The Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive at the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

is a depository for political television and radio commercials. The purpose of the archive is to preserve these materials while making them available for research. The Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive has been designated an official project by

Save America's Treasures Save America's Treasures is a United States federal government initiative to preserve and protect historic buildings, arts, and published works. It is a public–private partnership between the U.S. National Park Service and the National Trust fo ...

History

In 1950, Julian P. Kanter started work in the

television industry Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

.Jenson White, Kathryn (1986). "The Media and the Message Merchants." ''Sooner Magazine'' 6: 3-8 From his time working in television, Kanter observed that most political ads were thrown away after their election cycles had ended because the candidates' campaigns often didn't ask for them back. Thus in 1956, Kanter, believing the ads were of historical importance, created a private archive from the

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

and 1956 presidential elections. By 1983, the University of Oklahoma's communications department made space for the political communication center in Kaufmen Hall. In 1985, the University of Oklahoma and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

competed to purchase Kanter's archive, which at this point contained over 25,000 commercials. Ultimately, the University of Oklahoma won out with a bid of $250,000 in special appropriations. Though money was part of his decision, other reasons that Kanter cited were that he liked the idea of a multi-disciplinary facility working in political communication. Another reason was that the University of Oklahoma offered to make him

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of the archive and made him an adjunct professor of political communication; contributing to education was something he'd always wanted. Mr. Kanter served as the archive's curator for ten years. Kanter died on December 5, 2011.

Today

As of 2016, the archive holds approximately 160,000 commercials and is the most comprehensive collection of political advertisements in the world. The commercials date back to 1936 for radio and 1950 for television.Political Communication Center, Univ. of Oklahoma
/ref> More than 65% of the archive's total holdings and more than 80% of its film holdings are not found anywhere else.Riechers, Maggie (1999). "Low Blows and High Rhetoric." ''Humanities'' 20: 32-35 A refrigeration unit, kept at 35 degrees Fahrenheit preserves 5,600 political film ads. The archive contains original masters on many different formats, such as 2-inch

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasse ...

, 3/4-inch videotape,

audiotape An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its presen ...

, 1-inch videotape,

16 mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...

, and 1/2-inch videocassette. As a result of a grant from Save America's Treasures, the material in the archive has been digitized. A 500-gig hard drive contains ads from two of the presidential campaigns that the archive has had stored. The archive is now part of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center'sbr>Congressional and Political Collections
The archive is located in Burton Hall on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.

References

External links

{{authority control University of Oklahoma Political campaign advertisements Archives in the United States