Mixed Materials

Rosser Reeves papers, 1927-1994

Author / Creator
Reeves, Rosser
Available as
Physical
Summary

Papers of an advertising executive who was chairman of the board of Ted Bates & Co. Inc. The correspondence is comprised of both personal and business mail. Included are letters to and from clients...

Papers of an advertising executive who was chairman of the board of Ted Bates & Co. Inc.

The correspondence is comprised of both personal and business mail. Included are letters to and from clients and other advertising executives such as Fairfax M. Cone, Alfred A. Knopf, Gerard Lambert, Frank Hummert, David Ogilvy, and Alfred Politz. There is also significant correspondence reflecting his anti-Communist sentiments and his involvement in Republican politics both nationally and in New York from 1952 to 1964. Fragmentary files on Ted Bates & Co. include marketing plans and research, commercials and advertising copy, records of an FTC investigation and a tax trial to which the Bates agency was a party, and other miscellaneous material.

Advertising files include correspondence, research material, and drafts for "Reality in Advertising" (1961), which expressed his well-known "hard-sell philosophy," and correspondence for a proposed second book; speeches and articles by and about Reeves; and material on his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame. Concerning his political involvement is a box of material on the 1952 Eisenhower Presidential campaign and Thruston B. Morton's senatorial campaign in 1956. The diverse material on the Eisenhower campaign includes a film of spot advertisements.

Of more personal interest are poetry files and financial records relating to interests outside the Bates agency such as his publication of "Boats" magazine.

The processed portion of this collection is summarized above, dates 1927-1971, and is described in the finding aid. Additional accessions date to 1994 and are described in the holdings.

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