This collection is primarily the work of one individual, Donald Harvey Sultner, known professionally as Donald Sultner-Welles (1914-1981). The collection forms a written and visual record of Sultner's family, life, and career from 1913-1980. Its major strength is Sultner's photographic documentation of the world during his travels, ca. 1950-1980. W...

This collection consists of 4.3 cubic feet of manuscript, print, and photographic materials created or collected by Carl de Wendler-Funaro (1898-1985) in pursuit of his interest in Gypsy life and culture. (Carlos de Wendler-Funaro used several forms of his name; he wrote mostly as Carl de Wendler-Funaro.) The -collection was brought to the attentio...

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.

Vivian E. Garrison was an applied medical anthropologist who researched the cultural understandings and community treatment structures surrounding mental illness and mental health care among low-income, minority, and migrant communities of the New York metropolitan area. The Vivian E. Garrison papers document this research and consist of clinical and case files; research policies and protocols; presentations and workshops notes; manuscripts and drafts; publications and working papers; correspondence; grant applications; administrative files; sound recordings and films; annotated scholarly literature; and personal biographical material.

The collection documents the life and career of jazz musician, arranger, songwriter, and bandleader Maceo Jefferson. It includes biographical documents such as birth and marriaige certificates and passports; letters, mostly relating to the music business and including carbon copies of letters sent by Jefferson; photographs, many inscribed, includin...

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.

Processed by Craig Orr, archivist, (1999); Jennifer Shaifer (intern), October-December 2008; Ramona Williamson (volunteer), November 2008; Sarah Allan, November 2008; supervised by Vanessa Broussard Simmons, archivist.

This accession consists of the records of Cynthia Adams Hoover (CAH), Curator Emeritus at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), and document her curatorial activities, professional interests, and publications over the years as Assistant Curator of Musical Instruments, 1961-1963; Associate Curator, 1964-1974; and Curator, 1975-2004. ...

Sam DeVincent loved music and art and began collecting sheet music with lithographs at an early age. Series 16: Country, Western, and Folk Music contains approximately 11,500 pieces of sheet music and other materials documenting the development of and popular attitudes towards country, western, and folk music in the United States. An overview to the entire DeVincent collection is available here: Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music.

This collection contains over 37,000 35mm slides, 3,000 glass lantern slides and garden files that may include descriptive information, photocopied articles (from journals, newspapers, or books), planting lists, correspondence, brochures, landscape plans and drawings. Garden files were compiled by Garden Club of America (GCA) members for most of the gardens included in the collection. Some gardens have been photographed over the course of several decades; others only have images from a single point in time. In addition to images of American gardens, there are glass lantern slides of the New York Flower Show (1941-1951) and trips that GCA members took to other countries, including Mexico (1937), Italy, Spain, Japan (1935), France (1936), England (1929), and Scotland. A number of the slides are copies of historic images from outside repositories including horticultural and historical societies or from horticultural books and publications. The GCA made a concerted effort in the mid-1980s to acquire these images in order to increase its documentation of American garden history. Because of copyright considerations, use of these particular images may be restricted.