Rolling Stone reports that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has donated a vast repository of material related to his widely celebrated show, from famous props to research material, to documents exploring its behind-the-scenes battles, to the University Of Texas. Weiner’s wish is for the archive to stay in a single piece, saying, “There is a record here of mid-century America that digs so deep. It would have been sad to let that go.”
One of Mad Men’s many strengths was its attention to detail, with Weiner and his team poring over catalogs, fashion magazines, and advertisements from the ’50s and ’60s to capture the series’ period look. Those’ll all be on display in the archive, housed at UT’s Harry Ransom Center. Meanwhile, fans will also get to see artifacts from the series’ run, like Don Draper’s terms of re-employment letter, and even the fake Star Trek spec script that Paul Kinsey once wrote. There will also be behind-the-scenes notes from Weiner himself, detailing fights like his ultimately successful years-long battle to license The Beatles, or his efforts to acquire Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the moon landing in 1969.