Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive

The Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive holds more than 160,000 advertisements and broadcast materials from political campaigns across the United States. The collection focuses on radio and television commercials that document how campaigns were conducted during different periods of American electoral history.

Julian P. Kanter started collecting political advertisements in 1956, beginning with materials from presidential elections and expanding the collection over decades. The University of Oklahoma acquired the archive in 1985 and has continued to develop and maintain the collection since then.

The collection displays radio and television advertisements from different decades, showing how campaigns communicated with voters over time. Visitors can observe the evolution of political messaging and the strategies candidates used to reach people through media.

The archive is located in Burton Hall on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman. Anyone interested in viewing the materials should contact the archival staff in advance to arrange access to the collection.

More than eighty percent of the film materials in this collection cannot be found in any other archive worldwide. This makes the collection a one-of-a-kind resource for researchers studying how political campaigns were conducted and communicated.