História da, na e por meio da publicidade

explorações metodológicas de um anúncio com Bolívar durante a Política da Boa Vizinhança

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the methodological possibilities for the use of advertising in historical researches. We briefly discuss how advertising has been used in Brazilian historiography and the repertoire of methodologies already developed for this source in specific. We engage with Tânia de Luca's study –  which identifies three different approaches used in research with newspapers and magazines – to reflect on advertising. Analyzing Bausch & Lomb's advertisement published in the Reader's Digest magazine of February 1942, entitled "The liberator who did not free himself”, Simón Bolívar, we will demonstrate what would be a history of, in and through advertising. Through the examination of different approaches, we will explore topics such as the construction of a social role for advertising in the 1940s, the uses of the figure of Bolívar to serve the interests of the Good Neighbor Policy, and the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs' advertising project. We propose that such approaches can be complementary