The collection documents Gabler's involvement in the recording industry and the evolution of Commodore Records. The documentation begins with the Commodore Radio Shop through its evolution to Commodore Music Shop. The collection also includes the beginnings of the Commodore record label and information detailing Gabler's 30 years as staff producer and later Vice-President in Charge of Artists and Repertoire at Decca Records (1941-1974). There is a small collection of black and white photographs chronicling the early years at the Commodore Music Shop, as well as jam sessions, often held at Jimmy Ryan's on 52nd Street. The collection also includes a vast array of audio recordings (mainly audiodiscs).

The Griffith Family papers, which dates from 1907 to 1950 and measures 4.21 linear feet, documents the personal lives of three generations in the Griffith family: Sarah Thomas, Delaphine and Jacqueline Griffith. The papers are comprised of personal and professional correspondence, receipts, bills, newspaper clippings, photographs, record albums, and legal documents.

The collection consists of 235 pieces of music ephemera assembled by an anonymous California musicologist over several decades. The contents include such things as concert ticket stubs; show programs; handbills; publicity stills; record store posters; nightclub souvenirs; autographs; contracts, lobby cards; movie stills; postcards; fan and record i...

The records pertain to the administration of David W. Scott, director, 1965-1968, Robert Tyler Davis, interim director, 1969, and Joshua C. Taylor, director, 1970- . Some records, most noticeably correspondence with Smithsonian Art Commission members, have been pulled up into the files from previous administrations. Also included are Smithson...

Floyd Levin was a Los Angeles textile manufacturer who turned his passion for jazz into a second career as an influential jazz journalist and historian. The collection consists of research materials including biographical files. In addition, there are numerous photographs that were taken and collected by Levin.

The papers of art historian and educator Milton Wolf Brown date from 1908 to 1998 and measure 26.0 linear feet. The collection documents Brown's career through scattered biographical material, correspondence with friends, publishers, colleagues, artists, museums, and art organizations, travel journals, files for the Prendergast Catalogue Raisonne Project, exhibition, research, teaching, and organization files, printed material, and scattered photographs. A large portion of this collection consists of writings by Brown including notebooks, draft writings for books and other publications, lectures, and his writings as a student.

The papers of George Sprague Myers provide extensive documentation of his research career in ichthyology and herpetology. The collection also offers substantial information concerning the development of Myers' interest in natural history; his college work at Indiana University and Stanford University; his teaching career at Stanford University...

The papers of folk art collector and museum curator Herbert Waide Hemphill date from 1776-1998, bulk 1876-1998, and measure 26.7 linear feet. Found within the papers are biographical materials, personal business records, files documenting his collecting, writings, art work, minutes of meetings, a scrapbook, printed material including exhibition and auction announcements and catalogs, and miscellaneous artifacts. The collection also contains numerous photographs of Hemphill, family members, his residences, friends and colleagues, exhibitions, travel, and art work. Sound and video recordings include interviews of Hemphill.

These records document the history of the Department of Aeronautics from 1966-1986, a period marked by intensive planning for the new museum, its construction and opening in July 1976, and the emergence of the National Air and Space Museum as a large and important bureau of the Smithsonian and the most visited museum in the world. At the begi...

Collection consists of records documenting one of the oldest advertising agencies created in Philadelphia. The company then moves to New York and expanses to international markets. During its history NW Ayer & Sons acquires a number of other advertising agencies and is eventually purchased. The largest portion of the collection is print advertisements but also includes radio and television. NW Ayer is known for some of the slogans created for major American companies.