Billboard/Outdoor Advertisements

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R. C. Maxwell Company Collection
The Maxwell Collection, housed at Duke University, presents a uniquely comprehensive record of regional outdoor advertising over a period of nearly 80 years. The Maxwell photographs are arranged chronologically by a numerical system devised by the company. Over 500 pre-1929 R.C. Maxwell Company images can be viewed on the Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 Web site. Hundreds of image descriptions (but without images) of R.C. Maxwell photographs dating between the 1910s and 1952 are available from the ROAD (Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions) database.

The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA)
This industry trade organization has roots in an association founded in 1891 and has saved documentation of its work and that of several member companies. The site provides an in-depth look at the outdoor industry for over 100 years.

Outdoor Advertising Collections in the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library
No images, but lots of historical information about outdoor advertising.

The Modern American Poster, Stewart Johnson
Billboards are considered by some to be a form of Americana; others see them as a scourge on the landscape. This readable history, written by a librarian at Fairleigh Dickinson University, covers the evolution of this outdoor advertising from the mid-19th-century days of itinerant billposters to today's slick ad campaigns. Fraser includes 166 choice illustrations in this oblong volume, representing graphic design trends, prominent artists, and classic ads. Though he considers how changing social concerns (war propaganda, anti-drug) are reflected on billboards, his focus remains on the advertising industry. (Library Journal)

Buyways : Billboards, Automobiles, and the American Landscape, Catherine Gudis
"By the second and third decades of the twentieth century it had already become obvious that the car was here to stay and that it would forever alter our daily lives. As the car bcame to be a routime part of the American way, the highway also became more than merely a route to be traveled. Among other things, the road now comprised a boundless marketplace [...] What of the pictures, forms, and words that populate the strip and the city, and that turn even the remotest highway with a billboard into a location of market relations? Integral to both the changing American landscape and to the diffusion of the market so that it isnow placeless, decentralized, and sojourning along every road has been the business of outdoor advertising." (from the author's introduction)

American Billboard : 100 Years, James Fraser
"The bold, framed, and freestanding billboard is an American invention. Its scale fits the American landscape and conveys its advertising message directly, without the distractions intrinsic to newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. [...] The following illustrated account celebrates this medium in America by calling attention to the entrepreneurs, artists, and companies that developed its potential." (from the author's preface)

Advertising Outdoors : Watch This Space!, David Bernstein
"[W]ho would have believed that in this internalized technological age the oldest form of outdoor information exchange, the poster, would still be one of the most popular? What then makes it such a unique form of advertising? [...] This book is a wonderful record of the achievement of the outdoor advertising industry from its earliest recorded manifestations to today's innovative developments." (from the foreword by John Hegarty)