Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Community Museum Search this
Container:
Box 17, Folder 17
Type:
Archival materials
Text
Date:
1988-1991
Collection Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Black Mosaic: Community, Race, and Ethnicity among Black Immigrants in Washington, D. C. Exhibition Records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
4 videotapes (Reference copies). 9 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Date:
1989-1990
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
Ted Robinson, an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration, held a two-year appointment at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum as a historian of black
aviation. During that time he recorded two video sessions with five black aviators of the 1930s. The interviewees related how they became interested in flying, how they obtained
airplanes and training, how they publicized their aviation skills at the local and national levels, and how they contended with the prejudices opposing them. Robinson was
especially concerned with visually capturing the survivors of that era since there are few pictorial records of their past.
In Session One, recorded in Washington, D.C., in November 1989, Robinson interviews C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson, Janet Harmon Bragg, and Lewis Jackson on their social and
technical experiences in aviation in the upper Midwest and at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. They discussed their struggles to become accredited pilots and open the United
States Army Air Corps to black fliers.
Session Two was recorded in Chicago, Illinois, in March 1990, where Robinson interviewed Cornelius Coffey and Harold Hurd on their similar efforts in the Chicago metropolitan
area and specifically on Coffey's organization of a licensed flight and mechanic's school before and during World War II. During both interviews Robinson used period photographs
to stimulate and complement the recollections of the participants.
This collection consists of two interview sessions, totalling approximately 7:00 hours of recordings and 201 pages of transcript.
Historical Note:
Black American men and women struggled throughout the 1930s to gain the opportunity and right to fly airplanes. Organization within African American communities, support
by white individuals, and aeronautic feats by blacks working with limited resources all served to challenge the racism and sexism of American society. Despite institutionalized
biases and the persisting effects of the Great Depression, the number of licensed black pilots increased about tenfold, to 102, between 1930 and 1941. This development helped
move the federal government, though not the private sector, into sanctioning black men to operate the twentieth century technology of powered flight during World War II.
C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson was born in 1906 and had his first airplane ride in 1928. In 1933, he became the first African American to earn a transport, or commercial, pilot's
license, and with Dr. Albert E. Forsythe completed a series of long-distance flights in 1933 and 1934 to promote black aviation. In 1940, Anderson instructed students from
Howard University for the Civilian Pilots Training Program (CPTP) until he was recruited by Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to act as its chief primary flight instructor. In
1946, he organized Tuskegee Aviation, Inc., to service aircraft until he was forced out of business by the state's attorney general in the late 1950s. He has continued to
fly and co-founded Negro Airmen International in 1970 to encourage others to enter the field of aviation.
Janet Harmon Bragg was a registered nurse inspired to fly by the exploits of Bessie Coleman, the first licensed black pilot in the United States. She earned her pilot's
license in 1932 at the Aeronautical University, Inc., in Chicago, Illinois, and because she was one of the few black pilots still employed during the Depression, Bragg paid
for most of the airplanes used by the Challenger Air Pilots Association during the 1930s. During World War II she was rebuffed by both the Women's Airforce Service Pilots
and a license examiner in Alabama from contributing to the war effort as a pilot; the government also refused her services as a nurse. After the war, Bragg married and ran
two nursing homes until she retired in Tucson, Arizona.
Lewis A. Jackson was born in 1912 and started flying in 1930. He gained his transport license in 1935; his barnstorming paid for the B.S. he received from Marion College
in Indiana in 1939. Jackson joined Cornelius Coffey in Chicago as flight instructor before leaving for Tuskegee where he became director of training for their CPT Program.
In 1948, he earned his M.A. in education from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in Columbus in 1950. Jackson served in various teaching
and administrative positions, including the presidency, at Central State University. He left in 1972 for an administrative post at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.
He has maintained an interest in flying, examining applicants for pilot licenses, and designing and building airplanes that could also be used on roads.
