PSU Magazine Spring 1992

• lZZ-- I !' \ I I display of Nike advertise– ments plays itse lf out across three walls of the American Advertising Museum in downtown Portland with the familiar faces of Michae l Jordan and John McEnroe selling shoes. But across the room, the siren song is equally compelling. There, Jan Kurtz has been director of the American Advertising Museum in northwest Portland since March 1990. 14 PSU izz--! a bellboy uniform from the original 1932 Phillip Morris cigarette advertis– ing campaign hangs, "Call for Phi l-lip Morrr-iss!," and Frank Sinatra can be heard singing a jingle for Halo Sham– poo, "Halo everybody, Halo!." Housed in a historic building, this six-year-old institution is the only museum in the world devoted entirely A catchy ad campaign? Chances are good it will go on display at the museum Jan Kurtz '87 directs. By Eva Hunter to American advertising. And if the patterns of our lives sometimes a sume a quirky logic, the fact that Jan Kurtz, 29, a 1987 graduate in history and a current member of the alumni board, is now executive director of the museum, seems-perhaps-fated. Kurtz grew up as the daughter of American Presbyterian miss ionaries in Ethiopia, a country where advertising was limited to radio commercials fo r Fanta soft drinks and "Ev-ready" batteries, and Lucky Strike cigarette billboards left over from the 1940s. Her only childhood exposure to the abun– dant consumer choice in the United States came on fami ly furloughs home, every three years. 'Those furloughs overwhelmed me," Kurtz says. "Things that people here take for granted were beyond my com– prehension. I cou ldn't figure out how to use elevators." Fast food restaurants were espec ially disturbing for Kurtz. "How could anyone make qu ick choices from so many menu items?" she asks. "I was terrified at checkout counters and vending machines." Kurtz was born in 1962, a little less than mid-way through her parents' 23-year ass ignment in Ethiopia. She was the youngest of six children. Although Kurtz says that the educa– tion she received in Ethiopia was excellent-she attended school there through her freshman year in high