Washington (D.C.) -- Small business -- 20th century
Shaw (Washington, D.C.)
Washington (D.C.) -- African Americans
Date:
1888-1996
Summary:
The collection includes approximately 250,000 photonegatives, photoprints, color transparencies from the photographic business founded by Addison Scurlock in Washington, DC. Collection also includes business records and ephemera.
Scope and Contents:
Photographs includes portraits of famous African-American luminaries such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and many other artists, intellectuals, educators, entertainers, etc., as well as documentation of Washington, DC, including both the African-American community and national political life, and important photographs of Howard University; also commercial photography, including color materials.
Color separation materials include sets of black-and-white color-separation negatives, sets of matrices for the Kodak Dye Transfer process (full-color Dye Transfer prints are storied in a different series).
Business records: The photography studio records and Custom Craft records are in separate series, reflecting the fact that they were operated as separate businesses.
The collection includes all forms of photographs produced by the studio, such as prints in black-and-white and color, black-and-white and color negatives, color transparencies, black-and-white dye-transfer matrices, slides, etc.; as well as business documents, studio session ledgers, appointment books, business and personal correspondence, tax documents, and books, catalogs, and other publications. This material documents not only the photographic output of the business, both commercial and artistic, as well as the personal and business side of the enterprise.
Some photographs in the collection were not created by the Scurlocks. Some black-and-white and color prints seem to derive from assignments in the Capitol School of Photography, and are therefore student work. Also Custom Craft, the professional color processing service provided by the studio, made prints for other photographers, and samples for printing reference, as well as studio decor, have been retained in the collection. Custom Craft worked for such diverse photographers as artist Robert Epstein and well-known Washington photographer Fred Maroon, for example.
The collection numbers several hundred thousand photographic negatives, prints, and transparencies made by the Scurlocks and other staff photographers of the studio in its various Washington locations. The negatives are estimated at approximately 160,000-200,000 in number, and the prints of all sizes and types at nearly 57,000. The vast majority of the photographs are portraits of individuals, family groups, and organizations, as the primary business of the studio was portrait photography. They date primarily from the 1940s to 1990s. There are also a number of images, made for commercial clients, of building interiors and exteriors, and food. A small group of photojournalistic documentation also exists. The subjects also include architectural and industrial views, scenes in and around Washington, including children and street laborers, political events, social events, and 35mm slides of President Kennedy's funeral, 1964. There are also more personal artistic images, including still lifes with plants and flowers, and a few nudes; Robert's wartime service is also documented by his photographs, including European landscape photographs.
In addition to images taken by the Scurlock studio photographers, there are some prints, especially color, of images by other photographers who were clients, such as Fred Maroon, a prominent Washington photojournalist, and Robert Epstein, a teacher at the Corcoran School of Art. A print of one of Maroon's pictures had been displayed in the studio reception room at the time the studio was closed.
A large group of manuscript items, business documents, ephemera, and office and studio supplies constitutes a separate series from the photographs. An important adjunct to the photographs, a set of ledgers recording and identifying portrait sittings, highlights this group.
Nearly all of the photographs and documents stored in the studio and auxiliary storage locations were accepted for acquisition in order to form a complete history of this family business's production and operations over the better part of a century, whereas a selection of photographic apparatus and studio equipment was acquired by the Photographic History Collection: these items have been inventoried and catalogued separately.
Studio Portraits
The majority of the surviving photographic negatives and proof prints were made in connection with the studio's portrait work for a wide variety of clients. These portraits include images of famous people, such as political figures, entertainers, and noteworthy persons in a variety of fields, including scientists, writers, intellectuals, and academics. The majority of the figures depicted among both the famous and the not so famous are black. The greatest number of studio portraits, most of which are identified and dated, depict a general clientele who visited the studio for portrait sittings. Although the individual images in this vast quantity have limited research value in the usual sense, the aggregate represents a chronology spanning almost ninety years, which may be useful for demographic and genealogical information and as visual evidence of changing styles in clothing, hair, and accessories. It constitutes a panorama of a significant percentage of Washingtonians of the period, especially the black community.
Portraits of famous personages include George Washington Carver, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, Mayor Walter Washington, and Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, Mayor Marion Barry, DC Council members, statesmen such as Ralph Bunche, and many other noteworthy figures. Of particular interest is a signed group portrait of the US. Supreme Court with Chief Justice Berger presiding. There are also large- format portraits of Justice Thurgood Marshall and J. Edgar Hoover.
Group portraits include both formal sittings and the informal documentation of banquets, convocations, and similar events. This material includes groups at Howard University; Dunbar High School; the Post Office Clerks' Banquet; the Bishops' Meeting of the AME Church; a YMCA camp, cira 1947 1949; the 23rd annual conference of the NAACP, 1932, etc.
Howard University
Several thousand black and white negatives and prints, 1930s-1960s, depict the people, facilities, and events of Howard University, with which the Scurlocks had a long business relationship. There are various portraits, including Howard University Medical School, represented by 850 negatives and 100 prints. A group of law school and medical school images numbers some 800 negatives and 200 prints. In addition, there are class portraits, as well as images of famous guests speaking at Howard convocations, such as President Herbert Hoover.
Wedding Photography
An important aspect of any portrait studio's output is wedding photography, and the Scurlock studio was no exception. Bridal portraits, group pictures of wedding parties, and the complete documentation of weddings, in both black and white and color, constitute a significant part of the collection. African-American weddings predominate and provide important insights into this aspect of the society.
Exhibitions
The studio's work was shown in special public exhibitions over the years, and several of these are included in toto. The most important was an extensive retrospective display of 121 prints of Addison's work, both vintage and posthumous, prepared by Robert for the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1976. Others include: (1) a set of 32 black and white images made by Robert at the Ramitelli Air Base, Italy, while he was a major in the US Air Force during World War II; (2) a group of portraits from a Black History Month exhibit at Woodward and Lothrop; and (3) a set of sixteen vintage and modern prints which Robert displayed in an interview on the "Today" television show in the 1980s.
Commercial Work
This category includes architectural and industrial photography for commercial clients, food and still life photographs, etc. Much of this material is comparatively recent and was made in large format color, and includes transparencies and enlargements. It is possible that some of the prints represent Custom Craft work for other photographers rather than the camera work of Robert and George Scurlock. Thus far, prints by artist Robert Epstein have been identified as extra prints of his work from orders which he placed with the firm. At least one image by Fred Maroon has been identified.
A group of color prints constitutes copies of artworks, primarily in the National Portrait Gallery, for which the Scurlocks worked. Prints in 8" x 10", 11" x 14", 16" x 20" and 20" x 24" sizes are included, and undoubtedly negatives and transparencies corresponding to these subjects will be found.
Photojournalism
In addition to the formal studio portraits and pictures documenting formal events, the Scurlocks took candid photographs of the everyday life of their city, as well as extraordinary events of local and national significance, ranging from occasions such as John F. Kennedy's funeral and the 1968 riots to political rallies and demonstrations.
Capitol School of Photography
The collection includes a variety of materials, such as books and ephemera, which document the activities of the Capitol School of Photography, a sideline of the Scurlock business. Some of the photographs apparently represent student work. The most famous student of the school was Jacqueline Bouvier (later Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis), although no documentation of her association with the school has been located thus far. There are 45 photographs, circa 1950s, showing the photography lab, men retouching prints, students with cameras, etc.
