America’s Packard Museum has completed a one-year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to inventory the records of Automobile Quarterly.
The collection is 440 cubic feet of material in 28 lateral filing cabinets holding 12,586 folders. The collection contains the corporate records of Automobile Quarterly, Inc, publisher of Automobile Quarterly (AQ), a highly regarded, professionally researched, and authoritative journal. AQ was accessible to scholars, students, and the interested public, and published between 1962-2012. The overwhelming majority of the collection contains unpublished images and research files not used in the published magazine.
Series 1 (Photographic Negatives) includes about 728,000 images of automobiles, but also includes a few boats, bicycles, motorcycles, race cars, tractors, and trucks. The vehicles covered include most makes and models of American and foreign-built automobiles from the late 19th Century through the beginning of the 21st Century. The pictures are of publishable quality and cover all aspects of automobile history from the late 1890s through 2012. The photographs are usually exterior shots taken from different angles because these were the kind of images usually used by the AQ magazine. Some photographers took pictures of unique badges, dashes, engines, and interiors. Most of the images are color negative transparencies taken with 35mm cameras, and include 35mm slides, and 2.5 x 2.5”, 3×5”, or 8×10” formats. The negatives are usually Kodachrome and Ektachrome, both from Kodak.
Series 2 (Research Files) contains documentation compiled by the AQ staff for background information. Many of these files have firsthand, primary historical records, including correspondence and photographic prints from individuals, companies, and trade organizations. Also included is also a large quantity of valuable trade brochures such as sales catalogs, owner’s manuals, and original product artwork. The complete finding aid with a folder-level list is available online.
In addition, the Museum staff digitized a sample of brands, 246 models, 7,461 images, and they are online for viewing. (MV)