Networks of Creative Persuasion in Advertising and Marketing”
A Conference at the Hagley Library, Wilmington Delaware
Friday November 6, 2026
This conference will explore the networks of creative and intellectual labor in American advertising and marketing, broadly defined, from the colonial period through the twentieth century. We seek papers that identify and explain the nodes of production and intellectual labor that crafted persuasive communication in these fields. The conference aims to understand the variety of creators and producers who contributed to persuasion in American commerce and their connections to advertising agencies. We ask: In what ways did these hidden networks of persuasion shape American business and culture?
While much scholarship focuses on advertisements as artifacts, the people who contributed the intellectual and creative labor to produce such artifacts have often remained invisible. Many of these practitioners circulated among the overlapping fields of advertising, marketing, merchandising, promotion, and public relations even while building careers in creative fields such as art, literature, film, or music. Some also shifted their professional activities from these fields to marketing and advertising firms – and vice versa.
We are particularly interested in papers that explore the interactions between various nodes in the networks of advertising production such as:
How did these networks of persuasion function and how did they overlap?
What were the geographical and social spaces of creative production that brought creators together (e.g. particular cities, neighborhoods, buildings, cafes, and the like)?
In what ways did advertising and promotional work help subsidize creative careers?
What were the interactions of such individuals with agency professionals and their clients?
How did people in these networks interact with each other, and / or circulate in related fields?
In what ways did these networks shape the evolution of advertising, marketing, and promotion in American business and culture?
Alternatively, papers might consider the intellectual and creative labor contributed by specific individuals or professions, including but not limited to:
Printers, lithographers, typesetters, and related technicians
Playwrights, professional authors, journalists, and literary professionals (e.g., magazine editors)
Musicians, composers
Photographers, illustrators, painters, graphic designers, filmmakers, and other artists
Interior designers, window-display creators, industrial designers, set designers, fashion designers, and merchandisers
Market researchers, management theorists, psychologists, and sociologists
Business leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors
Key innovators or innovations that laid the groundwork for aesthetic or strategic changes in advertising practices
How outside creative and intellectual labor was valued (whether underpaid or overpaid) in advertising and marketing
Please submit proposals of no more than 500 words and a one-page C.V. to Carol Lockman at cloc...@Hagley.org by June 1, 2026. Conference presenters will be asked to submit complete versions of their conference papers by Sept 26, 2026. The conference is planned as an in-person event but will adopt a virtual format if necessary. Presenters will receive lodging in the conference hotel and compensation for their travel costs. The program committee includes Jennifer Black, Cynthia Meyers, Greg Hargreaves, and Roger Horowitz.
This is a call for papers for an international edited volume tentatively titled ‘Visual Propaganda in an Era of Instability’. Based on distinct case studies explored in a wide range of book chapters, the main objective of the volume is to analyse the role of the image in driving public opinion and perception. The main historical period under investigation is from 2020 onwards: a time that is marked by significant social, cultural, political and ideological tensions. Whilst visual propaganda is not a new phenomenon, and contributors are very welcome to reference historical precedents, the main focus of the volume will be on the growing impact of visual propaganda since 2020.
Book chapters should critically examine the role of the image in driving, challenging or at times agitating public opinion for a clear cultural, political or ideological purpose. Often in combination with text or other contextual information, images therefore become powerful devices that have the capacity to seriously impact as well as disrupt public discourse. Whilst in the past images have been linked to notions of truth (photographic evidence in a court of law for instance), this volume recognizes the power of the image to distort or outright lie by omission. In this context, the volume will pay particular attention to images that appear believable though which are “shopped” or which are entirely generated by Artificial Intelligence. The volume will explore to what extent ideas about the truthfulness of images have now become outdated or even redundant.
The volume recognizes the very significant as well as understudied role of the image in the formation of public opinion. The volume takes the position that this public opinion and perception can be shaped, and that images have a very clear and distinct role to play in this process. Images, therefore, are not merely passive depictions of a particular subject, but rather, they become active tools in a political process that is unfolding today. The volume will investigate the role of visual propaganda and counter-propaganda from a wide range of sources including from global organizations, governments or government departments, down to the efforts of grassroots movements or the individual. The volume will investigate how visual propaganda can be observed in the fields of politics and political campaigns, war and military, ideology and authoritarian regimes, advertising and commercial marketing, culture and cultural diplomacy, public health, social movements and activism, religion and moral campaigns as well as education and media.
