American Hospital Supply Corporation Records

Collection

Identifier: 55/28/3

Staff Only
No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

Filling twenty-two boxes, records of the American Hospital Supply Corporation (AHSC) date from 1920 to 1986. Records include the following principal categories: advertising; marketing; corporate correspondence; divisional records for acquisitions and subsidiaries; mergers; scrapbooks; stocks and securities; legal records.

Advertising Records detail the early efforts of the AHSC and include journal advertisements, export advertisements, and institutional advertisements. Corporate correspondence including correspondence between Foster G. McGaw and Neal Ball, Karl Bays, Charles F. Hough, Mackay A. Calder, and others. Division records include many of the AHSC's acquisitions and subsidiaries.

The scrapbooks contain news clippings, correspondence, speeches, greeting cards, awards, and photocopies of newspaper articles among other things. The scrapbooks illustrate the blurred distinction between Foster G. McGaw's career as president, and his later position of honorary chairman of the board, of the AHSC and his personal life.

Dates

1920-1986

Creator

American Hospital Supply Corporation (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is stored off-site and requires two business days advance notice for retrieval. Please contact the McCormick Library at specialcollections@northwestern.edu or 847-491-3635 for more information or to schedule an appointment to view the collection.

Extent

22.00 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The American Hospital Supply Corporation was founded in 1922 by Foster G. McGaw and partners. (McGaw was an important donor to Northwestern University, and to many other institutions.) The Corporation's records fill twenty-two boxes, and date from 1920 to 1986. Records include the following principal categories: advertising; marketing; corporate correspondence; divisional records for acquisitions and subsidiaries; mergers; scrapbooks; stocks and securities; legal records.

Arrangement

The records of the American Hospital Supply Corporation are contained in a series of folders arranged by topic and date. This organization by topic preserves the system of ordering established by the donor, Foster G. McGaw. Within folders, documents are arranged in chronological order by date (with the exception of the scrapbook folders, which are arranged in a rough chronological order by date). Important clusters of folders within the arrangement have names beginning: advertising; benefits and compensation; board meetings; corporate; divisions; financial; legal; marketing; mergers; press clippings; products; scrapbook; Securities and Exchange Commission; speeches; and stock information.

Method of Acquisition

This series has been separated from the papers of Foster G. McGaw, donated by James Vail to the University Archives on February 22, 1988 as Accession 88-52

Separated Materials

One and a half cubic feet of duplicates and extraneous material were discarded. Publications were separated and interfiled with series 55/28/1. A small number of photographs were separated.