Descriptive Entry

This record unit consists of 16mm motion picture films produced by the Office of Telecommunications (OTC) and its predecessors, the Smithsonian Museum Service, the Office of Public Information, and the Office of Public Affairs. Also included are films created by outside producers in collaboration with OTC. Included are black and white and color films, workprints, and silent films. Of special interest are films of Smithsonian special events, bureaus, facilities, equipment, exhibitions, openings, and staff; films of politicians and celebrities at the Smithsonian including Lyndon Baines Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Alan B. Shepard, Jr.; films from the 1966 National Broadcasting Corporation series THE SMITHSONIAN; and Smithsonian-produced films The Leaf Thieves, 1963, which documents the planning and fabrication of a proposed rain forest exhibition in the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), and The Smithsonian's Whale, 1964, which concerns the construction of a 92-foot model blue whale in NMNH.