Personal Photographs
A few photographs of the Scurlock family are included in the collection in various forms and formats, including enlarged portraits of Addison and Robert. A self portrait of Addison and Mamie Scurlock is included in the Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibition series. Other photographs which represent personal artistic expression, such as a few nude studies and floral and plant still lifes, are included.
Series 6 consists of photographic materials including color transparencies, slides, film, and proofs but occasionally includes notes, forms, and envelopes associated with the orders.
Series 1: Black and White Photographs:
Dates -- 1888-1993
Extent -- 105 boxes
Contents -- Series 1: Black and White Photographs: The materials are almost entirely black and white photographs, but in the subseries of clients, there may also be job envelopes, order materials, and other photographic material types that were included in the overall order. The series is arranged into two subseries, clients and subjects, and both are arranged alphabetically. The subseries clients documents the orders made by clients of the Scurlock Studio and individuals who were or could be identified but may or may not have actually placed an order at the Studio. The majority of the photographs in the clients subseries are formal portrait sittings but there are photographs of events, organizations, and businesses. The subseries subjects are photographs that were grouped into categories because no known client or individual in the image could be identified. The subjects cover a broad array of subjects but the majority of the subjects include unidentified people in formal portrait sittings and groups. In addition, not all photographs in this series were taken by the Scurlock Studio; there are photos by Abdon Daoud Ackad and other studios or photographers that were sent in to make copies. 1.1: Clients Black and white photographs1.2: Subjects Black and white photographs
Series 2: Color Photographs:
Dates -- 1930-1995
Extent -- 113 boxes
Contents -- Series 2: Color Photographs: The series color photographs consists of color photographs and hand-colored photographs, but there are also order envelopes and materials, and other photographic material types that were part of the order. The subseries are arranged as clients, subjects, weddings, and hand-colored photographs. Clients are arranged alphabetically by last name or the first word of an organization's name. Not all individuals, organizations, or businesses necessarily represent a client of the Scurlock Studio; if an individual or organization could be identified, the photograph was placed under the identified person or organization even if ther were not a known client of the Studio. The majority of the photographs are individual portrait sittings but also included are family portraits, businesses, organizations, and informal images. The subjects are arranged alphabetically, and document images of non-humans and humans that could not be connected to a known client. Weddings and hand-colored are arranged in alphabetical order with clients preceeding subjects. The were a large subject of the overall collection and the majority of weddings are color photographs but also included in the subseries are black and white and hand-colored photographs of weddings. The hand-colored photographs largely reflect the same subject matter of the subseries clients and subjects. In addition, not all photographs in this subseries were taken by the Scurlock Studio; there are photos by Abdon Daoud Ackad and other studios or photographers that were sent in to make copies. 2.1: Clients Color photographs2.2: Subjects Color photographs2.3: Weddings2.4: Hand-colored photographs
Series 3: Framed Prints:
Dates -- circa 1979
Extent -- 3 boxes
Contents -- Series 3: Framed Prints: The series framed prints includes three framed color photographs. The framed prints are arranged by the size, from smallest to largest, of the frame. The photographs are of two important political figures: Washington, D. C., Mayor Marion Barry and Senator Edward Brooke.
Series 4: Black-and-White Silver Gelatin Negatives:
Dates -- 1900-1994
Extent -- 320 boxes
Contents -- Series 4: Black-and-White Silver Gelatin Negatives: The material type of the series is black and white silver gelatin negatives. The negatives are arranged into twelve subseries. The materials document the clients and individuals whose photographs were taken by the Scurlock Studio and a wide variety of subject matters. The subjects represented are individual portrait sittings, organizations, events, businesses, commercial ventures of the Studio, and Washington, D. C. 4.1: Black and white negatives 4.2: Black and white negatives in freezers arranged by job number 4.3: Black and white negatives in freezer storage arranged by client 4.4: Black and white negatives in freezer storage arranged by subject 4.5: Black and white negatives in cold storage arranged by job number 4.6: Black and white negatives in cold storage arranged by client 4.7: Negatives in cold storage arranged by client with index cards 4.8: Negatives in cold storage arranged by subject 4.9: Black and white negatives for publication 4.10: Glass Plate Negatives 4.11: Customcraft Negatives 4.12: Banquet Negatives
Series 5: Color Negatives:
Dates -- 1964-1994
Extent -- 72 boxes
Contents -- Series 5: Color Negatives: The series color negatives primarily of color negatives but it also includes order envelopes and materials. The series is arranged into two subseries: clients and subjects. The subseries clients is arranged by job number, and the materials document the orders placed by clients of the Scurlock Studio and identified persons and organizations. The negatives depict individual portrait sittings, groups, and informal poses. The subseries subjects is arranged in alphabetical order, and the materials document negatives that could not be connected to a client of the studio. The negatives represent subjects such as art, buildings, commercial ventures of the Scurlock Studio, and unidentified people. 5.1: Color negatives arranged by client5.2: Color negatives arranged by subject
Series 6: Color Transparencies, Slides, and Other Formats:
Dates -- 1922-1994
Extent -- 40 boxes
Contents -- Series 6: Color Transparencies, Slides, and Other Formats: The series color transparencies, slides, and other formats consists of black and white and color transparencies, color slides, film, proofs, and order materials. The materials are arranged into four subseries: transparencies, slides, film, and proofs. The subseries are arranged by clients, in alphabetical order by last name, and then subjects, in alphabetical order. The materials document the orders placed at the Scurlock Studio by clients and identified individuals and organizations, and materials that could not be identified and are categorized by subjects. The subjects represented in the materials are primarily individual, family, and group portraits, and events and places. Cut but unmounted slides were typically placed in the subseries transparencies but a small number of cut but unmounted slides are included in the slides. The subseries proofs only contains a form of proof used by the Scurlock Studio that has a fugitive image, and other types of proofs printed on low quality paper or are water-marked and have a lasting image were included in the series Black and White Photographs and Color Photographs if the proof was either black and white or color. 6.1: Transparencies6.2: Slides6.3: Film6.4: Proofs
Series 7: Black-and-White Color Separation Negatives and Matrices:
Dates -- 1955-1957
Extent -- 7 boxes
Contents -- Series 7: Black-and-White Color Separation Negatives and Matrices: The materials in the series are black-and-white color separation negatives and a booklet about how to process black-and-white color separation negatives. The materials are arranged into three subseries: clients, subjects, and the booklet. The materials document orders placed at the Scurlock Studio by clients and individuals and organizations that could be identified but not connected to a specific order. The materials also document negatives categorized by subjects because there was no known client or identifiable individual or organization. The subjects represented are individual portrait sittings and groups, and unidentified people. 7.1: Clients Black-and-White Color Separation Negatives 7.2: Subjects Black-and-White Color Separation Negatives Booklet
Series 8: Scurlock Studio Business Records:
Dates -- 1907-1996
Extent -- 66 boxes
Contents -- Series 8: Scurlock Studio Business Records: The series Scurlock Studio Business Records contains paperwork pertaining to the administration of the business, the financial documentation of the business, the reocrds of sales, the advertising signs and promotions of hte business, the files kept on employees, and other materials kept at the Scurlock Studio. The series is arranged into six subseries: administrative file, financial, sales, advertising and marketing, employee and personnel, and office files. Each subseries is arranged differently according to the types of materials predominantly found in the subseries or in chronological order. The subjects represented in the series are mostly related to the financial records of the Scurlock Studio kept and the invoices of sales records. A wide variety of other subjects relating to the the business records of the Scurlock Studio can also be found including: session registers, construction plans, advertisements for specific holidays, and product information sent to the Studio. Some materials found in this series may be marked Scurlock Studio and Custom Craft, the color division of the Scurlock Studio, and were placed with this series because the Scurlock Studio was the primary business. Other materials with an unclear origin of either the Scurlock Studio or Custom Craft were placed in this series. 8.1: Administrative Files8.2: Financial8.3: Sales8.4: Advertising and Marketing8.5: Employee and Personnel8.6: Office Files
Series 9: Custom Craft Business Records:
Dates -- 1951-1994
Extent -- 57 boxes
Contents -- Series 9: Custom Craft Business Records: The series Custom Craft Business Records consists of paper documents relating to the administrative, financial, sales records, employee and personnel, and other files about the affairs of the Custom Craft business's day-to-day operations. The materials are arranged into five subseries: administrative, financial, sales, employee and personnel, and office files. The materials within a subseries are ordered by types of documents that consisted of a large number of materials listed first and materials with few documents following the grouped materials in chronological order. The materials document the day-to-day business of Custom Craft. The subjects represented are documents relating to the administration of the business, journals kept to document finances, the order invoices, the files kept about employees, product information, and materials accumulated in the office. Some documents may list both the Scurlock Studio and Custom Craft and were kept with the business records of Custom Craft if the materials appeared to fit the activities, color photography, of that business. Other documents relating to the business affairs of Custom Craft may be in the series Scurlock Studio Business Records because these documents did not clearly indicate which business the documents belonged to; in these cases, the materials were put in the series Scurlock Studio Business Records because the business was the primary business of the Scurlocks. There business records seem to indicate that there was not always a clear differentiation between the two businesses. 9.1: Administrative9.2: Financial9.3: Sales9.4: Employee and Personnel9.5: Office files
Series 10: Capitol School of Photography:
Dates -- 1948-1954
Extent -- 4 boxes
Contents -- Series 10: Capitol School of Photography: The series Capitol School of Photography consists of paper documents, photographs, and transparencies. The materials are arranged in chronological order and document the administration of the Capitol School of Photography and the students. The subjects represented are administrative documents, student files, photographs by students, photographs of students and the space used for the School, and transparencies of the same subjects.
