Video URL


13170_19039_ad_agency1
Subjects

1950s
B&W

Film taken in a Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn Inc. Advertising office setting with people dressed in business attire. Video opens with a drawing of a man in a loincloth, wielding an ax and running. Someone’s face, cut out from a photo, has been glued to the drawing where a head belongs. There is a feather, stars, a moon and a cityscape in the background of the drawing. “Cleveland” is written under the drawing. (The cut out face is most likely William A. Feather, who established the William Feather Magazine in Cleveland, Ohio.) Video cuts to an outline of the United States with a few cities and states named (California, Hollywood, Manhattan, Westchester, Long Island and Miami Beach). A magnifying glass drawn over the United States outline enlarges one location: Terminal Tower in Cleveland. Next two shots (panning up and down) show the Terminal Tower building in Cleveland, Ohio. Then random clips: A little sign that says “Cleveland” hangs from the bare branch of an indoor tree or bush. The lap and legs of a young woman wearing high heels and a dress and sitting in a task chair. She crosses her legs. A cowboy hat, holster with gun and feather headdress hang on a coat rack stand. A woman sits behind a desk, wearing a headset, and talks to a man holding a briefcase in front of her. Another woman enters an office, lays a binder on a man’s desk and pages through it as they talk and look at it. A few women sit at desks (writing, talking on phone, talking to a man), while another woman looks through a file cabinet. Another shot of different women at desks using typewriters. Camera pans around office to show other women at desks, busy writing, talking, flipping through pages.