We preserve the hidden past.

About

In the days before Super Bowl ads or social-media marketing, new products first appeared at events for buyers from the stores where the item would be sold. Milliken Mills, which wove fabric for clothing, hired Ethel Martin, whose papers are at MMC, to produce its buyers’ show. Former chorus dancers, Martin and her husband George worked Milliken’s sales pitch into a comedy and then used their connections to book a star, Bert Lahr (aka the Cowardly Lion in) to play the lead. The Martins’ papers open up MMC’s students to a world of theatre they had not known existed—and no longer does.