Series 11: Washington Stock:
Dates -- 1981-1994
Extent -- 2 boxes
Contents -- Series 11: Washington Stock: The series Washington Stock consists of order materials, orders, and published materials. The materials are arranged chronologically and document the orders placed for Washington Stock and how the materials were used and published. The subjects represented are orders, standard forms used by Washington Stock, and published materials.
Series 12: Background Materials and Publications:
Dates -- 1902-1995
Extent -- 18 boxes
Contents -- Series 12: Background Materials and Publications: The series Background Materials and Publications is composed of paper documents, published materials, and materials from exhibitions. The materials are arranged into four subseries: historical and background information, Scurlock images, reference materials, and exhibition materials. The materials document the Scurlocks, published Scurlock images, published materials lacking Scurlock images, exhibitions of Scurlock images, and other exhibitions of related material. The subjects represented are largely materials related to the Scurlocks' photography and personal interests. Images were placed in the subseries Scurlock images if the photograph was credited to the Scurlocks or was a photograph known to have been taken by the Scurlocks; it is possible that uncredited and less well known images taken by the Scurlocks are present in the subseries reference materials. 12.1: Historical and Background Information12.2: Scurlock Images12.3: Reference Materials12.4: Exhibition Materials
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into 12 series.
This collection was processed with numerous changes in arrangement and numbering of boxes. Original box numbers have been retained in this finding aid for cross-reference purposes and to assist anyone with a record of photographs according to the original box numbers.
Biographical / Historical:
The Scurlock photographic studio was a fixture in the Shaw area of Washington, D.C. from 1911 to 1994, and encompassed two generations of photographers, Addison N. Scurlock (1883-1964) and his sons George H. (1920- 2005) and Robert S. (1916-1994).
The turn of the twentieth century saw a mass exodus of African Americans from the South to northern cities in search of better employment opportunities and fairer racial treatment. Although many considered Washington to be the northern-most southern city, it still offered opportunities for African Americans leaving seasonal agricultural work and racial oppression in the South. In Washington, African Americans found stable employment with the U.S. government. In addition, Howard University offered African Americans teaching opportunities, college education, and professional training as doctors, dentists, nurses, lawyers, and ministers. By 1900 a substantial African-American middle class existed in Washington. Despite the fact that Washington was a historically and legally segregated city (and would remain so into the 1960s), this middle class population continued to grow and prosper.
After graduation from high school, Addison Scurlock moved from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to Washington, D.C., with his family in 1900. With a keen interest in photography, he sought out an apprenticeship at the white-owned Moses Rice Studio on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Rice brothers (Amos and Moses) had been in Washington working as photographers since the 1860s and had one of the more prominent and better studios in the city. There Addison learned portrait and general photography. In 1904, he left Rice and began his photographic career at his parents' home. By 1911, when he opened the Scurlock Studio, he had already captured the likeness of Booker T. Washington (1910; see Appendix B), most likely his most well-known portrait. Scurlock quickly identified his market: a self-sufficient African-American community which included students, graduates, and educators affiliated with Howard University; poets; writers; intellectuals; musicians and entertainers; politicians; socialites; fraternal and religious organizations and their leaders. The Scurlock Studio, located at 900 U Street, N.W., became a fixture in the midst of the thriving African-American business community. As with his white counterparts on Pennsylvania Avenue and F Street, N.W., Addison Scurlock inspired passers-by with window displays of his photographs of national leaders and local personalities.
During the 1930s, Addison Scurlock's two sons Robert and George apprenticed in the studio. In addition to portrait and general photography, the sons learned the techniques of retouching negatives and photographic prints, hand-coloring, hand-tinting, and mat decoration. George concentrated on the commercial side of the business while Robert concentrated on the portrait side. The Scurlocks' work changed with the times. From the early 1900s until Addison's death in 1964, the Scurlock Studio was the official photographer of Howard University. In the 1930s the studio began a press service and prepared newsreels on African American current events for the Lichtman Theater chain, which offered some of the few non-segregated venues in the city. Their press service supplied the African-American press with newsworthy photographs of current events, personalities, and social, political, and religious life. Clients included the Norfolk Journal and Guide, Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Cleveland Call and Post and the Washington Tribune and Afro-American. George and Robert ran the Capitol School of Photography from 1948 to 1952. Included among their students were African-American veterans under the G.I. Bill, Ellsworth Davis, who later worked as a Washington Post photographer and Bernie Boston of the Los Angeles Times. Perhaps their best-known student was the young Jacqueline Bouvier.
In 1952 Robert opened Washington's first custom color lab. Capitalizing on his knowledge of color processing, Robert was asked to take color portraits of both noted and ordinary individuals. In addition, the studio offered color views of important Washington landmarks and monuments. By the 1960s, Robert added magazine photography to his list of talents, publishing images in Life, Look, and Ebony. Robert continued photographing Washingtonians at his studio until his death in 1994.
According to George Scurlock, the Scurlock studio never had substantial competition in the African American community. Some Washington residents remember it differently, however. Dr. Theodore Hudson, a retired Howard University professor, recalled two other black photographers: Sam Courtney and a man named Sorrell. He said Courtney photographed events in the African American community...?
The collection represents the most comprehensive record of any long-lived, let alone African-American, photography studio, in a public institution. Other twentieth century studio collections exist, such as Robinson Studio, Grand Rapids; Hughes Company, Baltimore, Md. Among African American studio collections in public institutions are James Van Der Zee (New York City, 1912-80s), P.H. Polk (Tuskegee), and the Hooks Brothers (Memphis, Tenn., 1910-1975). The Scurlock Collection covers a greater time period and provides greater depth of coverage of African-American events and personages.
