All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French

Carl Crow Provides Posters in Outports

Posted: February 22nd, 2011 | 4 Comments »

I was recently sorting through my box of papers referring to Carl Crow who I wrote a biography of some years back (see here). Most of the material is unpublished Crow pieces (and I’ll publish a few here soon), letters and Carl Crow Inc ephemera such as this ad. This ad is from 1928 and highlights Crow’s poster business outside Shanghai – Crow had the largest billboard ad network in China and made good money of the business. You’ll see here his terms – so I guess this makes this an interesting document for anyone researching how advertising worked in China between the World Wars.

I love the idea of sending a chit to request a meeting! That’s very old Shanghai.


4 Comments on “Carl Crow Provides Posters in Outports”

  1. 1 Mikecheck said at 1:15 am on February 25th, 2011:

    I really need to read your book about Carl Crow. He was such an interesting person in a fascinating place at an amazing time. I have his 1913 Traveler’s Handbook to China in my classroom.

  2. 2 Paul French said at 1:57 am on March 4th, 2011:

    Your wish is Amazon’s command – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carl-Crow-Adventures-American-Shanghai/dp/9622098029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299175026&sr=8-1

  3. 3 Cécile Armand said at 5:06 pm on April 23rd, 2014:

    Thanks for publishing this ad – the very practical information it gives about Crow’s poster business – especially during the interwar years – are really precious for historians. I look forward to the next materials you are to publish…
    I have read your book with great interest. As a PhD Student in History studying advertising in Modern Shanghai I am wondering whether Carl Crow Inc. archives have been preserved and whether you have used them? I am currently struggling to locate them and think they have been lost or destroyed… Thanks for your help!

  4. 4 Paul French said at 5:12 pm on April 23rd, 2014:

    Cecile

    Crow’s personal archive is housed at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri. It is not online I’m afraid and very little refers to advertising – he sold the business to Chinese interests after leaving Shanghai in the late 1930s and these records appear to be lost or destroyed in the subsequent chaos. A copy of the personal archives is also available at the Royal Asiatic Society – Shanghai library in Shanghai.

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