Tom Black/Smithsonian Magazine Oral History Interview
name: label: Creator
content: Black, Tom, 1924-
label: Creator
content: Wiener, Tom
topic: label: Topic
content: Advertising, magazine -- 1960-2000
label: Topic
content: Advertising executives -- 1960-2000
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Tom Black agreed to be interviewed for the project and donated the related papers, which were photocopied, in December 1993.

The Tom Black Oral History Collection was made possible by a generous gift to the Center for Advertising History by Smithsonian Magazine.
creator: label: Creator
content: Black, Tom, 1924-
label: Creator
content: Wiener, Tom
setName: label: See more items in
content: Tom Black/Smithsonian Magazine Oral History Interview
abstract: label: Summary
content: Oral history interview, transcripts, and background material documenting Tom Black's career as director of advertising for Smithsonian Magazine from its founding in 1969 until his retirement in 1994.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Tom Black was Smithsonian Magazine's first Director of Advertising.  He joined the magazine in September 1969 and retired in the spring of 1994.  During his tenure, the magazine became one of the major success stories in publishing, mushrooming from an initial circulation of 164,000 to over 2 million, making it the leading magazine in the so‑called quality field.
 
From the beginning, the magazine's readership ranked high in such demographic factors as level of education and disposable income.  Black and his sales force, however, had problems at first trying to sell a magazine which many advertisers associated with a musty, dusty museum complex in Washington, D.C.  Just when sales were at their lowest ebb, in the summer of 1971, sales turned the corner and took off.
 
Black's father, Howard Black, was Time Magazine's first ad salesman, and Tom grew up with Henry Luce, the father of modern magazine publishing, as a frequent guest in his parents' home.  After serving in World War II, Tom Black joined J. Walter Thompson, then the world's leading advertising agency, as a trainee but soon decided that he was more interested in being a part of a new and growing enterprise.  He joined the fledgling sales force of ABC Television and wrote the network's first rate card.  After a short stint with The March of  Time newsreel operation, he found himself on the sales force of Life Magazine, where he spent most of the 1950s, switching over to Time for much of the 1960s. 
 
In 1969, at the age of 45, Black was looking for a new challenge when he was contacted by former Life editor Edward Thompson, who was starting a new magazine for the Smithsonian Institution.  As Black modestly recalls it, Thompson probably remembered a favor Howard Black had done years before for Thompson and his son in making Tom Black Smithsonian's first ad director.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1.5 Cubic feet (3 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1993
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0505
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Transcripts
label: Type
content: Interviews
label: Type
content: Oral history
label: Type
content: Audio cassettes
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged into three series.

Series 1: Oral History Interview

Series 2: Transcripts

Series 3: Background Files
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Collection processed by Tom Wiener, January 27, 1994.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Transcripts
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews -- 1980-2000
label: Genre/Form
content: Oral history -- 1990-2000
label: Genre/Form
content: Audio cassettes -- 1990-2000
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This collection consists of 4.25 hours of interview material.  Oral historian Tom Wiener spoke with Black in his New York office December 15‑16, 1993.  Black also generously loaned materials from his files, including charts and statistics which illustrate some of his observations about the growth of the magazine and the shifting demographics of American society that have affected magazine readership and advertising, plus internal memos from the magazines's early days.  Also included are an unedited transcript of the interview, plus an edited version.  The latter was the basis for a booklet, which was presented to Black and guests at his retirement party in the spring of 1994.  A copy of the booklet rounds out the collection.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials in the Archives Center

The Estelle Ellis Collection (AC0423) also contains material on the history of magazines, in that case the consumer periodicals Seventeen and Charm /Glamour .