Cornelius Coffey was born in 1903 and had his first airplane ride in 1919. He graduated from an automotive engineering school in 1925 and an aviation mechanics school in
Chicago, Illinois, in 1931. He co-organized the Challenger Air Pilots Association with John Robinson to promote flying among blacks in the Chicago area, built an airport in
Robbins, Illinois, and opened an aeronautics school. In 1937 he earned his transport license and opened the Coffey School of Aeronautics. In 1939 the African-American communities
in Chicago and Washington, D.C., successfully lobbied to have Coffey's school included in the CPT Program; Coffey trained black pilots and flight instructors throughout World
War II. After the war, Coffey joined the Chicago Board of Education and established an aircraft mechanics training and licensing program in the city's high schools. Coffey
retired in 1969 and has since acted as a licensed mechanic examiner and aircraft inspector.
Harold Hurd first saw a black man fly an airplane at an airshow in 1929. Three years later, he was one of the first class of all black graduates from Aeronautical University
in Chicago. After graduation Hurd helped organize the Challenger Air Pilots Association and its 1937 successor organization, the National Airmen's Association of America,
in efforts to expand black interest in flying. He underwrote his aviation interests by working at the Chicago Defender newspaper. He later worked for several local papers
on Chicago's Southside.
Minicomputers and Microcomputers Videohistory Collection
Extent:
2 videotapes (Reference copies). 11 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Date:
1987
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
Jon B. Eklund, curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, interviewed six members of "The Brotherhood" at Broderbund Software, Inc., in San Rafael,
California, on July 31, 1987. The group discussed the creation, publishing, marketing, distribution, and reporting of microcomputing software in the late 1970s. They also
reflected on how software houses survived the leveling off of the personal computer market in 1984 and 1985, and suggested strategies for remaining competitive in the marketplace.
In addition, group members demonstrated early computer games.
This collection consists of one interview session, and one supplementary session, totaling approximately 5 hours of recordings, and 59 pages of transcript.
Please note that this session is comprised of dual sets of tape from two cameras positioned at different angles, plus a supplementary direct feed from a microcomputer.
Historical Note:
An informal confederation of computer software designers, known as "The Brotherhood," formed during the late 1970s. The group began as a result of the members' mutual
interest in microcomputer software development and their geographic proximity along the West Coast of the United States. Their contribution to computer graphics and games
was significant in the development of more advanced systems.
Interviewees were Douglas Carlston, Ken and Roberta Williams, Margot Comstock, Jerry Jewell, and Dave Albert. Douglas Carlston wrote Software People in 1985 to document
the role of "The Brotherhood" in the microcomputer industry. Carlston, a lawyer, was "bitten by the computer bug" in 1979 and began writing programs as a hobbyist. After the
commercial success of his first two games, Galactic Empire and Galactic Trader, Carlston quit his practice and co-founded Broderbund Software, Inc., with his
brother Gary in 1980.
Ken and Roberta Williams founded On-Line Systems in 1980 and achieved success with their creation of the first adventure/mystery games with graphics, Mystery House
and later The Wizard and the Princess. In 1982, they became known as Sierra On-Line and continued to focus on games and educational software for the Apple Computer.
Margot Comstock began the journal Softalk with Al Tommervik in Los Angeles on September 12, 1980. Comstock had been hired by a small software publisher, Softape,
to publish their in-house newsletter, when she transformed it into a national full-scale magazine for Apple owners. The magazine reviewed software, tracked industry news and
listed the monthly top thirty best-selling computer programs.
In 1980, Jerry Jewell was working as a Computerland store manager in Sacramento, California. Less than a year later, he and partner Terry Bradley were in charge of the
multimillion-dollar Sirius Software Company founded on the games of programmer Nasir Gebelli. Sirius Software was noted for its meteoric rise and fall in the games market
bonanza of the early 1980s. Dave Albert, a journalism major from the University of Iowa, worked as an editor for Softside magazine. The magazine prompted its original
editor, Mark Pelczarski, to form the Penguin Software Company in DeKalb, Illinois, in 1981. Albert joined Penguin as a software publisher for the Apple II-inspired graphics
and animation tools and games which the company produced. Albert later moved to Electronic Arts, an educational and game software house.
29 videotapes (Reference copies). 75 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Place:
Trinity Test Site (N.M.)
