August 16, 2022

Outdoor Recreation Catalogs and Magazines

Contact: Clint Pumphrey, Manuscript Curator | clint.pumphrey@usu.edu

Illustration of family recreating by a stream outside of vintage car, adapted from catalog in collection

Illustration of family recreating, adapted from an L.L. Bean catalog in the collection.

With its explosive growth over the last few decades, the outdoor industry has firmly positioned itself as a significant part of the commercial, environmental, and social fabric of the country. One way to examine this impact is through gear catalogs, which represent the culmination of a company’s work, from the design and development of the products to marketing and promotion of the brand, and how this process changed over time. They also tell us a great deal about consumers, including their style preferences and how they experienced the outdoors.

Utah State University (USU) Libraries’ Outdoor Recreation Catalogs & Magazines collection represents an ongoing effort to collect these catalogs and other outdoor recreation publications.

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