Selling a Coke and a Smile

Photo by Mark Zupan.

As the adage goes, Coca-Cola sells itself. The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History’s recently-acquired Coca-Cola Star Salesman Kit might just suggest otherwise. This collection of training materials—including scripted manuals, 35mm film strips with accompanying phonographs, and other training memorabilia housed in a special green suitcase—was created by the Coca-Cola Company’s Sales Promotion Department between 1949 and 1951. The company encouraged route managers to purchase the Star Salesman Kit as a subscription program to educate their salesmen in the latest marketing techniques.

Designed as a series of one hour sessions, the Star Salesman Kit covers eight topics relevant to the company’s goal of increasing route sales, such as merchandising (“It’s Got to Be Sold”), and advertising (“What’s on Your Mind”). In addition, the kit includes training material for best practices in stocking product, refrigeration, and the use of the “red cooler” and vending machines in various outlets.

While most of the Star Salesman Kit is geared toward increasing sales to vendors, the materials do give special attention to instructing route salesmen how to promote Coca-Cola sales to the home market—particularly to the housewife. The session, “The Woman in Your Life,” encouraged the route salesman to market directly to women through techniques such as floor displays and product placement in outlets where women shopped for the home.

The Star Salesman Kit provides a glimpse into the sales and marketing culture of the Coca-Cola Company, the organization of its sales department, training practices, and even refrigeration technology. At the same time, the Star Salesman Kit offers some insights into mid-20th-century social and cultural issues, demonstrating, perhaps, why no other consumer product is a more iconic symbol of American culture than Coca-Cola.

Post contributed by Diana Poythress, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer. Thanks to Alexandra Bickel, RBMSCL Technical Services graduate student volunteer, for her assistance with this post.

From the RBMSCL Wire

Boy lying on couch, reading comics. From the William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1950s-1989.

Sure, you could lie on a couch and read comic books, but why not have a look at some of the articles and blog posts about the RBMSCL that have been published recently?

A profile of Susie King Taylor appears at TheAtlantic.com. (Read the post here). Taylor's Reminiscences of My Life in Camp is part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture's Black Voices Collection.

Our new exhibit, "'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society," found itself on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun. (Read the article online.)

And Hartman Center travel grant recipient Ari Samsky wrote about his two-week research visit to the RBMSCL for web magazine Splice Today. You'll find his essay—which makes us glad that Durham's cooled off considerably in the past few days—here.

Let us know if you find any other mentions of the RBMSCL during your wanderings across the Internet and through print.

Photo Op with the AOTUS

During the recent Society of American Archivists (SAA) meeting in Washington, D.C., several RBMSCL staff members received a very special tour of the National Archives. Former Duke University Librarian and current Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, gave the group a personal tour of his office.The group (click photo to enlarge) is gathered here under the portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which hangs in Ferriero’s office. (The National Archives began during Roosevelt’s administration.)

Ferriero, who has been AOTUS since last November, regaled the group with stories of great documents housed in the Archives. He recently examined Walt Whitman’s federal employee file (he was briefly employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs). In the file was a five page letter of reference—written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Post contributed by Tim Pyatt, Duke University Archivist.

Books, Boys, and Beastly Bats

We were charmed by this advice from educator Marcius Willson's The School and Family Primer, published in 1860 as an introductory text to his series of four readers for children. It sounds very much like the advice we give to our researchers on a daily basis. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

(We're also agog at the two pictures chosen to illustrate the letter "B." Confronted by such a gigantic bat, the boy's nonchalance is decidedly impressive.)

"'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society"

Date: 3 August-10 October 2010
Location and Time: Perkins Library Gallery during library hours
Contact Information: Meg Brown, meg.brown(at)duke.edu

Arrows, Possibly from the Fiji Islands. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan

The Duke University Archives is home to scores of manuscripts, records, and publications documenting Duke University's history—and a set of fierce arrows possibly from the Fiji Islands; a pair of wooden shoe soles bought by a former slave in 1865; and two cloth-covered buttons from the clothing of Louis XVI.

These and other artifacts—along with manuscripts and historically-significant publications—once belonged to the collection of the Trinity College Historical Society, a student organization established in 1892 to encourage original research in Southern history. Their collection, the precursor to the RBMSCL and the University Archives, forms the subject of our new exhibit, "'As Far as Possible from Forgetfulness': The Trinity College Historical Society."

Pewter Wig Sprayer. From the Trinity College Historical Society Collection. Photo by Mark Zupan.

Assuming the leadership of the Society in 1894, professor of history John Spencer Bassett renewed the Society’s charge to collect manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and objects of enduring historical value, including those artifacts mentioned above. He addressed his undergraduate collectors and historians in 1897, telling them that they would "be doing work for eternity . . . [and] centering the eyes of the centuries on this institution." This exhibit is proof of their legacy.

For more information about the Trinity College Historical Society and its collections, or if you won't be able to visit the exhibit in person, visit the exhibit website. Photos of the exhibit’s installation are available on the RBMSCL's Flickr photostream.

And remember to mark your calendars for a gallery talk with the exhibit's curators on Tuesday, September 28 at 3:30 PM in the Rare Book Room!

Celebrating Feminists of Faith

Date: Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Kelly Wooten, 919-660-5967 or kelly.wooten(at)duke.edu

Tibbie Roberts and B Holt at the 75th Anniversary of the NC Council of Churches. Courtesy of Jeanette Stokes.

Please join the staff of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture for an afternoon honoring women of faith who have contributed their papers to the Center's growing collection of materials documenting women's religious experiences and activities, particularly personal spiritual struggles and women's involvement in Protestant religious organizations.

We will be celebrating the contributions of Diane Weddington, Bett Hargrave, Bertha "B" Holt, Tibbie Roberts, Nancy Peeler Keppel, and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South.

This program is sponsored by the Bingham Center and the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. Light refreshments will be served.

Post contributed by Kelly Wooten, Research Services and Collection Development Librarian for the Sallie Bingham Center of Women's History and Culture.