Hiroshima-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945
Nagasaki (Japan)
Nagasaki-shi (Japan) -- History -- Bombardment, 1945
Date:
1987-1990
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
Stanley Goldberg, consulting historian for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), recorded eighteen video sessions with fifty-five participants
involved in the engineering, physics, and culmination of the Manhattan Project. Goldberg examined the research and technologies necessary to realize the uranium and plutonium
bombs. He supplemented interviews with visual documentation of the industrial plants that refined and separated the isotopes, and of the machinery that delivered and dropped
the bombs. Interviewees explained the other steps of designing, building, testing and detonating an atomic bomb. Discussions with participants also elicited a social history
of the Project as recalled by various men and women responsible for different duties in different locales. Between January 1987 and June 1990 the sessions were recorded on-site
or in-studio in Hanford, Washington; Boston, Massachusetts; Oak Ridge and Louisville, Tennessee; Alamogordo and Los Alamos, New Mexico; Washington, D.C.; and Suitland, Maryland.
The sessions are divided into five series: Hanford, Oak Ridge, Cambridge, Los Alamos, and Alberta.
This collection consists of eighteen interview sessions, separated into five series, totaling approximately 47:00 hours of recordings, and 1188 pages of transcript.
Please note that Sessions 14 and 15 in Series Four are comprised of dual sets of tape from two cameras positioned at different angles.
Historical Note:
The United States government began underwriting investigations of the feasibility of atomic weapons in October 1941. Within a year, promising research at several universities,
particularly at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, showed that it was possible to produce atomic bombs based on the chain-reacting fission of uranium
235 isotope or of plutonium. This led to the reorganization of the Manhattan District, or "Project," of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make these bombs a reality. Brigadier
General Leslie R. Groves directed and coordinated the Project from 1942 to 1945, spending 2.3 billion dollars on nuclear reactors and chemical separation plants at Hanford,
Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and on the weapon research and design laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first plutonium bomb was successfully detonated at Alamogordo,
New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The B-29 bomber Enola Gay exploded the first uranium bomb, "Little Boy," over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945; the B-29 Bock's Car
exploded the second plutonium bomb, "Fat Man," over Nagasaki, Japan, two days later.
National Air and Space Museum. Space History Division Search this
Extent:
1 cu. ft. (1 record storage box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Clippings
Drawings
Date:
1985-1992
Descriptive Entry:
This accession consists of records documenting videohistory interviews performed by David H. DeVorkin. Most of the videohistories are part of the Smithsonian Videohistory
Program which was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Subjects covered in this accession include Leo Goldberg, Herbert Friedman, Robert Gilruth, Fred Hoyle, Yakov Alpert,
Edward T. Byram, Talbot A. Chubb, Robert Kreplin, Julian C. Holmes, and Charles Y. Johnson. Materials consist of correspondence, memoranda, biographical information, notes,
scene logs, graphics used in the videos, and publications by those being interviewed.
New United Motor Manufacturing Videohistory Collection
Extent:
3 videotapes (Reference copies). 6 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Place:
Fremont (Calif.)
Date:
1990
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
Peter Liebhold, museum specialist in engineering and industry at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), toured the NUMMI factory and its production
lines to document the mechanical applications of Japanese managerial philosophy. Liebhold surveyed increases in automation, the "just-in-time" inventory system, assembly line
quality control through kaizen, and the emphasis on teamwork which relied on multi-skilled workers cooperating with managers. These policies differed sharply from traditional
American approaches to management and production.
Liebhold interviewed several employees throughout the plant for their responses to the organizational changes. Among those interviewed were Michael Damer, NUMMI's public
relation officer, Gary L. Convis, the senior vice-president for manufacturing and engineering, and George Nano, the NUMMI United Auto Workers (UAW) bargaining committee chairman.
The interviews took place in a single session, which was recorded on September 25 and 26, 1990 at the NUMMI plant.
This collection consists of one interview session, totalling approximately 6:00 hours of recordings and 109 pages of transcript.
Historical Note:
In an effort to regain some of their share of the domestic market for automobiles, in the 1980s American car manufacturers embarked on a variety of reforms of manufacturing
processes and management techniques. In February 1983 General Motors (GM) Corporation entered into a joint venture with Toyota to produce automobiles using Japanese management
techniques at a GM plant in Fremont, California. The plant was, at the time, the least productive in the GM system. The combined corporate effort, known as New United Motors
Manufacturing, or NUMMI, opened for production in December 1984. Within five years the plant operated as efficiently as Japanese manufacturing facilities.