A number of articles have been written about the Scurlock family. Jane Freundel Levey, editor of Washington History magazine, believes that the family went beyond the artful use of light, shadow, and composition. She wrote, "Perhaps the most distinctive hallmark of the Scurlock photograph is the dignity, the uplifting quality of the demeanor of every person captured by photographs who clearly saw each subject as above the ordinary."
Constance McLaughlin Green, one of the leading historians of Washington, D.C., talks about African-American Washington as "the Secret City," a separate world with institutions of its own that remained virtually unknown to the white majority. Addison Scurlock and his sons captured that world on film and in doing so, documented that world in the course of running his business and perfecting his art. Steven C. Newsome, director of the Maryland Commission on Afro-American History and Culture stated that The Scurlocks' photograph "Gave us connections. They tell stories. They let us remember."
The collection includes photographs of the nationally famous Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell, Marian Anderson; the locally or regionally important: P.B.S. Pinchback, Judge Miflin Gibbs, Col. Jim Lewis, Ernest Just, Anna J. Cooper; and actors, artists, vaudevillians, and musicians such as Fredi Washington, Madame Lilian Evanti, Oakley & Oakley, and Duke Ellington.
Sources
George Scurlock. Interview conducted by David Haberstich and intern Lora Koehler at Mr. Scurlock's apartment, Aug. 2003.
Theodore Hudson, conversation with David Haberstich in the Archives Center, 2 February 2004.
Jane Freundel Levey, "The Scurlock Studio," Washington History, 1989, p. 44.
Robert S. Scurlock, "An Appreciation of Addison N. Scurlock's Photographic Achievements," The Historic Photographs of Addison N. Scurlock. Washington, D.C.: The Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, 1986 (exhibition catalog).
Materials at Other Organizations:
The Historical Society of Washington, DC holds Scurlock-related materials.
The Charles Sumner School Museumn and Archives holds Scurlock-related materials.
Materials in the National Museum of American History:
Cameras and other photographic apparatus, studio furniture, and miscellaneous ephemera from the Scurlock studio are in the History of Photography Collection (now Division of Work and Industry). An adding machine from the studio is in the Museum's mathematics collection. See accessions 1997.0293 and 2010.0157.
Provenance:
The Museum purchased the Scurlock Studio Records from the Estate of Robert S. Scurlock, through Judge Marjorie Lawson in 1997. During the period of negotiation between the museum and Robert Scurlock's heirs, his widow Vivian and brother George, the collection was on loan to the Museum and was housed primarily in a closed exhibition area on the second floor. Staff of the Archives Center took physical possession of the collection long before the transfer to the Museum was final. The studio records and photographs were housed principally in the 18th Street studio and in two rental storage facilities. The primary move of the collection to the Museum occurred in September 1995. An additional pickup occurred on February 12, 1996 (on tags). There was probably one additional pickup from the studio by David Haberstich and Caleb Fey on an unrecorded date.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but is stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Series 8: Business Records, Subseries 8.1: Studio Session Registers are restricted. Digital copies available for research. See repository for details.
Gloves must be worn when handling unprotected photographs and negatives. Special arrangements required to view negatives due to cold storage. Using negatives requires a three hour waiting period. Contact the Archives Center at 202-633-3270.
Rights:
When the Museum purchased the collection from the Estate of Robert S. Scurlock, it obtained all rights, including copyright. The earliest photographs in the collection are in the public domain because their term of copyright has expired. The Archives Center will control copyright and the use of the collection for reproduction purposes, which will be handled in accordance with its standard reproduction policy guidelines. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The collection was acquired with assistance from the Eugene Meyer Foundation. Elihu and Susan Rose and the Save America's Treasures program, provided funds to stabilize, organize, store, and create digital surrogates of some of the negatives. Processing and encoding funded by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources.
Identifier:
NMAH.AC.0618
Archival Repository:
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
The papers of Woodstock area painter, muralist, and designer, Anton Refregier (1905-1979) date from circa 1900 to circa 1990 and measure 35.9 linear feet. The collection records Refregier's early commercial work and murals for the Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) and documents his career through to the 1970s with records of commissions for many public and private buildings, exhibitions in the United States and abroad, teaching positions, essays and publications, and extensive travel, particularly to the Soviet Union and Mexico. The collection contains scattered biographical material, personal and business correspondence, notes and writings, 15 diaries and journals, mural and tapestry files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed material, 10 scrapbooks, artwork including sketches and cartoons for murals, and photographs of Refregier, his friends, family and travels.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Woodstock area painter, muralist, and designer, Anton Refregier (1905-1979) date from circa 1900 to circa 1990 and measure 35.9 linear feet. The collection records Refregier's early commercial work and murals for the Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) and documents his career through to the 1970s with records of commissions for many public and private buildings, exhibitions in the United States and abroad, teaching positions, essays and publications, and extensive travel, particularly to the Soviet Union and Mexico. The collection contains scattered biographical material, personal and business correspondence, notes and writings, diaries and journals, mural and tapestry files, exhibition files, personal business records, printed material, scrapbooks, artwork including sketches and cartoons for murals, and photographs of Refregier, his friends, family and travels.
Biographical material contains legal records such as Refregier's will and marriage and death records, passports, resume material and 2 interview transcripts.
Correspondence, both chronological and alphabetical, constitutes almost a third of the collection and documents all aspects of Refregier's career including his work for the WPA, private commissions, representation by ACA Galleries, his involvement with groups such as the Woodstock Artists Association and his teaching work for institutions such as Bard College. Also documented are his involvement with local political groups and international organizations such as the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship and the World Peace Council, and travels including visits to the Soviet Union. Notable correspondents include Henry Dreyfuss, Philip Evergood, Rockwell Kent, Emmy-Lou Packard, and Byron Randall. Correspondence also includes family letters written primarily by Refregier to Lila Refregier, in addition to greeting cards received by the Refregier family, many of which contain original arwork.
Writings are primarily by Refregier and include drafts of many essays and autobiographical writings, in addition to copies of published works including Natural Figure Drawing, An Artists Journey and Sketches of the Soviet Union.
The collection contains diaries and journals from 12 years in various formats including published and handmade day planners and typed and handwritten journal entries. They include sketches and primarily record travel and daily activities including specific projects such as the New York World's Fair mural (1938-1939).
Mural and Tapestry files document individual commissions bid on and/or completed by Refregier. The creation of the Rincon Annex Post Office mural and subsequent controversies over its subject matter are well-documented here, as are many of Refregier's commissions for banks, hospitals, hotels, shopping centers, and schools.
Exhibition files document at least 15 of Refregier's exhibitions, including his first one-man show at ACA Galleries (1942) and his exhibition of paintings at the Hermitage Museum (1967) in what was then Leningrad.
Personal business records contain addresses of contacts. Scattered records referencing market values for Refregier's work can be found throughout the series in records such as bills and receipts, financial notes and tax records.
Printed material provides extensive coverage of Refregier's entire career through announcements, invitations, catalogs, and news clippings. His interests in art, literature, music, theater and politics are also well-represented in these files.
The collection contains 10 scrapbooks, mostly in fragmented condition, which contain a mixture of photographs, sketches and other artwork, notes and fragments of writings, and printed material. The scrapbooks document a variety of subjects including Refregier's family life, travels to Guatemala and the Soviet Union, and the artist at work.
