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.

The archivist has arranged the collection into five separate series: Series 1: CAR BUILDERS, arranged alphabetically by company or individual. Series 2: EQUIPMENT - ROLLING STOCK, arranged in two sections: alphabetically by White's heading: Articles in Progress and alphabetical by type of railroad car under White's heading: Research Files for Book ...

The Warshaw Collection consists of approximately 1,150 cubic feet of material currently contained in approximately 2,050 vertical document boxes, approximately 326 flat oversize boxes, 34 map case drawers of oversize materials, 56 volumes of photographic photo prints, 17 boxes of 4 x 5 color transparencies and black and white photonegatives, 11 box...

Record Unit 312 was transferred from the National Museum of American Art (NMAA) Archives to the Smithsonian Institution Archives in October 1984. The NMAA Archives, which was created in January 1975, and located in the Fine Arts and Portrait Gallery Building, came under the daily administration of the NMAA, with technical supervision and ...

President of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later Tukegee Institute; now Tuskegee University) from 1935 - 1953 and founder of the United Negro College Fund (1944). Patterson was born on October 10, 1901. Orphaned at age two, he was raised by his eldest sister, Wilhelmina (Bess), a school teacher in Texas. He studied at Iowa State College, where he received a doctorate in veterinary medicine in 1923 and a master of science degree in 1927. Five years later, he was awarded a second doctorate degree from Cornell University. Patterson taught veterinary science for four years at Virginia State College, where he was also Director of Agriculture. His tenure at Tuskegee University started in 1928 and spanned almost 25 years, first as head of the veterinary division, then as the director of the School of Agriculture and finally as Tuskegee's third president. He married Catherine Elizabeth Moton, daughter of Tuskegee University's second president, Dr. Robert R. Moton. Patterson also founded the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee in 1944, the same year he founded the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). The UNCF continues today as a critical source of annual income for a consortium of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tuskegee University among them.

Science Service was founded in 1921 by newspaper publisher Edward Willis Scripps (1854-1926) and the zoologist William Emerson Ritter (1856-1944) as a news service for the purpose of disseminating information on scientific progress to the public, and to "present facts in readable and interesting form." The Science Service Astronomy and Astronautics files in the National Air and Space Archives consists of papers, news releases, articles, newspaper and magazine clippings, and technical papers pertaining mainly to astronomy and astronautics and dating from the late 1920s through the early 1970s.

While the collection is focused rather specifically on the development of television in America, including technical details, legal proceedings, marketing and advertisement, and manufacturing, it is also a rich source for the history of American advertising, work cultures, sales, and entertainment. There is also information about radio, mostly in p...

Frank A. Taylor (1903-2007) was a Curator of Engineering and Industries and an administrator at the Smithsonian. He was born in 1903 in Washington, D.C., where he grew up. Taylor began his career at the Smithsonian in 1922 as a Laboratory Apprentice in the Division of Mechanical Technology of the United States National Museum (USNM). After ...

Almost all of the papers in this collection deal with Carl Weaver Mitman's role as chairman of the Smithsonian War Committee. Loyal B. Aldrich, William N. Fenton, Herbert Friedmann, and Webster P. True also served on the committee. Minutes of the committee's meetings, correspondence and notes document the committee's projects. In addition to ...

This accession consists of the records of Lonnie G. Bunch, Director, and document his work in the development of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). His work touched upon every aspect of the museum including the collection of objects for the museum, the design and construction of the museum building, exhi...