As we bid farewell to Mad Men and the series finale that AMC’s marketing team climatically promoted as “the end of an era,” we combed through the Los Angeles Public Library’s archives to look at some of the real ads of this era. Just like many of the cutting-edge campaigns that Don Draper and team masterminded, these advertisements from archived issues of Westways and Playboy magazines offer a snapshot of the social and cultural climates of their times through humor, sarcasm, lust and wanderlust, and the ever-timely dose of nostalgia.
From Playboy, 1961:
From Playboy, 1964:
From Playboy, 1968:
From Playboy, 1970:
From Westways, 1967:
To continue exploring other images from this inspirational era, browse the Los Angeles Public Library’s photo collection. If you are not up-to-date on the last season of Mad Men, you can check out previous seasons of Mad Men from your local library.
