Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated Records
name: label: Creator
content: Hills Bros. Coffee, Inc.
place: label: Place
content: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (Oakland and San Francisco, Calif.)
title: label: Topic
content: SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
topic: label: Topic
content: Coffee
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 20th century
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 1930-1940 -- California
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 1980-1990
label: Topic
content: Advertising agencies -- 20th century
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 1940-1950
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 1970-1980
label: Topic
content: advertising -- 1980-1990
label: Topic
content: advertising -- Audio-visual materials
label: Topic
content: advertising -- Beverages -- 1930-1990
label: Topic
content: advertising -- Business ephemera
label: Topic
content: Advertising campaigns -- 20th century
label: Topic
content: Advertising executives
label: Topic
content: Advertising, Direct-mail
label: Topic
content: Agricultural crops -- Fields
label: Topic
content: Coffee industry
label: Topic
content: Coffee growers
label: Topic
content: Coffee, Instant
label: Topic
content: Coffee plantations
label: Topic
content: Coffee -- Processing
label: Topic
content: Tea
label: Topic
content: Tea -- harvesting of
label: Topic
content: Golden Gate International Exposition (1939)
label: Topic
content: Manufacturing processes
label: Topic
content: Manufacturing -- 1910-1960
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: These records were donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History by Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated.
creator: label: Creator
content: Hills Bros. Coffee, Inc.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated Records
abstract: label: Summary
content: Printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials primarily documenting the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of the Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated.  Collection also documents the professional and private lives of the Hills family; insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee; and construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Reuben Hills, on one occasion, stated regarding his company's growth; ...success in business is fifty per cent judgment and fifty per cent propitious circumstances." The rise of Hills Bros. Coffee Incorporated from a retail dairy stall in San Francisco's old Bay City Public Market reflects the reality of Reuben's statement. Aided by brother Austin's three years of experience in the retail dairy business the early success of the brothers was in Reuben's own words both circumstance and hard work. When Reuben and Austin began to produce roasted coffee there were at least twenty-five other companies already engaged in some form of coffee production and distribution in San Francisco including, of course, the well-known Folger Company started by William Bovee (which began in San Francisco thirty years earlier). Most of these coffee businesses were started by family groups which contributed to the growth of San Francisco.

San Francisco in the nineteenth century was ripe for the importing and roasting of coffee. The foundation for commercial production of coffee dated back to the 1820s when English planters brought coffee to Costa Rica. By the early 1840s German and Belgian planters followed with coffee plantations in Guatemala and El Salvador, two of the several Central American countries where Hills Bros. would obtain its mild coffee beans. During the Gold Rush (1849) San Francisco rapidly expanded and grew. Coffee was imported and sold, after roasting, to restaurants and hotels. Yankee gold miners and others without equipment to roast and brew their own coffee, populated "coffee houses." In 1873 two brothers, Austin Herbert and Reuben Wilmarth Hills arrived in San Francisco from their home in Rockland, Maine with their father Austin who had come to California some years earlier. Five years later in 1878 A. H. and R. W. Hills established a retail stall to sell dairy products in the Bay City Market under the name of their new partnership "Hills Bros." Their small business expanded in less than four years with the acquisition of a retail coffee store titled Arabian Coffee & Spice Mills on Fourth Street in San Francisco. In two more years (1884) still larger quarters were occupied at Sacramento and Sansome Streets. Soon after this they disposed of their retail dairy business but continued as wholesale distributors of some dairy products including butter. Their coffee was labeled "Arabian Roast"' supported by the now famous trademark design of a man in turban and beard with a flowing yellow gown. This was created by a San Francisco artist named Briggs and since then (1897) has remained as the official trademark of Hills Bros. Coffee - a lasting symbol of coffee quality. Hills Bros. dairy division was eliminated in 1908 after company destruction by the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. By 1924 all miscellaneous products including tea, had been dropped by the company which from then on referred to itself as "coffee only."

