Van Duyn, William

This collection of magazine advertisements, ephemera, articles, and photographs, was begun in 1994 by William Van Duyn, then a resident of Voluntown, Connecticut, who became fascinated by the ubiquity and deceptiveness of tobacco advertisements as a byproduct of his own effort to quit smoking. In addition to collecting, he founded a website to help others to quit. Van Duyn organized his advertisements, etc. into labeled looseleaf binders with the overall title "Gnikoms!" for smoking spelled backwards. At the time of his gift, Van Duyn and his family were living in Guilford and about to move to Canada.

From the guide to the William Van Duyn Tobacco Advertisement Collection, 1898-2002, (Historical Library, Harvey Cushing / John Hay Whitney Medical Library)