Exhibition Records
This accession consists of drawings documenting early exhibitions at the Museum of History and Technology, including the Hall of Tools, the Hall of Vehicles, and the Halls of Medical Sciences. Some displays for the Halls of Medical Sciences were first exhibited in the Arts and Industries Building. A few materials …
Eduoard Otto Faber photographs of the Belgian Congo
Images of Congolese people, villages, boats, events, and scenery as well as possibly Faber and his friends and colleagues.
Keystone-Underwood Stereographs
Underwood & Underwood
The photographs document African businesses, cities, industry, landscapes, peoples and resources. The collection documents various locations within Kenya, Tanzania, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa. Peoples represented include Kikuyu, Maasai, Bangi, Chagga, Ndombe, Poto, Bangala, Zulu, and Kongo peoples. There are many images of agriculture, hunting, making pottery, mining diamonds and gold, church services at a Catholic mission, a gathering of chiefs at a court, a lion-killing ceremony, and war dances. Businesses and industries shown include coffee plantations; the DeBeers Diamond Mine; a diamond mine compound and crushing mill; fishing boats; a hemp plantation; ivory trade; a market; and the stock market.
MS 1999-23 Herbert Ward drawings from the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition
This collection is composed of fifty-one (51) drawings by Herbert Ward, made when he was a member of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. Most of the drawings depict men and women of the upper Congo River, but several others depict tools and implements. Please note that the contents of the collection …
Gordon Davis Gibson papers
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of Gordon D. Gibson. The collection contains his correspondence, field notes, research files, museum records, writings, photographs, sound recordings, and maps.The bulk of the collection consists of Gibson's southwestern Africa research. This includes his field notes, film scripts, photographs, sound recordings, and grant proposals he wrote in support of his fieldwork in Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. In addition, the collection contains his research notes, maps, drafts, publications, and papers presented at conferences. While most of his research focused on the Herero and Himba, the collection also contains his research on the Ovambo and Okavango and other southwestern African groups. In the collection is a great deal of photocopies and microfilms of literature on southwestern African ethnic groups, many of which are in Portuguese and German and which he had translated for his files. He was also interested in African material culture, especially Central African headgear. His research on African caps is well-represented in the collection, and includes photos of caps at various museums, source materials, research notes, and textile samples of knots and loop work. Gibson's files as the curator of African ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History also make up a significant portion of the collection. Among these records are his files for the museum's Hall of African Cultures and other African exhibits; his files on the museum's African collections, early donors and collectors of the collections; his personnel files; documents relating to his committee work; department and museum memos; meeting minutes; and his records as head of the Old World Division and acting chair of the department. The collection also documents the efforts to establish the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Film Center, now the Human Studies Film Archives, as well as his work on the planning committee to establish the Museum of Man at the Smithsonian. Memos and minutes relating to the Smithsonian's Center for the Study of Man are also present in the collection. In addition to Gibson's field photos, the collection also contains African photos taken by others. Among these are Herbert Friedmann's photos of Kenya; Hausmann's Libya photos; photos by Ralph Kepler Lewis during the Morden Africa Expedition in Kenya; and photos by Lawrence Marshall, Volkmar Wentzel, Alfred Martin Duggan Cronin, and Father Carlos Estermann. There are also photos of the exhibit cases from the Hall of African Cultures; photos of Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian African artifacts; and copies of photographs he obtained from different archives, including the National Anthropological Archives. Other materials in the collection include his files as film reviews editor for the American Anthropologist during the 1960s and 70s and his activities in different organizations.
Maxwell and Betty Stanley study photographs
Roy, Christopher D.
Stanley, C. Maxwell, 1904-1984 (collector and philanthropist)
Photographs of art objects collected by Maxwell C., 1904-1984, and Betty Stanley. The Stanley's had begun to collect African art objects during a business trip to West Africa in the 1960s, and they gradually acquired nearly 600 pieces. The objects are found today in the University of Iowa Museum. Events documented include official government ceremonies with staged indigenous dances; rituals in villages such as young members of the female sande society returning from the initiation camp; and visits by foreign heads of state such as Queen Elizabeth II and Josip Broz Tito of Yoguslavia. Art works include figures, masks, musical instruments, sculptures and staffs.
Eliot Elisofon Art photographs
Photographs taken by Eliot Elisofon in Africa and in European and American museums and collections during his extensive travels from 1942 through 1972. African kingdoms and peoples represented include Afo, Anyi, Asante, Atie, Baga, Bamana, Baule, Bembe, Benin, Bobo, Boki, Bozo, Chamba, Chokwe, Dan, Dinka, Dogon, Ebrie, Efik, Ejagham, Hausa, Ibibio, Idoma, Ife, Igbo-Ukwu, Ijo, Jenne, Jukun, Kamba, Kissi, Kom, Kongo, Kono, kota, Kpelle, Kuba, Kuyu, Kwele, Lega, Lobi, Loma, Lozi, Luba, Lulua, Lunda, Mambila, Mende, Mossi, Nalu, Ndebele, Ngbaka, Ngoni, Nok, Nupe, Nyamwezi, Pende, Suku, Susu, Tabwa, Teke, Temne, Tetela, Tiv, Tuareg, Urhobo, Vai, Woyo, Yaka, Yoruba, and Zande.
MS 7235 Vocabularies and notes based on material collected by Horatio Hale from enslaved African-Brazilians
This manuscript probably represents what Horatio Hale originally intended to publish on southern Africa in his Philology and Ethnology that is one of the volumes of the report of the United States Exploring Expedition (Wilkes Expedition). It includes several vocabularies, comparative vocabularies, and notes on the location and appearance (especially …
Historic Engravings collection
The Historic Engravings collection is comprised of 154 pages of engravings, dating from 1747 to circa 1905. The engravings depict subject matter related to Africa and Africans.
Lower Congo photographs
53 Negatives (photographic) (dupe negs, black & white, 4 x 5 in.)
53 Photographic prints (dupe prints (1 v.), black & white, 12 x 17 cm.)
Photographs assembled by Major Leon Roget, 1858-1909, in 1886 and 1888 in Boma, Congo Free State. Major Roget had organized the first companies of Force publique and had become its first commander (1886-1888). Most of the images are described in captions written on separate sheets by Rene J. Cornet, author of "La Bataille du Rail." Some images show the building of the railroad of the lower Congo (Matadi-Kinshasa), Katanga, and relate to the Belgian occupation and geological exploration of the Southeastern province and Maniema of the Belgian Congo by his father, Jules Cornet, 1865-1929. The majority of the images show architecture and colonial life in Boma and Matadi. They include a balloon ascent in 1889, a group of African men and women, African troops and African women with scarification. The most remarkable photographs include a picture of a Kongo burial ground, a studio photograph of a "horizontale" in Sierre Leone and a portrait of Makoleka, a "feticheur," who was executed for murder.