This collection includes postcards from 45 African countries. Subjects include agriculture; animals; artists; body arts; cityscapes; cultural landscapes; dance; education; expeditions; flora; industry; leaders; marketplaces; medicine; military; missionaries; music; portraits; recreation; rites and ceremonies; and transportation, among many other topics.
Arrangement note:
Arranged by country and topic
Provenance:
NMAfA: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, 950 Independence Ave. S.W. 20560-0708;, Transfer;, 1985-ongoing;, 1985-0014
Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Genre/Form:
Postcards
Citation:
African Postcard collection, EEPA 1985-014, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Verso labeled with former accession number format: A1995-38-52.
Original Version Note:
Recto image originates from Eliot Elisofon Field photographs collection, slide no. H 3 LLU 4.1 EE 70, accessioned as EEPA EECL 7340.
Copy and Version Identification Note:
Items EEPA CG-04-05 and CG-04-06 are duplicate postcards.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Items EEPA ML-07-09 and EEPA ML-07-10 are duplicate postcards.
Local Numbers:
EEPA ML-07-09
General:
Title source: Postcard caption.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Items EEPA ML-07-09 and EEPA ML-07-10 are duplicate postcards.
Local Numbers:
EEPA ML-07-10
General:
Title source: Postcard caption.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Items EEPA NR-12-01 and EEPA NR-12-02 are duplicate postcards.
Local Numbers:
EEPA NR-12-01
General:
Title source: Postcard caption.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Items EEPA NR-12-01 and EEPA NR-12-02 are duplicate postcards.
Local Numbers:
EEPA NR-12-02
General:
Title source: Postcard caption.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
This accession consists of materials created and maintained by Warren M. Robbins, founder and director of the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA). The materials
cover a wide range of his life, including his time as an education officer at the American Embassy in Vienna, Austria; his work at the American Consulate General in Stuttgart,
Germany; his work at the American Embassy in Bonn, Germany; the activities of the Center for Cross Cultural Communications (later the Robbins Center for Cross Cultural Communications);
and the work of the Museum of African Art (precursor to NMAfA). Of note are the records related to the Frederick Douglass house and the materials related to Robbins' conflict
with the Smithsonian after his termination. Some materials date to after the death of Robbins in 2008. For more biographical information on Robbins please see Accession 11-001:
Warren M. Robbins Papers, circa 1927-2009. Materials include correspondence, memoranda, brochures, scrapbooks, picture postcards, journals, a book, invitations, meeting minutes,
conference records, images, clippings, ephemera, and a locket.
This collection consists of two copies of the DVD "Arts of the Monsoon," (2016) one standard and one Blu-ray. Produced in 2016 by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the film portrays how the dhows, in sailing across the monsoon winds of he Indian Ocean between Oman and East Africa, brought cross-cultural influences along the coastal areas of Sur, Salalah, and Zanzibar.
Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
This collection includes education, administrative and program documents collected and produced by the staff of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in the conduct of museum business, 1974-2002.
Scope and Contents:
This collection includes education, administrative and program documents collected and produced by the staff of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in the conduct of museum business, 1974-2002. There are slides and written materials related to a slide kit that the Education Department created for the program "The Creative Heritage of Africa". Administrative files include organizational and grant reports and documents about the development and implementation of the SIRIS (Smithsonian Institution Research Information System) database.
Arrangement note:
Arranged in two series by record type:
Series 1: Education Files, circa 1970s (25 folders)
Series 2: Administrative and Program Files, 1974-2002 (28 folders)
Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Genre/Form:
Museum records
Citation:
National Museum of African Art Education, Administrative and Program Records, EEPA 1997-012, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Footage of unknown origin of Ikoma women, Tanganyika (Tanzania), dancing in an open area.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Numbers:
HSFA 1991.15.1
Provenance:
Received from the National Museum of African Art in 1991.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
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.
Scope and Contents:
The photographs document African businesses, cities, industry, landscapes, peoples and resources. Place documented include Moshi Province, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru, the Serengeti Plain (Kenya), and Zanzibar in German East Africa (now Tanzania); Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); Cape Town, Devil's Peak, Johannesburg, Kimberly, Natal Province, and Port Elizabeth in South Africa; the waterfront of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Soko, Boma, Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), and Stanley Falls (now Boyoma Falls). There are also photographs of the Nile during a flood.
People portrayed include a Kikuyu man paying brideprice for a wife; Kikuyu women carrying water vessels and planting beans; Maasai women building houses; Swahili people dancing; Swahili women using a power figure to ward off evil; and Zulu men training for war. Other peoples portrayed include Bangala, Bangi, Chagga, Kongo, Ndombe and Poto.
Activities documented include buying ivory, carrying rubber, clearing the ground for a coffee plantation, fishing, gambling, grinding corn, hunting zebra, making pottery, mining diamonds and gold, peeling bark for bark cloth, picking coffee, preparing food, smoking meat, threshing beans, and tying house poles. There are also images of 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 in Rhodesia; the DeBeers Diamond Mine in South Africa; a diamond mine compound and crushing mill; fishing boats off Cape Town; a hemp plantation in Uganda; ivory trade in Mombasa, Kenya; a market; and the stock market in Johannesburg.
Biographical / Historical:
In 1882 the Underwood and Underwood Company began operations in Kansas. Founded by brothers Bert Elias (1862-1943) and Elmer (1860-1947) Underwood, the company pioneered the technique of selling stereographs door-to-door. By 1884, Underwood and Underwood's operations had expanded to the West Coast, and the company soon opened offices throughout the world. In the 1890s, the firm began selling images to publications such as Illustrated London News and Harper's Weekly. At its peak in the early 19th century, the company produced 25,000 images per day.
In the late 1910s, Underwood and Underwood was purchased by a competing stereograph company, the Keystone View Company.
Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
14 Photographic prints (Cartes-de-Vista (1 box), black & white)
46 Photographic prints (dupe prints, black & white, 8 x 10 in. or smaller )
8 Photographic prints ((1 box), black & white, 18.5 x 40 cm. or smaller )
32 Photographic prints (cabinet cards (1 box), black & white, 4 x 5.5 in. )
Container:
Volume 1
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographic prints
Cabinet photographs
Place:
Africa
Senegal
Date:
between 1880-1913
Summary:
Photographs and cabinet cards from Senegal collected by the staff of the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, during the 1980s. Popular from the mid-1860s through the 1900s, cabinet cards were commercially produced 4" x 5 1/2" photoprints mounted on card stock measuring 4 1/4" x 6 1/2", often with an embossed studio name in the corner. Frequently sold as collectors' items, these cards often contained images of attractive women or royalty of various nationalities. Images include cabinet cards from the Bonnevide Photographic Studio and from J. Barbier.
Arrangement:
Images indexed by negative number.
Provenance:
NMAfA: National Museum of African Art,, Smithsonian Institution, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, 950 Independence Ave, S.W. Washington, DC 20560-0708;, Transfer;, 1989;, 1989-0003
Restrictions:
Use of original records requires an appointment. Contact Archives staff for more details.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce images from the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives must be obtained in advance. The collection is subject to all copyright laws.
Genre/Form:
Photographic prints
Cabinet photographs
Identifier:
EEPA.1989-003
Archival Repository:
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art