Artwork consists primarily of artwork by Refregier in the form of mural design sketches and cartoons in various media, including pencil, ink and pastel, in addition to 21 sketchbooks, many of which also contain journal entries and notes. Also found here are prints and reproductions of Refregier's "Peace card" block engravings for every year from 1950-1973, with the exception of 1970.
Photographs document all phases of Refregier's career and include family photographs dating from circa 1900, photos of Refregier in the studio including work for the WPA, Refregier and other artists and individuals at events and parties from the 1940s-1970s, travel snapshots probably taken in Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, and photographs of artwork and installations. Individuals pictured include Julio de Diego, Marion Greenwood, Rockwell Kent, Pablo O'Higgins and David Siqueiros; also, a series of press photographs by Albert A. Freeman pictures Refregier with Howard Fast, Norman Bel Geddes, Marion Greenwood, John Kingsbury, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Harry Stockwell. One photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 2 by Eugene Morley and 4 by Max Yavno can also be found here.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1925-1980 (Box 1; 0.25 linear ft.)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1912-circa 1990s (Boxes 1-11, 36, OVs 38, 45; 10.2 linear ft.)
Series 3: Writings, circa 1930s-circa 1970s (Boxes 11-14, OV 45; 3.3 linear ft.)
Series 4: Diaries and Journals, 1923-1979 (Box 15; 0.6 linear ft.)
Series 5: Mural and Tapestry Files, circa 1930s-circa 1970s (Boxes 15-18, 36, OVs 38, 45, 46, RD 42; 3.65 linear ft.)
Series 6: Exhibition Files, 1942-1981 (Boxes 18-19; 0.6 linear ft.)
Series 7: Personal Business Records, 1920s-1980s (Boxes 19-20; 1.8 linear ft.)
Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1920s-1980s (Boxes 21-28, 36; 7.4 linear ft.)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, 1930s-1960s (Boxes 28, 37, BV 47; 1.1 linear ft.)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1930s-circa 1970s (Boxes 28-30, 36, OVs 40, 41, RDs 42-44; 3.5 linear ft.)
Series 11: Photographic Material, ca. 1900-1980s (Boxes 31-35, 39; 4.5 linear ft.)
Biographical Note:
Russian-born Woodstock painter Anton Refregier (1905-1979) immigrated to the United States in 1920. Refregier was well-known for his sometimes controversial social realist murals for the WPA.
After an apprenticeship to the sculptor, Vasilief, in Paris, Anton Refregier attended the Rhode Island School of Design from 1920-1925 and studied with Hans Hofmann in Germany in 1927. He had his first one-man show at ACA Galleries in New York City in 1942 and settled in Woodstock, New York, with his wife, Lila, and three children Anton, Jr., Brigit and Aleksandre, where he became a prominent member of the artist community.
Refregier completed several social realist murals for the federal Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) program, including one at the New York Worlds Fair in 1939 and the controversial Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco begun in 1941. He also completed interior design installations for businesses such as the nightclub, Cafe Society Uptown, and the restaurant, The Cookery, in New York City. In addition to being an easel and mural painter Refregier worked in tapestry, mosaic, ceramic, and collage, and completed many commissions for hotels, banks, hospitals, restaurants, synagogues, supermarkets and deparment stores throughout the country.
Refregier taught at various institutions including Stanford University, the University of Arkansas, and Bard College and his publications inlcude Natural Figure Drawing (1948), An Artist's Journey (1965), and Sketches of the Soviet Union (1978). He traveled regularly to the Soviet Union to explore and exchange ideas about art and culture and as a representative of the World Peace Council.
Anton Refregier died in Moscow in October 1979 while visiting the Soviet Union. His work can be found in many museums including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Related Material:
Also found in the Archives of American Art are an oral history interview with Anton Refregier, 1964, Nov. 5 by Joseph Trovato; and Papers regarding Anton Refregier mural controversy, 1953.
Provenance:
Donated 1983 by Lila Refregier, widow of Anton Refregier, and in 1992 by Brigit R. Sutton, Refregier's daughter.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
Authorization to quote or reproduce for purposes of publication requires written permission from Bridget R. Sutton via Bridget's son, Tim Sutton. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The records of the Architectural League of New York measure 114.9 linear feet and date from 1880s-1974 (bulk 1927-1968). The League's mission "to advance the art of architecture" is documented through administrative and business records, committee records and officers' files, exhibition files, records of functions and events, correspondence, publicity files, photographs, lantern slides, and 16 scrapbooks.
Scope and Content Note:
The records of the Architectural League of New York measure 114.9 linear feet and date from 1880s-1974 (bulk 1927-1968). The League's mission "to advance the art of architecture" is documented through administrative and business records, committee records and officers' files, exhibition files, records of functions and events, correspondence, publicity files, photographs, lantern slides, and scrapbooks.
League records prior to 1927 are limited in the collection and are mostly found among Administrative Files. The administrative files include a nearly complete collection of annual reports from 1889-1932 and various meetings minutes from 1889 through the mid-20th century. Also found is a history of the League written by founding member Cass Gilbert, documentation of the changes of the League Constitution and By-Laws during the first half of the 20th century, and other administrative records.
Over a third of the collection are records from committees, including voluminous records of the Executive Committee, Current Work Committee, House Committee, Finance Committee, Membership Committee, and Scholarships and Special Awards Committee. In addition, there are scattered records for minor committees. Materials include correspondence, meeting minutes, election ballots, financial records, membership records, documents related to awarding scholarships and awards, and other administrative and organizational committee records. Found is the original 1889 agreement between the Architectural League, the Art Students League, and the Society of American Artists to build the American Fine Arts Society building. Throughout the collection, but especially in the Membership Committee subseries, the records provide a glimpse into the struggles the League faced during the Depression through World War II to maintain dues-paying members.
Officers' Files includes collated records of the League Executive Secretary and Secretary, as well as correspondence of the League President and Treasurer. Materials found here are not comprehensive; similar materials can be found throughout the collection.
Financial records such as bank statements, correspondence, and ledgers; insurance correspondence and policies; and legal correspondence, are found in the Business Records series. This series does not include records prior to 1926.
Exhibition files provide detailed documentation of the exhibitions sponsored by, or held at, the League primarily from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Records related to the League Annual Exhibition, the National Gold Medal Exhibitions, and the 1939 World's Fair in New York are found here, as well as exhibition files arranged chronologically by exhibition date and miscellaneous administrative files. Materials include administrative files, applications, correspondence, printed materials, publicity files, and other records related to organizing and managing exhibitions. The files of the Exhibition Committee are also found here.
Other series which document activities held by, or held at, the League include Functions and Events series and Publicity Files series. Found is correspondence, printed materials, press releases, schedules, and other administrative documents created in organizing events such as dinners, lectures, receptions, balls, and outings. The Records of Other Organizations includes records relating to organizations that had business with the League, often regarding events, meetings, and exhibitions held at the League. Represented here are some records of the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.) and the National Sculpture Society (N.S.S.).
Correspondence includes miscellaneous correspondence arranged alphabetically by subject or name, and collated correspondence arranged chronologically. Most of the chronological correspondence appears to be Secretaries' files. The materials in the Miscellaneous series seem to have been separated from their original files, or were never filed properly. Therefore, materials and contents are similar to those found in other series, such as correspondence, administrative records, some financial records, and handwritten notes.
Black and white photographs, a handful of colored photographs, nearly 350 lantern slides, and negatives of exhibitions, buildings, events, and portraits are found in the Photographic Materials series.