Both the reach as well as the focus of this volume will be global. Book chapters should provide original, timely and rigorous analyses of images in specific cultural, political, ideological and geographic contexts. These images can include photographs, films, GIFs, memes, videos, graphics, illustrations, posters, moving images, film stills, visual campaigns or indeed any other form of visual media. Some of the key questions the volume will explore are: How does visual propaganda look like today? How effective is it? How is it adapting to new technologies? And how is it evolving into the future? Whilst contributors of this volume will come from a broad disciplinary background, and whilst the volume embraces interdisciplinary methods, a close reading as well as critical analysis of images should be foregrounded in the case studies. The critical analysis of images should also help a broader aim of the volume and that is to remain as politically neutral and objective as possible. In other words, the volume is not seeking to evaluate the validity of a political position, but rather, it seeks to evaluate the role of the image used for the purpose of propaganda.
A 250-word abstract and a 50-word short bio should be sent to the editor of the volume Marco Bohr at marco...@ntu.ac.uk by the 1st of September 2026. The abstract should include at least one representative image with a full caption. Contributors will be contacted by the 15th of September whether the abstract has been accepted for publication. The deadline for the full-length book chapter of 6,000 words and up to eight images will be the 1st of February 2027. Whilst image clearance is not required for the abstract, contributors should note that if selected for publication, all images featured in the chapter will require clearance and that there is no budget available for that.
Marco Bohr has previously published the following edited volumes:
Bohr, Marco (2022), Capture Japan: Visual Culture and the Global Imagination from 1952 to the Present.London: Bloomsbury.
Bohr, Marco and Sliwinska, Basia (2018), The Evolution of the Image: Political Action and the Digital Self. London: Routledge.
The Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry invites applications for the Nurse Practitioner History Research Scholar Award and the Nurse Practitioner History Preservation Award for 2026.
The Nurse Practitioner History Research Scholar Award is intended for researchers who are pursing topics related to the history of nurse practitioners, the category of advanced practice nurse first introduced in the United Sates in the 1960s. The award provides up to $5,000 of support to doctoral students, faculty, and independent researchers. Its goal is to advance historical scholarship on nurse practitioners and disseminate it to an international audience.
The deadline for proposals is July 1, 2026, with the intention that the recipient use the award the following academic year.
Eligibility: Any doctoral students, faculty, and independent scholars pursuing research on the history of nurse practitioners.
Applicants must provide a full research proposal, not to exceed 6 double-spaced paged, including:
A concise statement of the research they wish to conduct
A narrative describing the project, within the context of the present state of historical knowledge, including background, sources and appropriate citations
Identification of resources to be used
A plan for disseminating the results of the research
An itemized budget detailing how the funds will be used
A current CV
A concise statement of the project they wish to conduct
A narrative describing the project, including a description of resources to be used and the historical materials to be preserved
A plan for disseminating the results of the project
An itemized budget detailing how the funds will be used
A current CV
The Nurse Practitioner History Preservation Award is intended for nurse practitioners, archivists, scholars, and students who are pursuing projects related to the preservation of the history of nurse practitioners. Such topics might include (but are not limited to) the collection, curation, and preservation of historical materials related to nurse practitioners; oral history or qualitative interviews that seek to document and preserve the history of nurse practitioners; or the development of digital exhibits that document and share knowledge about the history of nurse practitioners.
The deadline for proposals is July 1, 2026, with the intention that the recipient use the award the following academic year.
Eligibility: Any nurse practitioner, archivist, scholar, or student interested in the history and/or legacy of nurse practitioners.
Applicants must provide a project description, not to exceed 6 double-spaced paged, including:
Send proposals and supporting materials to: Dominique Tobbell, PhD, Director of the Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry at the University of Virginia, at dtob...@virginia.edu. Notification of awards will be made by August 1, 2026.
The recipients of these awards must agree to provide a report upon completion of the project, plus a letter of thanks for the donor.
Join us for a gathering of archivists, historians, genealogists, descendants, former patients, and hospital administrators working together to address the challenges of managing historical mental health records. Over the course of two days, you will hear from:
Diedra Clark, historic preservation and grant coordinator, Texas Health and Human Services, Health and Specialty Care System
Opportunities for community building activities, collaborative problem solving on the challenges of managing historical mental health records, and planning for what comes next will be available between speaker presentations.
Call for Papers: Entangled Histories Seminar Series 2026–2027
Following the success of the current edition, the Entangled Histories Seminar Series invites abstracts for its 2026–2027 cycle:
"Borders and Sustainability: Human and Natural Resources across Time and Space."
