StayFree is an independent site on the history of American advertising. It is not the original Stay Free! magazine and has no connection to its publishers.
Questions about a specific page or a correction request belong on the contact page, not this one.
What this site covers
Main points for this section.
StayFree documents American print and broadcast advertising by decade, the brand mascots that became part of popular culture, and the slogans that outlived the campaigns that created them. Every date, name and brand mentioned is checked against a public source before publishing.
How sources are chosen
Table rows are listed below.
| Topic | What you find |
|---|---|
| Decades | Ads organized by era, 1920s through today |
| Mascots | Brand characters, with the year each first appeared |
A date or name is published only when a public source — a trade publication, a company’s own history page, or a library archive — names it; details that cannot be sourced this way are left out rather than guessed.
Not the original magazine
True facts about the site, updated when they change.
The original Stay Free! magazine ran independently of this site and ended its run before 2000. StayFree registered this domain in 2019 as a separate, later project with no shared staff, archive or ownership; it does not claim to be the original publication.
Dates and credits come from public sources.
StayFree — vintage advertisements, by decade.
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