Priority Subject Areas Supported by Centers

• Advertising and Marketing History
• African and African-American Studies
• Women's Studies
• Documentary Photography

Collecting in four subject areas is sufficiently intensive and central to the Library's mission that the resources of a Research Center (each possessing an individual director/resource specialist, assigned staff, and special funding) have been dedicated to those priorities. These areas and their associated centers are:

Advertising and Marketing History

John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History

Existing Collection Strengths: Records of advertising agencies, including the J. Walter Thompson Company, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, and others; records of trade associations such as the Outdoor Advertising Association of America; personal papers of advertising executives; television commercials; collections of subject and company-oriented advertising images.

Current Collecting Focuses: Materials noted above; books and journals relating to advertising and marketing.

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African and African-American Studies

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African-American Documentation

Existing Collection Strengths: Personal papers and records of important national, regional, and local African-American individuals and institutions, including the William Grant Still papers and the Asa and Elna Spaulding Papers; 18th-19th-century plantation records; records of the "Behind the Veil" Jim Crow-era oral history project; records of the Africa News Service; personal papers of American missionaries; materials concerning the British presence in Africa.

Current Collecting Focuses: Areas noted above; 20th-century intellectuals (African-American, racially-focused, and/or trans-Atlantic); 20th-century literature and expressive culture (particularly post-Harlem Renaissance); racial consciousness in Brazil; African diaspora.

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Women's Studies

Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

Existing Collection Strengths: Women's liberation and feminist activism; women's domestic and social life; prescriptive literature; personal papers and works of women writers; women and education; women and religion; Southern women's history.

Current Collecting Focuses: Feminist activism and theory; prescriptive literature; African-American women's history and culture; lesbian activism and literature (i.e., lesbian pulp fiction); personal papers and works of women writers; artists' books by women; women's publishing.

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Documentary Photography

Duke Archive of Documentary Photography

Existing Collection Strengths: Photograph collections and personal papers of important 20th-century photographers such as William Gedney.

Current Collecting Focuses: Photograph collections and personal papers of national and regional photographers; collections of prints taken from exhibitions and elsewhere.

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