Sixteen scrapbooks include eight scrapbooks of clippings from 1880s-1960s, and seven scrapbooks of notices and printed materials from 1925-1930. Also found is a scrapbook of signatures of event attendees, a clippings scrapbook compiled by Hamilton M. Wright, and a scrapbook of the Archeological Institute of America.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 12 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Administrative Files, 1889-1969 (Boxes 1-10, OV 116; 9.7 linear feet)
Series 2: Committee Records, 1887-1974 (Boxes 10-54, 110, 114, OV 116; 44.7 linear feet)
Series 3: Officers' Files, 1900, 1923-1970 (Boxes 54-58; 3.9 linear feet)
Series 4: Business Records, circa 1926-1972 (Boxes 58-62, BVs 129-144; 7.35 linear feet)
Series 5: Exhibitions, 1887-1972, bulk 1930s-1960s (Boxes 62-83, 111, OVs 117-119; 21.85 linear feet)
Series 6: Functions and Events, 1909, 1931-1973 (Boxes 84-93, OV 120; 9.35 linear feet)
Series 7: Publicity Files, 1922-1972 (Boxes 93-95, 111; 2.5 linear feet)
Series 8: Records Relating to Organizations, 1908-1968, bulk 1930s-1960s (Boxes 95-101; 6.1 linear feet)
Series 9: Correspondence, 1929-1970 (Boxes 101-103, OV 120; 1.85 linear feet)
Series 10: Miscellaneous, circa 1936-1968 (Boxes 103-104; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 11: Photographic Materials, 1896-1960s (Boxes 105-108, 112, OVs 121-128; 4.3 linear feet)
Series 12: Scrapbooks, 1880s-1960s (Boxes 108-109, 113-115, BVs 145-148; 2.2 linear feet)
There are frequently similar and related materials in multiple series, as is indicated in the series' descriptions. The records may originally have been arranged by file owner (committees, secretary, etc.), then by League season (roughly May - April). Most series include a handful of folders in which the original folder title indicates the file owner and League season (i.e. Secretary 1938-1939).
Historical Note:
Modeling the organization's name after the Art Students League of New York, the Architectural League of New York was founded in New York City in 1881 by a group of architects who wished to gather and discuss architecture and its relationship to the arts. The group elected D.W. Willard as the first President of the League and they began gathering regularly to discuss and critique each other's sketches and hold competitions. The organization grew quickly and soon the League rented a room in a building on 14th Street between University Place and Fifth Avenue.
However, by the mid-1880s the founders and more active League members left New York, and membership began to falter. The League was reorganized in 1886, expanding membership beyond professional architects, and incorporated in 1888 with 166 members. In 1889, the League joined with the Art Students League of New York and the Society of American Artists to form the American Fine Arts Society. Thus, in 1892 the three organizations were able to erect a building at 215 West 57th Street where the League remained until 1927 when it moved to 115 East 40th Street.
The League was run by the Executive Committee and its officers, elected every two years. The beginning of each League season kicked off with an annual dinner in the spring. The League also formed numerous committees to organize activities and manage administrative tasks. Noteworthy committees include the Current Work Committee, House Committee, Finance Committee, Exhibition Committee, Membership Committee, and Scholarships and Special Awards Committee.
The League's interdisciplinary approach to architecture and the arts was expressed through sponsored forums and discussions with architects and artists. From the League's beginning, the Current Work Committee was established to organize educational forums for members. Recognition of achievement was awarded by an Annual Exhibition from the late 1880s until 1938. In 1950, the League began awarding the annual National Gold Medal Exhibition in various fields, including landscape architecture, engineering, and sculpture. Additionally, the League awarded numerous other scholarships each year. Architects, artists, and arts-related organizations could also rent space in the League building to hold meetings, discussions, and exhibitions.
The League admitted its first female member in 1934. Notable members of the League included Arnold W. Brunner (President, 1903-1905), Cass Gilbert (President, 1913-1915), Philip Johnson, Robert A.M. Stern, and Russell Sturgis (President, 1889-1893).
The Architectural League of New York continues to provide educational opportunities and scholarships to students and professionals.
Background information was gathered from a written history of the League by Cass Gilbert found in this collection and the Architectural League of New York website (http://archleague.org/category/archive/history-archive/).
Related Material:
Among the holdings of the Archives of American Art are several collections that contain Architectural League of New York records. The American Federation of Arts records, 1895-1993, include a significant amount of League records related to national awards programs and lantern slides from the "New Horizons in America" lecture series.
Provenance:
The Architectural League of New York records were donated in several installments from 1967-1980 by the Architectural League of New York.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Restricted for 15 years, until Jan-01-2035. Records may contain personally identifiable information (PII) that is permanently restricted; Transferring office; 11/4/2022 memorandum, Johnstone to File; Contact reference staff for details
United States of America -- New York -- Dutchess County -- Millbrook
Scope and Contents:
The folders include worksheets, garden plans, correspondence, and photocopies of correspondence, articles, and brochures about the garden.
General:
Established in 1930, Innisfree was designed and built by Walter Beck, a scholar-teacher-artist who was influenced by ancient Chinese garden art. Innisfree explores a Chinese garden design concept called a "cup garden," which has origins in Chinese paintings dating back a thousand years. The cup garden draws attention to something rare or beautiful. This special object is segregated by establishing an enclosure around it so that it can be enjoyed without distraction. A cup garden may be an enframed meadow, a lotus pool, or a single rock covered with lichens and sedums. At Innisfree the visitor strolls from one three-dimensional picture to another. Streams, waterfalls, terraces, retaining walls, rocks, and plants are used not only to define areas, but also to establish tension or motion. Although the cup garden idea came from China, Innisfree is unequivocally an American garden. The lake is glacial, most of the plant material is native, and the rocks have come from the immediate forest.
Persons associated with the garden include: Walter and Marion Beck (former owners and landscape designer [Walter Beck] 1930-1960) and Lester Collins (landscape architect and president, Innisfree Foundation, 1960-1993).
Related Materials:
Innisfree Garden related holdings consist of 3 folders (81 35 mm. slides)
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original archival materials by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, The Garden Club of America collection.
Sponsor:
A project to describe images in this finding aid received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative, administered by the National Collections Program.
Records of the Pullman Company, manufacturers and operators of railroad sleeping cars. Pullman also manufactured hospital and dining cars at its Chicago facilities. Dating from 1867 to 1982 (bulk 1900-1930s), the collection includes background materials, correspondence, financial, personnel and operating records, drawings and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of materials from 1867-1982 (bulk 1900-1930s), and includes background materials, correspondence, financial records, operating records, personnel records, drawings, and photographs. Of note is the documentation of hospital cars and instructions for porters. The collection is not a complete record of the Pullman Palace Car Company's activities.
Series 1, Historical Background, 1867-1982, contains newspaper clippings and articles about the Pullman Palace Car Company and George Pullman. Also included is a 318-page typescript titledThe History of the Sleeping Car 1923, by Charles S. Sweet; documentation on how Pullman cars were named; and other histories of the Pullman Company including its hospital cars and maquetry design.
Series 2, Correspondence, 1912-1960, consists primarily of documentation about the sale of cars and equipment by Pullman Palace Car Company to specific railroad companies. The correspondence details the cost per car and in some instances, leasing costs, operating costs, and other relevant statistical and financial information about the transactions. There is some consolidated data on cars sold to the railroads as well as summary data on the type of car sold, name of car, selling price, purchasers, and the date the sale was approved. The correspondence is organized chronologically within Pullman Company correspondence wrappers which were used to maintain the correspondence in a uniform manner and in consecutive date order.
