Title: Merrick T. Jackson Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1900-1985, 1993

Creator:

• Jackson, Merrick T., 1902-1998

Call Number: Mss 813

Quantity: 4.6 c.f. (10 archives boxes and 2 card boxes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Merrick T. Jackson, a public relations specialist who was active in the field of corporate communications for employers such as the Western Electric Company and the Hoover Company and who, as an employee of Hill & Knowlton, edited Steelways magazine for the American Iron and Steel Institute for twenty years. Included are correspondence, clippings, samples of original public relations materials, fiction and non-fiction writings, diary-like engagement calendars covering his retirement, and a lengthy autobiographical memoir. The narrative includes reflections on his career and individuals he knew such as Kenneth F. Cook of Standard Oil and Robert Newcomb with whom he was associated in the establishment of the National Council of Industrial Editors. About his association with Hill & Knowlton there is correspondence, progress reports, public relations audits, recollections of H&K staff, and samples of publications he produced (Steelways is available in the University of Wisconsin Engineering Library.) There are also notes, correspondence, and reports for the public relations audit he conducted for Caltex concerning its investments in Southeast Asia; information on proposals prepared for his own firm, Direct Lines, Inc.; and a run of Hoover Worldwide, which he edited. About his personal life there are reflections about his mother, a single parent, and his first wife who died from cancer; correspondence and writings concerning Lafayette College; and correspondence and a diary concerning his year of teaching (1923-1924) at the American University in Cairo.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00813

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Merrick Taylor Jackson was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on June 15, 1902. Raised by his mother, a single parent, he graduated from Trenton High School (1919) and Lafayette College (1923). In 1923 Jackson was appointed a member of the faculty of the American University in Cairo, where he taught English and modern history for two years.

In 1927 Jackson began his association with the field of corporate communications when he was hired as sports editor for an in-house newspaper published by the Western Electric Company. In subsequent years Jackson edited two nationwide departmental newspapers for Western Electric and served as a staff member of its magazine Western Electric News. In 1933 Jackson began a similar position with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, returning to Western Electric in 1936 as editorial director.

During this period Jackson assumed a leading role in the emerging field of corporate communications, eventually serving as president of the National Council of Industrial Editors in 1943.

Because of his association with the National Safety Council Jackson went to Washington, D.C., during World War II to prepare a program to increase sales of war bonds through company organs. Later he also developed Firepower, a publication for the employees of the nation's ordnance plants. Thereafter Jackson briefly returned to Western Electric, then worked for fundraiser John Price Jones and N.W. Ayers before becoming associated with the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, Inc., in 1945.

For the next twenty years Jackson edited Steelways, the slick bi-monthly publication that Hill & Knowlton produced for its largest account, the American Iron & Steel Institute. Under Jackson's editorship the magazine increased its circulation from 30,000 to 300,000, and its quality was widely recognized. In addition to his editorial work for AISI, Jackson developed the concept of the public relations audit which he carried out for twelve steel companies, and in 1954 Jackson and Loet Velmans also applied the technique to the activities in Southeastern Asia of California Texas Oil Company (Caltex), another Hill & Knowlton client.

After AISI decided to produce Steelways on its own, Jackson retired from Hill & Knowlton to establish his own communications service, Direct Lines, Inc. Chief among his accomplishments during this period was the establishment and editorship of Hoover Worldwide for the Hoover Company.

Additional biographical information may be found in the introductory folder of the CAREER NARRATIVE series.

The Jackson Papers are an assemblage of correspondence, photographs, clippings, fiction and non-fiction writings, samples of public relations work, and other original documents, together with an extended personal and professional autobiography. The papers are arranged as ENGAGEMENT CALENDARS and a CAREER NARRATIVE. The ENGAGEMENT CALENDARS are arranged chronologically; the CAREER NARRATIVE is arranged by file number.

The ENGAGEMENT CALENDARS cover the period 1968 to 1985. Although they do not document Jackson's active career, they have been retained because they contain diary-like notations about the nature of retirement in the late twentieth century.

The CAREER NARRATIVE section is substantially as it was received from the donor -- numbered files that correspond to chronological periods or topics in Jackson's career. Each folder consists of the relevant portion of Jackson's memoir, together with original material he selected to illustrate that phase of his life.