Emphasis on the quality of the finished product has long been a major selling point in the history of Hills Bros. advertising and marketing. The company's desire to keep abreast of technological advances in coffee production is a legacy of Austin and Reuben Hills, and is reflected in the company records, in its advertising and its self-perception. It was probably 1898 when Austin Hills and Thomas Hodge, partners who managed the wholesale dairy product operations were looking for a suitable can for exporting butter that could not be manufactured in San Francisco at that time, decided to consult Norton Brothers, a progressive can manufacture company in Chicago. Whether Austin traveled to Chicago or arranged with his brother Reuben to stop off there in route to New York (where he frequently spent time at the New York Green Coffee Exchange) to present the problem to Norton Brothers, which brother made the actual contact with Norton Brothers is not important today, but the results of that visit were real. Norton Brothers had just received patents on a process for packing foods in vacuum and thought it might solve the butter problem. In short order arrangements were made for shipping cans and machinery from Chicago to San Francisco including agreement for exclusive use on the West Coast for a reasonable period. Thus, Hills Bros. butter became the first known food product to ever be packed in vacuum. Once this started Reuben Hills had the idea that what worked well with butter might also be used for coffee. Experimental vacuum-packing of coffee in butter cans supported the theory that taking the air out of coffee would keep the product fresh for indefinite periods. No time was lost in getting new cans and more machinery and in July 1900 Hills Bros. Coffee as "the original vacuum-pack" was placed on the market. With the advent of this technology Hills Bros. changed the product name from "Arabian Roast" to "Hills Bros. Highest Grade Java and Mocha Coffee" and continued with the new trademark that had been started in 1897. Vacuum-packing extended the shelf life and travel ability of the product, thus new markets, national and international, were opened.

A change in the coffee industry of America was on the way. Hills Bros. remained the pioneer of vacuum-packing for thirteen years until a similar process was adopted by M.J.B., another leading coffee company in San Francisco. Other packers on the West Coast soon followed, but it was not until after World War I that East Coast coffee producers turned to vacuum-packaging.

Production and advertising of coffee continued to change with new technology. In the late 1880s San Francisco coffee importers began to "cup test" coffee beans for quality but the majority still depended on sight and smell. Reuben Hills and a few other coffee personalities in San Francisco are credited with the cup test method of appraising coffee quality. In its new home office and plant opened in San Francisco in 1926, Hills Bros. adopted "controlled roasting" in which coffee was roasted a few pounds at a time, but continuously. Developed in 1923 under the direction of Leslie Hills and Lee Maede, company engineer, "controlled roasting" employed the use of instruments to control the temperature and speed of operations, resulting in perfect roasting control that could not be depended on from batch to batch by even the most experienced coffee roasting expert. In 1914 the partnership known as Hills Bros. was incorporated under the same name. In 1928 a sales organization was formed under the name of Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated, but within four to five years the parent company absorbed Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated and adopted its name. A second plant was built in Edgewater, New Jersey, completed in 1941 to meet the needs of the increasing growth of areas between Chicago and the East Coast.

During World War II Hills Bros. faced conservation rules restricting use of tin for coffee cans. A timely method of high-speed packing in glass jars by Owens Illinois Glass Company made it possible for Hills Bros. as well as other companies in the industry to continue vacuum-packing during this period. Price control and coffee rationing were other war time necessities to which the industry adjusted.

Hills Bros. Coffee, Incorporated passed out of family ownership in 1976 when the company was purchased by a Brazilian corporation named Copersucar. In 1983 a group of local investors in San Francisco brought ownership back to where it had started and sold the business in 1984 to Nestlé Holdings, Incorporated, (effective January 1, 1985) which handled the acquisition of several companies in the United States for Nestlé S. A. Vevey, Switzerland.


