Maxwell Did It!: Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s-1950s

The black and white photographs in this exhibit were selected from thousands of images in the R.C. Maxwell Company Collection, part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. The R. C. Maxwell Company produced electric "spectacular" signs and billboards and used the photographs to document construction and placement of those advertising signs on the boardwalk. Documentation of the placement of the signs involved using the photograph to show the client the specific physical location of the advertisement as well as using the photograph to give the client an idea of the pedestrian foot traffic that would see the sign. So, the photographs are a record of the people who thronged to the boardwalk since the early 1900's. Today, these historical photographs provide a decade-by-decade look at the changing landscape of the boardwalk and its culture from the 1920s through the 1950s.