Medical Sciences Film Collection
National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Medical Sciences
Films vary in subject, production source, and intended audience. Includes both silent and sound black-and-white, and color films with sound.
Lisa Chickering and Jeanne Porterfield collection
Chickering, Lisa
7 Sound tape reels
5 Electronic discs (DVD)
1 Videocassettes (U-matic)
5 Videocassettes (Digital Betacam)
67.86 Linear feet
18 Sound discs (vinyl)
4 Cassette tapes
The Lisa Chickering and Jeanne Porterfield collection documents their work as travel filmmakers, photographers, and writers from 1954-2015. Their films are an example of the travel lecture film, a genre which combined silent travelogue films with live narration. Chickering and Porterfield presented their films throughout the United States and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s before turning to freelance still photography and travel writing in the early 1980s. The audiovisual and photography collection begins with their first joint travels in the 1950s and covers a range of their professional activities through the early 2000s, mainly encompassing original travel footage, edited travelogues, and travel still photography. Supporting documentation includes film scripts, lecture recordings, personal and professional manuscripts, financial and professional records, and a substantial amount of newspaper and magazine articles which serve as a record of the press generated by and about Chickering and Porterfield.
Instrument Society of America Collection
The collection documents the history of instrumentation through catalogs, bulletins, specification sheets, price lists, and other publications of companies that produce instrumentation.
Reddy Kilowatt Records
Hooks, Benjamin, Dr.
Xcel Energy
Reddy Communications, Inc.
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The records document the development and use of Reddy Kilowatt, a cartoon figure trademark created in 1926 by Ashton B. Collins, Sr. More than 150 investor-owned electric utilities in the United States and at least twelve foreign countries licensed the use of the Reddy Kilowatt trademark. The records include a wide range of textual and visual materials and sound and moving image recordings.
Stephen Arpee Collection of Sevruguin Photographs
62 Albumen prints (b&w, 25 cm. x 20 cm. or smaller)
A large album of prints by photographer Antoin Sevruguin, likely dating from his early career in Iran in the 1870s and 1880s. The collection also includes a number of loose, unbacked prints, many duplicating the photographs in the album. Roughly half of the mounted prints have English handwritten captions.
Wilbur H. Burnham Studios records
The records of nationally renowned Boston, Massachussetts, stained glass design company, Wilbur H. Burnham Studios, measure 40.3 linear feet and date from circa 1901-1991. The majority of the collection consists of project files for the studio's stained glass window contracts throughout the United States from the 1920s-1980s. In addition to project files, records include biographical material for the owners, correspondence relating to personal and studio business, general business and financial records, writings such as published articles by Wilbur H. Burnham, scrapbooks and other printed material documenting the history of the company, artwork including extensive watercolor design studies for stained glass, and photographic material. There is a 3.4 linear foot unprocessed addition to this collection donated in 2021 that includes sketches, awards, printed material, passports, biographical material, Christmas cards, photographs and negatives of Burnham and works of art, slides and postcards of stained glass windows, posthumous material, a bound ledger, legal papers, invoices and receipts, project files and glass plate negatives. Materials date from circa 1901-1991.
Division of Cultural History Lantern Slides and Stereographs
Stanley-Brown, Joseph, 1858-1941
Keystone View Company
Rau, William H.
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bulk 1900-1930
Collection consists of lantern slides and stereographs produced by several companies: Keystone View Company, Better America Lecture Service, Incorporated, American Press Association, J. Stanley-Brown, William H. Rau, and J. F. Maertz Department Store. The lantern slides were primarily intended to be used for educational presentations about the United States, other countries, history, and society. Many of the slides and stereographs are accompanied by descriptive text and in some instances by small cards--one card for each slide--and in other instances directly on the back of a stereoview. The majority of images were taken from 1900 to 1930.
Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, Series 3: African American Music
Sam DeVincent loved music and art and began collecting sheet music with lithographs at an early age. Series 3: African-American Music, contains circa 7,800 pieces of sheet music and folios dating from the 1820s to the 1980s; most of the material dates from after 1890. An overview to the entire DeVincent collection is available here: Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music.
Western Union Telegraph Company Records
Western Union Telegraph Company
The collection documents in photographs, scrapbooks, notebooks, correspondence, stock ledgers, annual reports, and financial records, the evolution of the telegraph, the development of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the beginning of the communications revolution. The collection materials describe both the history of the company and of the telegraph industry in general, particularly its importance to the development of the technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection is useful for researchers interested in the development of technology, economic history, and the impact of technology on American social and cultural life.
Records
This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee.
