The Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers measure 57.2 linear feet and date from 1920 to 1991, with the bulk of the material dating from 1946-1983. Records provide extensive documentation of the gallery's operations from its inception in 1946 to its closing in 1983 and of the activities of Betty Parsons as one the leading art dealers of contemporary American Art in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Over one third of the of the collection is comprised of artists files containing correspondence, price lists, and printed materials. Additional correspondence is with galleries, dealers, art institutions, private collectors, and the media. Also found are exhibition files, exhibition catalogs and announcements, sales records, stock inventories, personal financial records, and photographs. Betty Parsons' personal papers consist of early curatorial files, pocket diaries, personal correspondence, and evidence of her own artwork, including sketchbooks, and files documenting her personal art collection.

Some of the original watercolor and wash drawings are included in the scrapbook, including: Indian canoes, page 200 in McKenney's Sketch; View of the Urn, Lake Superior page 361; Grave of a Chippewa Child on the Island Opposite Fond du Lac (Minnesota) page 305; Cave Rock, South Shore of Lake Superior, page 364; Oblique View of the Doric Rock of Lak...

Manuscript and printed textual material, photographic prints and negatives, slides, audio tapes, film, original and reproduction artwork, maps, scrapbooks, and historical and natural artifacts related to the history of African exploration and natural history, dating primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes correspondence, drafts of publications, diaries, account books, ephemera, posters, newsclippings, biographies, memoirs, portraits, and the former personal property of selected explorers, big game hunters, missionaries, pioneers, and naturalists in Africa.

John-Manuel Andriote interviewed numerous individuals involved in the AIDS crisis for his book, Victory Deferred: how AIDS changed gay life in America, this collection contains his interview tapes, transcripts, and materials related to the research and writing of his book.

The collection is comprised of digital surrogates previously available on the 106 rolls of microfilm described in the NARA publication M1910. These digital surrogates reproduced the records of the South Carolina field offices of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872, including previously unfilmed records of the Office of the Assistant Commissioner, and records of the offices of staff officers, subordinate officers, and subordinate field offices. These records consist of bound volumes and unbound records, including letters and endorsements sent and received, orders and circulars, monthly reports, and other records relating to freedmen's complaints and claims.

This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.

The bulk of the collection consists of renderings of sewing machines and related products by industrial designers such as Henry Dreyfuss, Robert P. Gersin, Eliot Noyes, and Malcolm S. Park; by designers of Singer's in-house design department; and by consultants to the firm. Materials include decals, photographs, negatives, patents, and renderings and sketches. This collection documents the influence of industrial design on Singer sewing machines as well as other household products such as vacuum cleaners.

The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.

Series 1 includes: news articles about the company and the Simmons family; photographs of the machinery, factories, factory workers, products and showrooms; annual reports; various corporate periodicals; audit reports; patents; and materials relating to sleep research conducted by Simmons. Series 2 includes product catalogues, scrapbooks of adverti...

The collection documents the Fuller Brush Company founded by Alfred C. Fuller in 1906.