Finding Aids

Avon Products, Inc. is a manufacturer and direct selling company of beauty products. It is one of the oldest direct selling companies in America. The company was founded in 1886 by David H. McConnell (1856-1937) as the California Perfume Company (CPC). McConnell established a manufacturing headquarters and research laboratory in Suffern, New York, in the 1890s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, CPC expanded its line of products to include cosmetics, household cleaners, food flavorings, and toiletries. The collection consists of photographs, negatives, slides, films, videos and sound recordings date from 1856 to 2000. The materials depict Avon products, their manufacture, packaging and sale, Avon employees and representatives and the offices, laboratories, factories and other structures owned by Avon Products, Inc. The collection is organized into ten series: Administration, Conferences, Non-sales employees, Domestic locations, International locations, Public relations, Sales managers and representatives, Selling methods and sales aids, Company history and philosophy, and Library, music, and museum.

Campbell Soup Company is a processed food manufacturing corporation based in the United States. Founded in 1869, the Campbell Soup Company primarily sold canned vegetables, soups, and other non-perishable items until 1897, when the development of a method to produce flavorful condensed soup propelled the company to one of the largest food corporations in the world. The collection consists of five films produced by the Campbell Soup Company sales department from 1940 through the 1960s, focusing on sales personnel training and company promotions.

The Coca-Cola Company is a software beverage manufacturer. It was formulated in 1886 by Dr. John Stith Pemberton (1831-1888) as a medicinal syrup for headaches. The company has since evolved into a corporation producing beverages and associated products. This small collection is a 1949 salesman training kit. Researchers interested in merchandise and training procedures regarding the Coca-Cola Company would find this collection useful.

Chemists at DuPont’s Parlin, New Jersey laboratory produced a pyroxylin lacquer in 1920 called Viscolac and improved upon it in the following years and renamed it Duco. In the late 1920s Dulux was developed, which was an alkyd finish and had a higher gloss finish; a matte version of Dulux was also developed. This collection is a packet of advertising and sales aids for dealers of DuPont Duco and Dulux paints and finishes.

MCI Communications Corporation (MCI) was a large telecommunications company. It was organized in October 1963 in Joliet, Illinois, by John D. (Jack) Goeken (1930-2010), as Microwave Communications, Inc. Goeken and his partners were planning to provide point-to-point private line microwave communications between Chicago and St. Louis to small businesses. This large collection documents the activities of the MCI Communications Corporation and its subsidiaries as well as the development of a competitive telecommunications industry in the United States and worldwide. The materials focus on MCI corporate life, public relations, technical operations, and sales and marketing activities. A vast amount of videotapes makes up a significant portion of the MCI collection, however, there are also photographs, slides, digital files, and audio cassette tapes.

'Sponsored film' defines a variety of motion picture productions funded by businesses, organizations, or governments that dictate the film's point of view, audience, and intent. Industrial or business films are a subgenre of sponsored films with content that markets products and ideas, touts a particular company or industry, trains employees, and explains manufacturing or transactional processes around creating and selling products and ideas. The Sponsored and Industrial Motion Picture Film Collection at Hagley is an artificial collection compiled by curators that includes single motion picture films or small sets of films acquired via purchase or donation.

The Zanol Products Company was a door-to-door consumer goods distributor. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio circa 1908, Zanol developed its own line of household products which the company sold directly to consumers via door-to-door representatives. This collection consists of one salesman's case containing pamphlets, trade cards, trade catalogs, sewing needle cases, books of blank order forms, and other ephemera from the Zanol Products Company.