Hagley received the Cinecraft Productions collection nearly five years ago, and it continues to yield surprises. Cinecraft, an industrial film producer in Cleveland, Ohio, produced films for many clients. Perhaps none as unique as the National Potato Chip Institute, a trade organization founded in the mid-1930s as the Ohio Potato Chip Association. The Institute educated consumers about the salty snack and published cookbooks with recipes and ideas. Among their suggestions included chips as a side dish for a holiday turkey and as a topping for casserole (to name a few).
In 1948, the Potato Chip Institute hired Cinecraft to produce a promotional film titled Thank You, Mr. Chips. Hagley had production stills and a script for the movie in the Cinecraft archives but assumed that we wouldn't find the actual film because of its age. Productions made before 1950 have been challenging to find among the thousands of film reels in the Cinecraft collection. Discovering the film adds another unique find to Hagley's growing collection of motion picture films. We are thrilled to share it here:
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Read the script and see additional production stills for Thank you, Mr Chips
Trade Catalog: Agents' bonanza : chips! chips! chips! : Saratoga chips
The influential consumer researcher Ernest Dichter, whose archive resides at Hagley, wrote multiple reports for the potato chip industry with suggestions on how to better market their product. Those reports are available on-site at the Library. For more information on those reports or other material in Hagley's collection, contact us at research@hagley.org.
Kevin Martin is the Chief Curator of Library Collections at Hagley Museum and Library