Historical note written by T., Carroll Wilson, company historian and archivist, 1993.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 65 Cubic feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1856-1989, undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0395
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Advertising cards
label: Type
content: 16mm motion picture film
label: Type
content: Annual reports
label: Type
content: Artwork
label: Type
content: Beverage labels
label: Type
content: Blueprints
label: Type
content: Business ephemera
label: Type
content: Bulletins
label: Type
content: Business letters
label: Type
content: Business records
label: Type
content: Catalogs
label: Type
content: Color photographs
label: Type
content: Color negatives
label: Type
content: Commercial art
label: Type
content: Correspondence
label: Type
content: Direct mail
label: Type
content: Ephemera
label: Type
content: Exhibit plans
label: Type
content: Financial records
label: Type
content: Genealogies
label: Type
content: Home movies
label: Type
content: Ledger drawings
label: Type
content: Office files
label: Type
content: Office memoranda
label: Type
content: Packaging
label: Type
content: Photographic prints
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Price lists
label: Type
content: Proof sheets
label: Type
content: Promotional literature
label: Type
content: Receipts
label: Type
content: Sales records
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Television programs
label: Type
content: Window displays
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged into thirteen series.

Series 1, Hills Family Papers, 1856-1942, undated 

Subseries 1.1, Austin Herbert Hills, Sr. Papers, 1856-1875, undated 

Subseries 1.2, Austin Herbert Hills, Jr. Papers, 1875-1923

Subseries 1.3, Herbert Gray Hills Correspondence, 1923-1942 

Series 2, Background Materials, 1896-1988, undated

Series 3, Coffee Reference Files, 1921-1980, undated

Subseries 3.1, Hills Bros. Coffee Company Literature, 1921-1976, undated

Subseries 3.2, Coffee Industry Literature, 1924-1980, undated

Series 4, Advertising Materials, circa 1890s-1987, undated

Subseries 4.1, Scrapbooks, 1906-1978, undated 

Subseries 4.2, Historical Albums, 1911-1967 

Subseries 4.3, Ephemera, 1890s-1987 

Subseries 4.4, Portfolios, 1919-1985, undated 

Subseries 4.5, Proof sheets, 1922-1968

Subseries 4.6, Advertising Forms, 1922-1971, undated 

Subseries 4.7, Newspaper and Magazine Advertising, 1926-1971, undated 

Subseries 4.8, Sampling Campaigns, 1928-1941 

Subseries 4.9, General Files, 1923-1978, undated  

Subseries 4.10, NW Ayer Advertising Agency, 1943, 1958 

Subseries 4.11, Foote, Cone & Belding Advertising Agency, 1963-1968, undated 

Series 5, Photographs, 1882-1973, undated 

Subseries 5.1, Employees, 1882-1961, undated 

Subseries 5.2, Division Offices, 1924-1931, undated 

Subseries 5.3, Facilities and Vehicles, 1927-1973, undated 

Subseries 5.4, Advertising, 1925-1959, undated 

Subseries 5.5, Sales, circa 1921-1939, undated 

Subseries 5.6, Packaging, 1884-1969, undated 

Subseries 5.7, Grocery Store Displays, circa, 1901-1935

Subseries 5.8, Store Tests, 1938

Subseries 5.9, Window and Wall Displays, 1928, 1930, 1934

Subseries 5.10, Publicity, 1933-1936, undated 

Subseries 5.11, Miscellaneous, 1898-1949, undated 

Subseries 5.12, Coffee and Tea Industry, 1900s-1947,. undated  

Series 6, Sales and Marketing Records, 1906-1989, undated

Subseries 6.1, Bulletins for Salesmen, 1912-1969

Subseries 6.2, Division Bulletins and General Letters, 1925-1927 

Subseries 6.3, Correspondence, 1919-1989

Subseries 6.4, Conventions and Meetings, 1915-1971

Subseries 6.5, Salesmen Materials, 1906-1973, undated 

Subseries 6.6, Reports and Studies, 1941-1978  

Subseries 6.7, Marketing Research, 1956-1978, undated  

Subseries 6.8, Pricing Information, 1949-1965  

Series 7, Employee Records, 1934-1966 

Series 8, Accounting and Financial Records, 1903-1960, undated  

Series 9, Office Files, 1915-1970, undated  

Subseries 9.1, General, 1915-1969, undated  

Subseries 9.2, T. Carroll Wilson Correspondence, 1941-1970

Series 10, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Materials, 1933-1986, undated 

