The incredible archive of Marion Stokes

The life’s work of Marion Stokes is packed into 140,000 VHS tapes that fill four shipping containers.

On those tapes is an archive of news broadcasts dating back to 1977.

What started as a hobby for Stokes – recording the most important events from the news – turned into a tremendously valuable archive.

She recorded every broadcast from the major networks on eight video recorders that spun around the clock.

Dinners out would be cut short to replace full tapes.

The VHS boxes were piled so high the stacks would fall over.

But she kept doing it.

For 35 years.

And now it’s an important archive and Stokes is a hero among historians. The plan is to make her treasure trove public and searchable.

Stokes’s persistence is what I admire.

It’s not easy to keep doing something day after day, month after month.

Those of us who send newsletters could learn something from her.

After all, success comes only to those who keep publishing their newsletter every month.

You won’t get much traction if you do it just once or twice.

But when you do it regularly – over a long period – people notice and the business flows.

It’s just like a relationship, really.

A quick hello won’t cut it.

But keeping in touch over the long term – through good times and bad times, even when you don’t feel like it – is what makes that relationship strong.

Our ready-made newsletters will help you do that.

They come pre-customized with your contact info and graphics.

So you just have to send them out.