The narrative was prepared in 1986 to accompany the donation of the papers to the Wisconsin Historical Society's Mass Communications History Center, although it includes some pages apparently prepared earlier for other purposes. (These pages are identified within the typed autobiographical pages by a different numbering scheme and by the presence of clipped corners.)

The original documents in the CAREER NARRATIVE section represent consciously selected items rather than complete, organic files. While a portion of the documents in each file are contemporary with the period they were selected to illustrate, a substantial number consist of reminiscent references in later, personal correspondence. The files are arranged by number as they were by the donor, except that several files that Jackson failed to number have been incorporated by the Archives; these additions are indicated in the contents list by the inclusion of a decimal in the numbering sequence.

While the absence of complete, organic files limits the value of this collection for the study of corporate communications, the papers do include many examples of Jackson's work, including newspapers and magazines produced for Hoover, Western Electric, and the National Passenger Traffic Association, as well as a packet of material developed for the Treasury Department to increase war bond sales. A complete run of Firepower, which he developed for the military during World War II is available in the government documents section of the Wisconsin Historical Society Library, while Steelways, which he edited for twenty years, is available in the University of Wisconsin Engineering Library.

The papers contain numerous professional articles and speeches delivered by Jackson and two binders of articles and other background material about the field of corporate communications apparently collected by Jackson to facilitate these talks. There is also correspondence, notes, and drafts relating to “Day of Corporate Change,” an unpublished book on corporate communications.

The papers also complement documentation about Jackson's professional career in the John W. Hill Papers held by the Historical Society. The Jackson Papers are most useful in this regard for the commentary they provide about individuals employed by H&K, by their background about Steelways and public relations audits, and by the supplementary reports and correspondence on Jackson's tour of Southeast Asia to study the impact of emerging nationalism on Caltex investments. Also included are numerous Steelways progress reports and examples of publications Jackson produced for AISI and its community relations program.

Direct Lines is documented by files on several clients that Jackson represented or attempted to represent. The narrative about these episodes contains some interesting comments about the reasons for Jackson's lack of business success during this period of his career.

Apart from its application to communications studies, the Jackson Papers are of interest to research in other areas. His two years of teaching at the American University in Cairo are well documented by letters to his family, numerous articles, and a memoir about his experiences. Jackson also included files on several individuals who affected his professional development such as Kenneth F. Cook of Standard Oil and Robert Newcomb of the National Council of Industrial Editors as well as friends such as Douglas Coulter and classmates from Lafayette College. The effect of being raised by a single parent when that condition was relatively rare is reflected on at length in the memoir, as are the circumstances surrounding the death of his first wife from cancer. Taken as a whole, the collection and its somewhat self-conscious third-person memoir should be of interest to researchers interested in the study of autobiography.

Use Restrictions

No information on copyright is available in the donor files.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Merrick Jackson, Ossing, New York, 1986-1991. Accession Number: M86-17, M91-94

Processing Information

Processed by Carolyn J. Mattern, 1992.