Correspondence about hospital cars contains information on the rental of Pullman cars to the United States government as well as letters discussing specifications for building hospital unit cars for the United States Army. There is one folder of miscellaneous correspondence with individuals seeking copies of photographs from the company and/or offering their historical writings about the company.
Series 3, Financial Records, 1875-1930, consists primarily of details of cost documentation created by the Pullman Company's Manufacturing Department. The cost sheets are arranged chronologically and represent an itemized financial breakdown of costs by material, labor, extra equipment, sundries, and recapitulation for a variety of Pullman cars. The cover sheet for work orders notes the lot number, plan number, type of Pullman car (e.g. baggage, parlor, private) being manufactured or serviced/repaired, to whom the order belongs, and associated dates. For example, one private, steel car for Mr. D. J. Reid or general service parlor car for Southern Railway.
Series 4, Operating Records, 1875-1972, consists of records used by the company for daily operations, particularly instructions for porters as well as repair logbooks, volumes detailing car building completion, published supplements noting specific changes to cars, correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings, and lists of cars built by Pullman and cars withdrawn from service. Also included is the Illustrations Accompanying the Report of the Engineer-in-chief, H.C. Mais, on Observations on Railways Made During His Tour in 1883. Henry Coathupe Mais (1827-1916) was an English born civil engineer who spent most of his career in Australia. Mais toured railways and other works in Europe and America. His lengthy report with many detailed illustrations was printed in 1884 as a parliamentary paper. Some report pages were moldy and have been separated. These pages include: the index, pages 1-7; page 58; and pages 98-111.
The reports found in the "general file" include Sleeping, Parlor and Lounge Equipment (1945) and Pullman Passenger Survey A Continuing Study--Part II, (1955). The latter report by McFarland, Aveyard and Company studied attitudes and opinions of Pullman passengers. There is a typescript of a presentation made by George W. Bohannan of the Pullman Company to the American Association of Passenger Traffic Officers (1964).
The records documenting the completion of cars are bound volumes arranged chronologically. The volumes detail lot number, plan numbers, date of order, type of car, account name, date of delivery, destination route, estimate price, cost price, and contract price. In some instances, new information was glued or taped into the volume. The repair books capture the date, name of car, yard, name of porter, and date shipped.
Series 5, Personnel Records, 1873-1979, includes a payroll list for the General Ticket Department, 1876; instructions for passengers with cholera, 1873; reward notices for an 1878 robbery; instructional manuals for Pullman porters; photographs of Pullman Company employees working, and general correspondence, 1896-1979; ancedotes about Pullman porters; an obituary for George Arthur Kelly, an executive vice president for the Pullman Company; articles and newspaper clippings about porters and conductors, particularly the Society for the Prevention of Calling Pullman Car Porters "George." Started in 1916, the Society for the Prevention of Calling Pullman Car Porters "George" was founded by George W. Dulany, Jr., an Iowa lumber merchant. Dulany organized the society for fun after hearing passengers call every porter George. The society became a hobby and there were no meetings, dues, or activities associated with his work. Dulany's campaign was solely to have passengers use a porter's correct name or simply call them "porter."
Series 6, Drawings, 1907-1939 and undated, contains bound volumes arranged chronologically of records of tracings of drawings for Pullman cars. The volumes detail the negative number, date, type of car, job number, and remarks.
Series 7, Photographs, 1932-1950s and undated, consists primarily of black-and-white copy prints (8" x 10") documenting employees, especially porters, passengers, and hospital cars. Many of the hospital cars depict both the exterior and interior, but none with patients. The passenger photographs are almost exclusively interior images of persons dining, sleeping, playing cards, and in general seating areas. The Southern Pacific dining car photographs are original prints and bear the Pullman Car Company embossed stamp and unique number. This range of photographs is (Pullman photograph #32867 to #32873) and the images depict exterior and interior views of the dining cars. There is one album of ninety-nine photographs taken by Ricardo Villalba (active 1860-1880) in Peru. The album was made for W.W. Evans, Esquire in 1875. The images depict landscapes, bridges, train tracks, railroad cars, railroad engines, and buildings, such as the Pano Cathedral.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into seven series:
Series 1, Historical Background, 1867-1982
Series 2, Correspondence, 1912-1960
Series 3, Financial Records, 1875-1930
Series 4, Operating Records, 1875-1972
Series 5, Personnel Records, 1873-1979
Series 6, Drawings, 1907-1939 and undated
Series 7, Photographs, 1932-1950s and undated
Biographical / Historical:
George M. Pullman (1831-1897) developed the railroad passenger sleeping car service into a major 19th century industry. He created the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867. George Pullman was succeeded as president of the company by Robert Todd Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln's son, who served until 1911. In 1900, after buying competing companies, the firm was reorganized as the Pullman Company.
The idea for specially designed sleeping cars came to Pullman while traveling from Buffalo to Westfield, New York in 1854. He altered existing railroad cars in September, 1858, for service on the Chicago and Alton Railroad. They first sleeping car built to Pullman's specifications was the "pioneer," which carried part of the Lincoln funeral party from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois in 1865. In 1867 "hotel cars" were introduced. These sleeping cars, equipped with kitchen and dining facilities, eliminating the need for trains to stop at stations for passengers to buy food. In 1868, Pullman built the "Delmonica," devoted to restaurant purposes. The Pullman firm also built streetcars and trolleys.
In 1880 George Pullman built the town of Pullman, just south of the city of Chicago along the Illinois Central Railroad line, as the site for his manufacturing plant. Intended as a model manufacturing town, it had 12,000 residents in 1893. It suffered from the usual company town problems and was annexed to Chicago in 1889.
In the wake of the depression of 1893 Pullman reduced wages for its workers by 25% or more. The American Railway Union, lead by Eugene V. Debs, sought to bring wage issues to arbitration but Pullman refused. In June, 1894 some 4,000 employees struck the company gaining support from thousands of railroad workers who refused to handle trains with Pullman cars. President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago in July and after a period of sporadic violence the strike was over by the end of the summer.
In later years the Pullman company introduced several innovations. It built lighter, articulated cars of alloy steel beginning in 1936. The following year, it introduced the roomette car with eighteen enclosed private rooms. In 1956 Pullman introduced the dome sleeper car with an upper deck observation level.
The United States anti-trust suit against Pullman Manufacturing and Operating Company resulted in a 1944 decision requiring a separation of car building and car operation activities. Pullman sold its sleeping car service, transferring its operating unit to a group of fifty-nine railway firms in 1947.
George Pullman introduced two notable practices. First, rather than operating railroads, his firm leased sleeping cars to the railroads and provided the complete services on them, including supplying porters, conductors, dining staff, and food and linens. Second, Pullman named each of his sleeping and dining cars rather than assigning them numbers. This was intended to enhance the company's image by creating a personality for the car. Different categories of names signified different categories of cars and geographical names also helped to promote travel to the areas in which they operated.
Arthur Detmers Dubin assembled these Pullman Company materials. Dubin was born in 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. He began his architectural education at the University of Michigan in 1941 but was interrupted by World War II, and he served with distinction in the United States Army until 1946. After completing his studies in 1949, Dubin joined his father's and uncle's architectural firm, Dubin and Dubin, as a second--eneration architect. The leadership of the firm soon passed to Arthur and his brother, Martin David, and in 1965 they were joined by John Black and in 1966 by John Moutoussamy. Arthur's life--ong interest in trains and transportation and their implications for architecture is evident in transit stations commissions and service on transportation--elated advisory boards (Dubin was a member of the Illinois Railroad Commission), as well as in his writings and personal collections. Dubin was an avid train enthusiast and collector.
