Political Broadcasts from the Morse Communications Research Center Collection

The Morse Communications Research Center was a research institute established at Brandeis University in 1961 for the study and analysis of communication in modern society. Headed by Louis G. Cowan, former President of CBS Television, and Henry Morgenthau III, former Executive Producer of WGBH-TV (Boston), the Center was created to analyze specific areas of communication affecting contemporary life, namely politics, education, and international relations. The Center's primary aim was to improve educational radio and television in the United States and abroad, particularly in developing countries. Comprising hundreds of 16mm films, reel-to-reel audiotapes, and two-inch videotapes, the political broadcast collection was originally housed at the Morse Communications Research Center at Brandeis University. The Center was founded in 1961 as a research institute for the study and analysis of communication in modern society. Headed by Louis G. Cowan, former President of CBS Television, and Henry Morgenthau III, former Executive Producer of WGBH-TV (Boston), the Morse Communications Research Center was created to analyze specific areas of communication affecting contemporary life, namely politics, education, and international relations; its primary aim was to improve educational radio and television in the United States and abroad, particularly in developing countries. Toward that end, staff of the Morse Communications Research Center created an audio-visual archives documenting local, state, and national political campaigns across the United States, with the goal of making the materials available for research. Louis G. Cowan acquired the broadcasts from advertising agencies and television networks around the country. By the time the Center closed in the mid-1960s, he had amassed over 400 films, audiotapes, and videotapes covering key political campaigns in the United States and Europe, from 1959-1964. With funding from the National Television and Video Preservation Foundation, the University Archives has reformatted onto DVD ten two-inch (quad) videotapes documenting several televised political campaigns from 1962: the Michigan gubernatorial campaign, the New York gubernatorial campaign, and the state and U.S. senatorial campaigns in New York. Debates, interviews, and advertising spots address the political platforms and ideologies of major and minor party candidates of the time, including George Romney and John Swainson (MI), and Carl Feingold, Richard Garza, Eric Hass, Jacob Javits, Robert Morgenthau, and Nelson Rockefeller (NY).