	Series: Engagement Calendars
Box   1 Folder   1	1965
Box   11 Folder   1-3	1968-1971
Box   1 Folder   2	1971
Box   11 Folder   4-7	1971-1975
Box   1 Folder   3	1976
Box   11 Folder   8-9	1977-1978
Box   12 Folder   1-7	1979-1985
Box   12 Folder   8	, Undated notebook
Box   1 Folder   4	Journal containing entries of miscellaneous dates, 1980s
	Series: Career Narrative	⇧
Box   1 Folder   6	Introduction, background and biographical miscellany
Box   1 Folder   7	#2: Frank H. Taylor, grandfather
Box   1 Folder   8	#3: Albert E. Herpin, “The Man Who Never Slept”
Box   1 Folder   9-10	#4: MTJ boyhood and education
Box   1 Folder   11-12	#5: Travel, 1923-1925
Box   2 Folder   1	#5.1: Teaching at American University in Cairo
Box   2 Folder   2	#6: Parentage
Box   2 Folder   2A	Baby book
Box   2 Folder   3	#7: Henry Merrick Taylor, uncle
Box   2 Folder   4-5	#8: Douglas Coulter, friend
Box   2 Folder   6	#9: “Let Freedom Ring,” article about Cairo experience
Box   2 Folder   7	#10: Employment after Egypt
Box   2 Folder   8	#11: Western Electric, “Round I”
Box   2 Folder   9	#12: Standard Oil
Box   2 Folder   10	#13: Kenneth F. Cook, later correspondence
	#14-15: Collected employee publication material
Box   2 Folder   11	Part I
Box   3 Folder   1-4	Parts II-V
Box   3 Folder   5	#16: Western Electric, “Round II”
Box   3 Folder   6-7	#17-18: Robert Newcomb
Box   3 Folder   8	#18.1: War bonds sales program
Box   3 Folder   9	#18.2: Firepower
Box   4 Folder   1	#19: John Price Jones
Box   4 Folder   2-3	#20: National Council of Industrial Editors
Box   4 Folder   4	#21: John H. Hill
Box   4 Folder   5	#22: Steelways Correspondence
Box   4 Folder   6	#23: Steelways Progress reports and literature
Box   4 Folder   7	#23.1: Steelways Index pages
Box   4 Folder   8-9	#23.2: Public relations audits
Box   4 Folder   10	#24: Death of Harriet Fisher Jackson
Box   4 Folder   11	#25: AISI community relations program
Box   5 Folder   1	#25: AISI community relations program, continued
Box   5 Folder   2	#26: Marriage to Shirley Whippo Jackson
Box   5 Folder   3	#27: Steelways, Additional correspondence
Box   5 Folder   4	#28: AISI pamphlets
Box   5 Folder   5	#28.1: Reader reaction to Steelways
	#28.2: Public relations audits for Caltex
Box   5 Folder   6	Book proposal
Box   5 Folder   7	Bahrain
Box   5 Folder   8	Ceylon
Box   5 Folder   8	India
Box   6 Folder   1	Indonesia
Box   6 Folder   2	Japan
Box   6 Folder   3	Miscellany
Box   6 Folder   4	Philippines
Box   6 Folder   5	Report
Box   6 Folder   6-7	Trip notes and personal correspondence
Box   6 Folder   8	#29: Red Cross
Box   6 Folder   9-10	#30: Departure from Hill & Knowlton
Box   6 Folder   11-12	#31: Post Hill & Knowlton professional activities (including Carnegie Tech)
Box   6 Folder   13	MTJ Computer horoscope
Box   7 Folder   1-2	#32-33: Speeches and professional writing
Box   7 Folder   3	#34: Formation of Direct Lines
Box   7 Folder   4	#35: Hoover
Box   7 Folder   5-6	#35.1: Hoover Worldwide
Box   8 Folder   1	#35.1: Hoover Worldwide, continued
Box   8 Folder   2	#36: Direct Lines
Box   8 Folder   3	#37: Writing for Christian World for Layman's Movement for a Christian World
Box   8 Folder   4	#37.1: Hoover outgoing correspondence
Box   8 Folder   5	#38: Roger Enloe of UN We Believe
Box   8 Folder   6	#39: Emerging nations (Ghana, Uganda)
Box   8 Folder   7	#40: Arrival, National Passenger Traffic Association Note: Including Goliath Farman article.
	#40.1: “Day of Corporate Change” manuscript and correspondence
Box   8 Folder   8-10	Parts I-III
Box   9 Folder   1-2	Parts IV-V
Box   9 Folder   3	#41: Recycling proposal
Box   9 Folder   4-6	#42: Miscellaneous writings (including Lafayette College alumni columns)
Box   9 Folder   7	#43: Miscellaneous correspondence
Box   9 Folder   8	#44: Noble-Drury Public Relations of Nashville
Box   9 Folder   9	#45: Malcolm Malone Johnson
Box   9 Folder   10	#45.1: Jeanne McHugh Kerr, biography of Alexander Holley
Box   10 Folder   1-3	#46-48: Miscellaneous personal correspondence
Box   10 Folder   4	#49: Complaint letters
Box   10 Folder   5	#50: “Moments in time”
Box   10 Folder   6-7	#50.1: “Today in Communications,” correspondence and book proposal
Box   10 Folder   8	#50.2: “Arzrouni case”
Box   10 Folder   9	#50.3: Appendices
Box   10 Folder   10	#50.4: Inscribed books