Maxwell Did It!: Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s-1950s

Million Dollar Pier (GE Spectacular, Daytime, June 14, 1929). From Maxwell Did It!: Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s-1950s. "...Robert Chester Maxwell, the adopted son of a High Point, North Carolina artist, ran away from home as a teenager. He worked as a sign painter and eventually settled in Trenton , New Jersey . At the age of 21 he founded the R.C. Maxwell Company, specializing in billboards and other outdoor advertising spaces along the northeast corridor between Philadelphia and New York , including Times Square and Atlantic City.
In the 1920s, Maxwell established the Electric Sign Manufacturing Company in Atlantic City to create electric "spectacular" signs that were seen along the Boardwalk and on the amusement piers. Some of the most famous signs include a 50-foot tall thermometer designed for Colgate and a massive ad for Chesterfield cigarettes installed on Steel Pier, which contained over 27,000 light bulbs. At the time it was the largest sign of its kind in the world.
Maxwell thoroughly documented his advertising work, compiling a massive collection of numbered photographs that showed prospective clients the available advertising spaces in relation to their local surroundings and activity, such as nearby buildings, adjacent advertising spaces, automobile and rail traffic, and pedestrians."