This edition explores sustainability not as an exclusively environmental concern but as a multifaceted concept that intersects with borders across diverse cultural, material, and ecological contexts.
The series adopts a diachronic and interdisciplinary perspective, spanning from prehistory to the contemporary world.
Sustainability and Borders: A Broad Perspective. We seek to investigate sustainability in its multiple dimensions:
Material sustainability: recycling of resources (manuscripts, architectural structures, waste, and landscapes).
Ecological sustainability: relationships between humans, animals, and environments; balance between preservation and exploitation.
Social, linguistic, and cultural sustainability: transmission of knowledge, endangered languages, healing practices, migration, and community resilience.
Symbolic sustainability: representations of ecological limits, hybrid beings, and cultural imaginaries of nature and borders.
Conceptual Framework At the heart of the series lies the concept of borders, understood as dynamic thresholds that shape access to resources and regulate interactions. Borders are not only physical or political: they can be ecological, cultural, social, linguistic, political and material. While we encourage long-term temporalities and global spatial entanglements, we also offer the elements (earth, water, air, fire, ether, wood, etc.) as a possible heuristic framework to explore these dimensions across different historical strata.
Topics of Interest: We encourage contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to:
Archaeology and Prehistory: Resource use, landscapes, indigenous practices, and environmental interactions over time.
Medieval Studies, Philology, and Manuscript Cultures: Material sustainability of manuscripts, palimpsests, intellectual ecologies, literatures and languages, and the transmission of knowledge.
Art History and Visual Culture: Representations of nature, landscapes, borders, and material practices across different periods.
Anthropology and Folklore: Vernacular ecological knowledge, oral traditions, liminal beings, and environmental imaginaries.
History of Science and Medicine: Healing practices, scientific knowledge, and environmental understanding across cultures.
Environmental Humanities and Ecology: Human–non-human relations, ecosystems, climate, and resilience.
History of Economy, Trade, and Food Systems: Circulation of resources, subsistence, scarcity, and sustainability practices.
Architecture and Infrastructure Studies: Built environments, water and soil management, roads, and material borders.
Geography, Cartography, and Media Studies: Spatial representation, mapping, and communication of environmental knowledge across borders.
🌟 High-Impact Publication Opportunity: A selection of the most significant contributions will be published in a dedicated edited volume or a special issue with a leading international publisher (past collaborations and ongoing projects include prestigious venues such as Brill, De Gruyter, and Routledge). This ensures that the research presented reaches a global audience of specialists.
Finding Minerals: Framing Exploration and Recovery in the History of the Geosciences
Call for papers for a session at the Geological Society of America Connects conference in Denver, Colorado (11-14 October 2026). Session organized by Francesco Gerali, Katie Callahan, and Aja Tolman.
Abstract Submission Deadline: 6 August 2026
Abstracts can be submitted here through the GSA Connects website. More information about submitting an abstract to GSA can be found here.
Session Description
How do mineral exploration and extraction have shaped geological knowledge, field practices, and institutional frameworks? This session promotes new research into the development of industrial geology, geophysics, mapping, and state/corporate expertise in subsurface discovery.
Mineral exploration has long been one of the principal engines driving the development of geological and geophysical knowledge. This session examines how the quest to locate, evaluate, and extract mineral resources shaped the emergence of modern geoscience from the eighteenth century to the present.
This session foregrounds exploration and recovery as core scientific practices that produced new forms of evidence, new theories of the Earth, and new institutional architectures. Geological mapping, stratigraphic correlation, assaying, geophysical prospecting, and drilling technologies all evolved within (and for) the demands of mining, engineering, and resource capitalism. These practices not only generated data but also structured epistemic norms, instrument cultures, survey methodologies, and classifications that would become foundational to the broader geosciences.
The aim is to address subjects like the history of geological surveys; the circulation of mining expertise across imperial, settler, and postcolonial contexts; the integration of geochemistry, geophysics, and remote sensing into exploration practice; and the political economy of extraction that shaped the professional identities of geologists. The session also welcomes contributions that examine how exploration transformed landscapes into analyzable geological objects, how risk cultures emerged around underground work, and how states and corporations relied on geological knowledge to territorialize mineral frontiers.
The following jobs were posted to the H-Net Job Guide from 10 May to 17 May.
These job postings are included here based on the categories selected by the network editors for H-Announce.
