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This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies visual culture perspectives and methods to the research and writing of brand history. Iconic Western images featuring Winchester rifles have been selected, examined, and used as points of departure for gathering and interpreting additional data about the brand. The primary sources consist chiefly of photographs from the nineteenth century and films and television shows from the twentieth century. Most visual source materials were obtained from the US Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Internet Movie Firearms Database. These have been augmented by written sources.
Findings
Within a few years of the launch of the Winchester brand in 1866, visual images outside company control associated its repeating rifles with the settlement of the American West and with the colorful people involved. Some of these images were reproduced in books and others sold to consumers in the form of cartes de visite, cabinet cards and stereographs made from albumen prints. Starting in the 1880s, the live Wild West shows of William F. Cody and his stars entertained audiences with a heroic narrative of the period that included numerous Winchesters. During the twentieth century and into the present, Winchesters have been featured in motion pictures and television series with Western themes.
Research limitations/implications
Historical research is an ongoing process. The discovery of new primary data, both written and visual, may lead to a revised interpretation of the selected images.
Originality/value
Based largely on images as primary data sources, this study approaches brand history from the perspective of visual culture theory and data. The research shows how brands acquire meaning not just from the companies that own them but also from consumers, the media and other producers of popular culture.
Details
Keywords
Robert A. Henning and Terrence H. Witkowski
– This article aims to document and analyze how E. Remington & Sons built a valuable firearms brand through its advertising in the period 1854-1888.
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to document and analyze how E. Remington & Sons built a valuable firearms brand through its advertising in the period 1854-1888.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses qualitative methods. Primary source documents include newspapers, journals, and catalogs. The advertising analyzed came primarily from three periodicals – Harper's Weekly, The Army Navy Journal, and American Agriculturalist – that together reached a broad audience of American firearms consumers.
Findings
Advertising to both civilian and military markets, Remington used a number of appeals including expert testimonials, fears of robbery and home invasion, and boasts of quality, military contracts, and honors from shooting competitions. Until the late 1870s, Remington used manufacturer's advertising more than its competitors.
Originality/value
Business historians have not seriously addressed Remington or other gun advertising and branding during the nineteenth century, while firearms historians have largely relegated these ads and other promotional ephemera to illustrative accessory roles, not as subjects of independent consideration. By investigating the rise of this important firearms brand, the research sheds light on the evolution of the American firearms industry and the prevailing gun culture.
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Keywords
This paper aims to describe written and visual data sources useful for researching the history of advertising and marketing that are held in the collections of the McCracken…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe written and visual data sources useful for researching the history of advertising and marketing that are held in the collections of the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.
Design/methodology/approach
Knowledge of the McCracken collections has been acquired over several years of online searches and subsequent data analyses, communications with Library staff and from a personal visit to Cody in September 2021.
Findings
Several digital collections are surveyed. The Roy Marcot Firearms Advertisement Collection visually documents industry practices and also speaks to larger issues in American gun culture. The Winchester Publications provide insights via company magazines into product and management strategies, hardware retailing and visual merchandising tactics during the 1920s. The Schuyler, Hartley and Graham archive of business correspondence illustrate business-to-business marketing from the nineteenth through the early 20th century. The Buffalo Bill Collection reveals how the culturally important Wild West shows were promoted and experienced.
Originality/value
This paper familiarizes advertising and marketing historians with the primary sources in the McCracken Research Library and suggests some potential areas for study.
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Keywords
This study aims to present a history and critical analysis of arms and armor collecting in America from the late 19th century until the present day.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to present a history and critical analysis of arms and armor collecting in America from the late 19th century until the present day.
Design/methodology/approach
The research draws from the literature on arms and armor, from primary written, visual and material evidence, and from the author’s long experience as an antique gun and sword collector.
Findings
American arms and armor collectors have included men of great wealth, museums and their curators and many enthusiasts of more modest means. Collectors, dealers and curators have created a substantial arms literature. Collectors have organized around various types of artifacts, historical periods and company brands. Dealers, auction houses and manufacturers have provisioned the market with period pieces and reproductions.
Originality/value
The history of antique arms and armor collecting is regarded as a social activity where enthusiasts have pursued “serious leisure” through consumption and brand communities. This history is further analyzed as a cultural practice wherein generations of collectors have interpreted the meaning of antique arms and armor.
