oil refineries and services stations across the country. In 1964 the company began to operate as CITGO.

Scope and Contents

A souvenir album from the first annual Dealerama, a trade show held by Cities Service Oil Company to encourage service stations to increase their advertising, what products to sell, the latest in cross-promotions, and raise morale for the reconsituted company. The materials in the album are primarily photographs of exhibitions or booths that demonstrate a varity of products. There are a small set of materials that were laid into the album. The trade show was a two day event in January of 1959 that took place at the Hotel Statler-Hilton in New York.

The booths include a miniature model tire manufacturing at U.S. Rubber; tire changing equipment at Jack P. Hennessy; uniform fashions from Unitog Co.; and a demonstration of fuel economy from Ethyl Corp. There are also entertainment booths such as a shooting gallery, dart shooting, a photograph booth, and a food buffet. The photographs provide a visual guide for oil and service station product packaging; advertisments; promotional displays.

Some of the images do not include people, some only have the employees or booth attendants, and some photographs include both. The album begins with an exhibit map, followed by an oversized folded poster that at one time was pasted into the album, but is now loose. The poster is a lithograph that is double-sided. There is one newspaper clipping about the event from the Gasoline Retailer dated February 4, 1959 and one large postcard laid-in. The remaining album are the photographs from the event of the empty exhibition hall, and then filled with attendees.

Among the laid-in items: There is one issue of Pike-Ways, the Cities Services Oil Company magazine, volume XI, issue 8, published August 1962. There are a set of photographs and contact sheets of a couple and their children being presented a gift at a service station by executives, the circumstances, date, and identities are unknown. There is another photograph of a group of sales people in a room with a display that says "Advertising that Sells" in Harrisonburg, Virigina, the image is undated.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Language of Materials

English

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title:
Cities Service Oil Company "Dealerama" album
Author:
Laurie Sather
Date:
2020
Description rules:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description:
English
Script of description:
Latin

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Audiovisual Collections Repository

Contact:
PO Box 3630
Wilmington Delaware 19807 USA
302-658-2400