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 Most of the material is unpublished Crow pieces (and I’ll publish a few here soon), letters and Carl Crow Inc ephemera such as this ad.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.
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.
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
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!
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.