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Keywords
The printing press, steam engine, Winchester repeating rifle, automobile, and cable television are all technological advancements which commentators claimed would revolutionize…
Abstract
The printing press, steam engine, Winchester repeating rifle, automobile, and cable television are all technological advancements which commentators claimed would revolutionize society and dramatically alter the direction of civilization. The most recent technological development which has received similar adulation is known by a variety of labels including ‘Cyberspace,’ ‘the Information Superhighway, or simply ‘the Net.’ Increasingly, one hears that this latest innovation, heralded as the ‘Great Equalizer,’ will be the remedy for the world's social ills; especially those associated with the need for universal access to information and educational opportunities. However, like its predecessors, information technology is neither magic dust nor some kinetic elixir. Information technology is merely a tool, like so many others, that can be used at society's pleasure, in any number of ways, with no assurance that the outcome will be positive. In the 1990s, we are yet again confronted with what United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to as ‘the recurring temptation’ to assume that ‘some spectacular and costly action will become the miraculous solution to all current social and economic difficulties.’
The aim of this article is to detail the day to day experience of the Junior Cadet component of the Australian scheme of universal military service from 1911‐31. Its focus…
Abstract
The aim of this article is to detail the day to day experience of the Junior Cadet component of the Australian scheme of universal military service from 1911‐31. Its focus, therefore, is on describing the administrative and practical functioning of the Junior Cadet system. It does not, for example, seek to address issues such as the social or psychological impact of the scheme or its long‐term effects on the development of education in Australia. Nor does it explore questions of how or why the system evolved as it did. Such matters have been the subject of past, and will no doubt be the focus of future research. As space precludes an in depth investigation of all aspects of the practical conduct of the Junior Cadet scheme, a number of important themes will therefore be traced that, taken together, provide a reasonably full picture of how the system functioned. Beginning with its origins, the article traces the evolution of its purpose, organisation/structure, teacher‐officer instructional staff, training activities, and the eventual dismantling of the scheme. Building on the practice of military‐styled ‘drill’ in many colonial schools prior to Federation, and embedded in the wider theory and practice of universal military service, this scheme was (and remains) a unique experiment in the history of Australian education.
Dr. COLLINRIDGE, the Medical Officer of Health to the City of London, had occasion recently to call attention to the diseased condition of certain imported meats, and it is most…
Abstract
Dr. COLLINRIDGE, the Medical Officer of Health to the City of London, had occasion recently to call attention to the diseased condition of certain imported meats, and it is most disquieting to learn that some of these were apparently sent out from the country of origin under official certificates.
The report of the Departmental Committee on the Irish butter industry to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland was issued on March 23 as a…
Abstract
The report of the Departmental Committee on the Irish butter industry to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland was issued on March 23 as a parliamentary paper. Mr. J. R. CAMPBELL was chairman of the Committee, and the other members were Mr. T. CARROLL, Mr. E. G. HAYGARTH‐BROWN, Lord CARRICK, and Mr. A. POOLE WILSON, with Mr. D. J. MCGRATH as secretary. The Committee were appointed:—
In some ways the year that ends with this month—the year covered by the eighteenth volume of The Library World—has been a definitely bibliographical and indexing one. Librarians…
Abstract
In some ways the year that ends with this month—the year covered by the eighteenth volume of The Library World—has been a definitely bibliographical and indexing one. Librarians were never before furnished with so many aids to book‐selection, for example. Hitherto they have depended for exhaustive statements of the literary output of England upon The Publisher's Circular and The Times Literary Supplement, which invaluable aids they will continue to use, and for selective guides they have had recourse to the lists of best books in The Librarian and in The Library Association Record, with auxiliary service from the A.L.A Book List for American books. Now a formidable competitor to all these has arisen in the fully annotated, classified, and comprehensive monthly lists in The Athenæum, which are being published with the co‐operation of The Library Association. These lists, which are classified by Dewey, are in a sound library cataloguing form—and thus are superior to those in The Times Literary Supplement—and have been made selective by the starring of the best books. This work of starring has been undertaken by librarians, and in consequence of the appearance of the lists the Library Association has decided, wisely as we think, to cease publishing its own lists of best books in the L. A. Record. In guides to periodical literature we have the famous Readers' Guide, the excellent monthly issued by the H. W. Wilson Company, which is almost exclusively American—it indexes only eight British periodicals out of a total of ninety‐four—and for special and current use the excellent International Military Digest, issued monthly from New York, which reviews the current literature on military matters. British librarians, however, are most interested in The Athenæum Index to Periodicals, which is appearing under the regis of the Library Association in the form of class lists, which are eventually to be cumulated. It is a most valuable work, but it depends so largely on voluntary effort, and in spite of its merits its value is so little understood by all but advanced librarians, that we are apprehensive as to its continued existence. Bibliographers of the Great War, notably Lange and Berry, have proved of considerable service. For all these bibliographical tools, which mean much help, but also much ill‐paid labour on the part of compilers and publishers, librarians cannot be too grateful. And they cannot show that gratitude better than by supporting and using them systematically.