Subseries 10.1, Background Information, 1933-1986, undated 

Subseries 10.2, Photographic Materials, 1933-1936, undated 

Series 11, Golden Gate International Exposition Materials, 1915-1940, undated

Subseries 11.1, Coffee Theater, circa 1939

Subseries 11.2, Exposition Attendance, 1915-1940 

Subseries 11.3, Correspondence, 1937-1940, undated

Subseries 11.4, Construction, 1937-1940, undated 

Subseries 11.5, Blueprints, 1937-1939 

Subseries 11.6, Behind the Cup, 1937-1940, undated 

Subseries 11.7, Newspaper Cooperation, 1939

Subseries 11.8, Solicitations and Replies, 1938-1940 

Subseries 11.9, Miscellaneous, 1938-1940 

Series 12, World War II Materials, 1939-1949, undated 

Subseries 12.1, Production and Quotas, 1942-1946 

Subseries 12.2, Rationing, 1939-1946

Subseries 12.3, Containers and Closures, 1942-1949, undated 

Subseries 12.4, Appeals, 1948

Subseries 12.5, Advertising Campaigns, 1942, undated 

Subseries 12.6, Machinists' Strike Scrapbooks, 1945-1946

Series 13, Audio Visual Materials, 1930-1984, undated

Subseries 13.1, Moving Images, 1930-1966 

Subseries 13.1.1, Television Commercials, 1951-1984

Subseries 13.1.2, Television Programs, 1951-1967

Subseries 13.1.3, Promotional Materials, 1939-1977

Subseries 13.1.4, Hills Bros. Activities, 1930-1962

Subseries 13.1.5, Miscellaneous Film and Video, 1938-1966

Subseries 13.2, Sound Recordings, 1934-1967, undated

Subseries 13.2.1, Radio Commercials, 1941-1967, undated

Subseries 13.2.2, Radio Programs and Other Broadcasts, 1934-1956, undated

Subseries 13.2.3, Cardboard Discs, 1941-1960; undated.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by Grace Meyer, volunteer, 1996; Deirdre Ryan, intern, 1996; and Vanessa Broussard-Simmons, archivist, 1996.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Advertising cards -- 19th century.
label: Genre/Form
content: 16mm motion picture film
label: Genre/Form
content: Annual reports
label: Genre/Form
content: Artwork
label: Genre/Form
content: Beverage labels
label: Genre/Form
content: Blueprints -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Business ephemera
label: Genre/Form
content: Bulletins
label: Genre/Form
content: Business letters
label: Genre/Form
content: Business records -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Business records -- 19th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Catalogs -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Color photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Color negatives
label: Genre/Form
content: Commercial art
label: Genre/Form
content: Correspondence
label: Genre/Form
content: Correspondence -- 19th-20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Direct mail
label: Genre/Form
content: Ephemera -- 19th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Ephemera -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Exhibit plans
label: Genre/Form
content: Financial records -- 19th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Financial records -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Genealogies
label: Genre/Form
content: Home movies
label: Genre/Form
content: Ledger drawings
label: Genre/Form
content: Office files
label: Genre/Form
content: Office memoranda
label: Genre/Form
content: Packaging -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographic prints
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- 19th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Price lists
label: Genre/Form
content: Proof sheets
label: Genre/Form
content: Promotional literature
label: Genre/Form
content: Receipts -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Sales records
label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings -- Audiotapes -- Open reel
label: Genre/Form
content: Television programs
label: Genre/Form
content: Window displays
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The collection consists of printed advertisements, scrapbooks, correspondence, marketing research, radio commercial scripts, photographs, proof sheets, reports, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, television commercial storyboards, blueprints, legal documents, and audiovisual materials. These materials primarily document the history, business practices, and advertising campaigns of Hills Bros. Coffee Company, Incorporated. Correspondence, genealogies, and home movies reveal a more domestic and social Hills family while company records document business activities outside of the home.  Company records also provide insight into the cultivation, production, and selling of coffee, and the company's technological responses to the changes in the coffee trade, and consumer consumption demands. Of interest is the company's participation in social and cultural events including the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. In addition, the collection includes the company's documentation of the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936. The collection is arranged into thirteen series.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