See the H-Net job guide web site at https://www.h-net.org/jobs/ for more information.
To contact the Job Guide, write to jobg...@mail.h-net.org or call +1-517-432-5134 between 9 AM and 5 PM US Eastern time.
Home and Heart: Arts & Health From Around the World
Saturday 30 May 2026, 1-4pm, free
In person at Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0RN
A free spring family fun event themed around home. Visit the ‘Moved to Care’ exhibition and enjoy hands-on activities to help explore nursing’s global roots through the idea of leaving and going home. Activities are aimed at ages 4-11, and most are drop-in throughout the afternoon. We will also have a bookable poetry writing session for 11-14 year-olds from 2-2.30pm. Please book for this alongside the rest of your event tickets.
A Home for Nursing: Behind the Scenes Tour of 20 Cavendish Square
Wednesday 3 June, 3-4pm, tickets cost £9
In person at Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0RN
The Royal College of Nursing headquarters at 20 Cavendish Square was built in 1729, and contains many original features, including a grand neoclassical mural-painted staircase. The most famous resident was Liberal MP Herbert Henry Asquith, who lived here until he became prime minister in 1908. The building was purchased by Lady Cowdray for the RCN in 1920: 20 Cavendish Square became the Cowdray Club (a club for nurses and professional women opened in 1922) and a new, purpose-built College was added at the rear, formally opening in 1926. Join the RCN Library and Museum team on the first Wednesday of every month on this tour behind the scenes of our building. Explore the history and architecture of the RCN, famous residents – and ghosts – and the creation of a home for nursing. The tour takes around 40 minutes and will end in our exhibition, 'The Art of Nursing', with plenty of time for browsing and questions.
Nursing and Social Justice: A History of Refugee Health
Tuesday 16 June, 6pm (online event), free
Join us for an online talk exploring the contribution of refugees and asylum seekers in healthcare. Find out more about the contribution of refugees and asylum seekers in healthcare, in a special event for Refugee Week. Hear stories of Jewish refugee nurses from Jane Brooks, alongside the wider context of refugee health from Thomas Jones.
In person at Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0RN
Do you want to write your own story? Memoirs have become an increasingly popular in the last decade, and although wildly different in form and perspective, they are all primarily concerned with lived experience. Everyone has a unique and individual story to tell. Perhaps you have experience of illness or disability or want to write about your work as a student nurse? Maybe the story you feel compelled to write is of childhood, love, travel. So, how do you approach writing your own lived experience? In this workshop for younger writers (aged 18-30) Christie Watson will guide you through some creative exercises to find your own voice as a writer.
The Art of Nursing and Migration - with Michael Rosen
Wednesday 8 July, 6pm, free (BSL and live captions)
Join online or inperson at Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0RN
Join us in person or online for this event, hosted by poet Michael Rosen. It is the culmination of the Arts Council England National Lottery funded project, 'A Balikbayan Box for Nursing'. The title refers to the Filipino custom of migrant workers sending boxes of items back home and is inspired by Romalyn Ante’s poem 'Notes Inside a Balikbayan Box'. The project took the Balikbayan Box as its central theme, exploring the spirit of nursing as experienced by a range of migrant workers across the UK.
During our exhibition, 'Moved to Care', the RCN Library and Museum hosted one visual artist (Haleema Aziz) and three writers in residence (Romalyn Ante, Jennifer Wong and Christie Watson). This event brings all the artists together to explore the inspiration they have taken from the exhibition themes, and the experiences of migrant nurses.
From Lagos to London: Colonial Recruitment and Nigerian Nurses in the UK
Thursday 9 July, 6pm, free (online event)
Between 1940 and 1960, British nursing institutions actively recruited Nigerian student nurses to address post-war health care shortages. This talk by historian Mosunmola Ogunmolaji centres on Nigerian applicants’ experiences, tracing the recruitment and application process from advertising and selection to training and placement. It reveals how British institutions leveraged colonial ties to attract Nigerian applicants while reinforcing racial and professional hierarchies.
The New Books Network
is proud to be a sponsor of H-Net. If you are interested in becoming
an NBN host, please go
here.
Si te interesa hacer entrevistas en español,
contáctanos.
Please help us keep H-Net free and accessible. $25 from each of our
subscribers would fund H-Net for two years. Click
here to make
a tax-deductible donation online.
Contact the Help Desk:
he...@mail.h-net.org.
Manage notification settings by visiting My Profile > Notifications
on the Commons.
The 