Usually we use this space to share cool stuff from our collections, but why not highlight other great stuff from time to time? A co-worker shared The Living Room Candidate with me a couple of weeks ago and I have been loving it ever since. Many of you might know of my personal fondness for vintage advertising (see Happy Thanksgiving, Futuristic Space Age Design or Things… posts) and, let’s face it, who could resist that Mad Men era (and beyond) combination of cool and kitsch?
While I wouldn’t put the material on The Living Room Candidate in the same class of kitsch and cool as mid-century magazine advertisements, it provides thought-provoking examples of presidential campaign television commercials during the infancy of the medium. The site, produced by the Museum of the Moving Image, includes presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2012; with 1952 marking the first year that televised commercials were used during presidential campaigns. Everyone gets a fair shake on The Living Room Candidate: Democrat, Republican and, sometimes, Independent candidate commercials are featured.
Don”t be fooled though by all this talk of kitsch and cool-this site has real research value. I have actually had the opportunity to share it with not one, but two different researchers in the last couple of weeks, both working on widely different topics. Go check out The Living Room Candidate, then get back to us and tell us about your favorite online collections!