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General Merchandise Account Book, NMAH.AC.0189

Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 13: Agriculture, Business, and Law, NMAH.AC.0300.S13

Duke Ellington, NMAH.AC.0301

Product Cookbooks Collection, NMAH.AC.0396

Archives Center Business Americana Collection, NMAH.AC.0404

Charles W. Trigg Papers, NMAH.AC.0411

Byron Fogel Placemat Collection, NMAH.AC.0419

Princeton University Posters Collection, NMAH.AC.0433

Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera, NMAH.AC.0439

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Industry on Parade Film Collection, NMAH.AC.0507

Francis M. Mair Papers, NMAH.AC.0548

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Sandra and Gary Baden Collection of Celebrity Endorsements in Advertising, NMAH.AC.0611

Fletcher and Horace Henderson Collection, NMAH.AC.0797

Division of Cultural History Lantern Slides and Stereographs, NMAH.AC.0945

Division of Work and Industry Lantern Slide Collection, NMAH.AC.1013

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Records, NMAH.AC.1086

Lockwood-Greene Records, NMAH.AC.1113

Alice Weber Photograph Albums, NMAH.AC.1144

Saul Nesbitt Papers, NMAH.AC.1275

Kubla Khan Frozen Food Company Records, NMAH.AC.1316

Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies Collection, NMAH.AC.1343

Henry "Buddy" Graf and George Cahill Vaudeville and Burlesque Collections, NMAH.AC.1484

Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian Institution

J. Horace McFarland Company Collection, 1899-1974 AAG.MCF

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Douglas Leigh Papers, 1903-1999, AAA.leigdoug 

National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution


Michael Plyler Photographs from Guatemala, NMAI.AC.071

Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution


Colombia, Land of Mountain Coffee, HSFA.2005.03


John B. Schuyler III Films, circa 1926-1960, HSFA.1991.07

REMC 2 Educational Film Collection, 1945-1982, HSFA.1994.21

National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Division of Ethnology Photograph Collection, NAA.PhotoLot.97

National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Harold L. "Smiling Bud" Coffee Photographs, NASM.2024.0015

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Research Records, 1969-2011, SIA.FA16-179

Records, 1978-1994, SIA.FA95-170

Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution


Keystone-Underwood Stereographs, EEPA.1986-022

Lynn McLaren Photographs, EEPA.2007-009

Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution


Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 1980 Festival of American Folklife, CFCH.SFF.1980

Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 1994 Festival of American Folklife, CFCH.SFF.1994


Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 1997 Festival of American Folklife, CFCH.SFF.1997

Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 2005 Festival of American Folklife, CFCH.SFF.2005


Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, CFCH.SFF.2011


Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records: 2018 Festival of American Folklife, CFCH.SFF.2018
separatedmaterial: label: Separated Materials
content: Division of Work and Industry, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution 

Artifacts include coffee packaging, Golden Gate International Exposition artifacts, bowling shirt, and coffee cans.

Hills Bros. Coffee Jar, Accession Number:1998.0058

Coffee Can Mousetrap, Accession Number:1980.0292

Hills Bros. Coffee Can, Accession number 1993.0542


Hills Bros. Coffee Jar, Accession Number:1993.0544


Hills Bros. Coffee Jar, Id Number:ZZ.RSN80544Y10