5 videotapes (Reference copies). 21 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Date:
1988, 1991
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
David DeVorkin, curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, interviewed five USNO astronomers about their observing techniques on various telescopes
used at the Observatory. DeVorkin was interested in the growth of the application of automation to astronomy. The sessions documented classical visual techniques for star
observation, as well as computer controlled telescopes and electronic detection techniques that have virtually replaced the human eye in modern astronomical research. Interviews
took place on March 28 and 31, 1988, and May 8, 1991 in various telescope domes on the USNO grounds, Washington, D.C.
Sessions One and Two took place on March 28 and March 31, 1988, respectively in Building Two, the 26-inch telescope building, and in the library of the USNO, Washington,
D.C. Charles Worley demonstrated the procedures for making double-star observations and discussed preparation and research necessary for an observing session, as well as the
importance of astronomical record keeping.
Session Three, recorded on May 8, 1991 in the 6-inch Transit Circle Telescope Building, at the Photographic Zenith Tube (PZT) telescope, and in the 26-inch telescope building
documented Corbin, Gauss, McCarthy, Worley and Douglass demonstrating their observing techniques on the various telescopes and discussing the effects of electronic automation
on their astronomical research. Of particular interest, Worley demonstrated the use of a speckle photometer attached to the 26-inch telescope which was not in use in the earlier
sessions.
This collection consists of three interview sessions, totaling approximately 7:00 hours of recordings and 172 pages of transcript.
Historical Note:
A primary objective of the United States Naval Observatory (USNO), one of the oldest American observatories in continual existence, was to determine time and star position
using state-of-the-art astronomical techniques. In order to fulfill its objective, the USNO engaged in meridian astronomy and astrometric studies, which provided a fundamental
frame of reference whereby the many motions of the earth in space and its position in time could be determined against a celestial reference frame. Traditionally, these observations
of stellar position and motion were carried out by visual observations which were gradually replaced by photographic techniques. Electronics and computer automation resulted
in further technological advances for astronomical research.
Thomas E. Corbin completed his B.A. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1962 and joined the scientific staff of the USNO in 1964. Under the USNO Professional Development
Program he completed his M.A. in astronomy at Georgetown University in 1969 and his Ph. D. at the University of Virginia in 1977. From 1969 to 1971 Corbin served first as
an assistant and later as astronomer-in-charge of the USNO El Leoncito observing station in Argentina. From 1971 to 1981 he was a member of the Southern Transit Circle Division
of the Transit Circle Division and Astrometry Department. Since 1984, Corbin served as head of the Meridian Division.
After receiving his B.S. in 1964 and M.S. in 1967 in astronomy from Case Institute of Technology, Geoffrey Douglass accepted the position of astronomer at USNO in 1967.
His USNO work was devoted to using the 26-inch telescope for making double-star observations.
F. Stephen Gauss received his B.A. from Cornell University in 1963. That same year, he joined the USNO staff as an astronomer in the Six-Inch Transit Circle Division. While
working at the Observatory, Gauss completed his M.A. in astronomy at Georgetown University in 1968. He was later appointed chief of instrumentation for the Astrometry Department.
Dennis Dean McCarthy was awarded his B.S. in astronomy from Case Institute of Technology in 1964 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1970 and 1972,
respectively. He was appointed astronomer to the USNO in 1965. In 1982, he was appointed chief of the Earth Orientation Parameters Division. His research interests include
astronomical research on the rotational speed of the earth and variation of astronomical latitude.
Charles Worley began his training in astronomy at Swarthmore College under Peter Van de Kamp. He completed his B.A. at San Jose State University in 1959 and became the
senior assistant astronomer at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, California, that same year. He served as the research astronomer there from 1960 to 1961. Worley assumed
the position of astronomer to the United States Naval Observatory in 1961 and since 1966 has been the administrative assistant director of the Astrometry and Astrophysics
Division.