References
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Area Architects Oral History Project
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Pullman Palace Car Company Photographs (NMAH.AC.1175), contains photographs of Pullman cars: freight, passenger, private and street railway/rapid transit cars. The bulk of the collection contains approximately 13,500 original glass plate negatives, film negatives, and copy prints.
Industry on Parade (NMAH.AC.0507) contains Reel #99, Servicing Sleepers, 1952. The Pullman Coach Company, Chicago, Illinois.
Materials In Other Organizations
Art Institute of Chicago
Bombardier Corporation
California State Railroad Museum
Chicago Historical Society
Arthur Dubin Collection at Lakeforest College
Illinois Railway Museum
Newberry Library, Pullman Company Archives
The Pullman Company archives consists of 2,500 cubic feet of records from the Pullman Company and Pullman heirs. The collection is comprised of business archives of the Pullman Palace Car Company from 1867 and include records of the entire firm up to the 1924 split into operating (sleeping car operation, service, and repair) and manufacturiung companies. From 1924 to 1981 the records chronicle the activities of the operating company only.
Pennsylvania State Archives
Pullman State Historic Site
Pullman Technology (Harvey, Illinois)
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Arthur D. Dubin Papers (83-015; 83-076; 83-101)
South Suburban Genealogical & Historical Society (South Holland, illinois)
Provenance:
Collection materials were donated by Arthur D. Dubin in 1980 and on January 30, 1986. Additional materials were donated by Lorrain Douglass, Kiara S. Winans and Kristin Peterson on April 3, 2012.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The papers of popular songwriter Harry Warren, three time Academy Award winner and prolific contributer to the American songbook.
Scope and Contents:
The Harry Warren Papers consists of original music manuscripts, scores, song sheets, commercial sheet music, bound scores, scripts, business records, correspondence (business, personal and fan), clippings, magazines, photographs, cassette tapes, LP records, posters and programs and personal memorabilia. The material documents the personal life and professional career of composer, songwriter and lyricist Harry Warren from 1894 to 1981 and to a lesser extent the operation of his Four Jays Music Corporation, circa 1954-2000. The bulk of the collection covers the years 1927-1980. The collection is organized into eight series.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into eight series.
Series 1: Music Manuscripts, 1928-1987
Subseries 1.1: Original Holographic Theatre and Motion Picture Music Manuscripts, 1930-1960
With the possible exception of Irving Berlin, no one has contributed as much material to the canon of American popular song in the 20th century as Harry Warren (1893-1981). Warren was born in Brooklyn, New York, December 24, 1893, to Italian immigrant parents. His birth name was Salvatore Anthony Guaragna. By the time he graduated from grade school, he was known as "Harry Warren". He legally changed his name in 1938. He was educated in the public schools of New York but had no formal musical training. He taught himself to play the organ and piano and also sang in the church choir. Both Warren's sister and brother were performers so the theatrical world was not unknown to him. He worked as an actor and assistant director for the Vitagraph film studio in New York and played mood music for actress Corinne Griffith. During World War I, Warren served in the United States Navy at Montauk Point, New York. For a few weeks after the war, he worked as an insurance examiner for The Travellers Agency.
In December 1918, Warren married Josephine Wensler (1897-1993). Their first child was a son named Harry Warren, Jr. (1920-1937). In 1920, Warren became a song plugger for the music publishing firm of Stark & Cowan. Warren continued writing and in 1922 along with lyricist Edgar Leslie produced his first song hit, "Rose of the Rio Grande." From that point on, Warren composed a continuous stream of hits introduced by such artists as Paul Whiteman and others. By 1925, a second child, Joan (1924-1991), nicknamed "Cookie", was born. Warren continued his success with such songs as "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Me)," "In My Gondola" and the very popular 1928 hit "Nagasaki."
By 1929, Warren was the director of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He held that position until 1933. He also served on the ASCAP Board of Directors. During this time Warren worked with various musicians including Gus Kahn, Bert Kalmer, and Harry Ruby. In 1930, he wrote his first motion picture score for the film Spring is Here. Al Jolson asked him to compose a song for the show, Wonder Bar (1931). During the 1930s, Warren composed three other Broadway shows, Sweet and Low (1930), Crazy Quilt (1931) featuring Fanny Brice, and Laugh Parade (1931) starring Ed Wynn.
In 1932, Warren was hired by Warner Brothers Studios to help write songs for the Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler film 42nd Street (1933). Along with lyricist, Al Dubin, Warren wrote such hits as "We're in the Money" and "The Shadow Waltz". Warren continued composing memorable songs for motion pictures such as Gold Diggers of 1933, The Singing Marine (1937), and Footlight Parade (1933). Gold Diggers of 1935 included Warren's first Academy Award winning song, "Lullaby of Broadway". Warren made cameo appearances in a few films during his stay at Warner Brothers. He and lyricist Dubin can be seen in 42nd Street, Go Into Your Dance (1935), and A Very Honorable Guy (1934). He also appeared in a Vitaphone short entitled Harry Warren: America's Foremost Composer.
Warren left Warner Brothers for 20th Century Fox in 1940. At Fox he helped compose the scores for such motion pictures as, Sun Valley Serenade (1941), Orchestra Wives (1942), and The Gangs All Here (1943) that included the Carmen Miranda standard, "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat". During this period, he worked with lyricists Ralph Rainger, Mack Gordon and Leo Robin, and others. Hello Frisco, Hello (1943) garnered Warren his second Academy Award for the song, "You'll Never Know". While at Fox, Warren composed "Chattanooga Choo Choo" a song that became the first gold record in the history of the recording industry.
In 1945, legendary musical film producer Arthur Freed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer courted Warren for his MGM production unit. Freed quipped that Warren would have the office right next door to his--and he did. For Warren the offer to write music at the studio that practically invented the movie musical was irresistible and he left 20th Century Fox for MGM. He joined Freed in writing the songs for Yolanda and the Thief (1945) starring Fred Astaire and Freed's protégée Lucille Bremer. The film was directed by the incomparable Vincent Minnelli. His next high profile score was for The Harvey Girls (1946) composed with renowned lyricist Johnny Mercer. The picture starred Judy Garland and John Hodiak. Directed by George Sidney, it was a major success, due in part to Warren's tuneful "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe". This song brought Warren his third and what would be his final Academy Award.
While at MGM, Warren worked with lyricists Mack Gordon, Ralph Blane, and others. In 1948, he and Blane composed the song score for Freed and director Rouben Mamoulian's ambitious film adaptation of Eugene O'Neills stage play Ah Wilderness entitled Summer Holiday (1948) starring Mickey Rooney and Gloria DeHaven. This is reported to have been Warren's favorite film assignment, but the film was not an unqualified success. Warren remained at MGM until the 1950s composing for such films as The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), starring Astaire and Rogers, Summer Stock (1950), starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly and his final film for MGM, Skirts Ahoy! (1952), starring Esther Williams and Vivian Blane. After leaving MGM, Warren wrote the score for the Bing Crosby film, Just for You at Paramount. Warren also served on the Board of Directors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Warren went on to write the music for two Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin films, The Caddy (1953) for which he composed "That's Amore", Artists and Models (1955) and for three Jerry Lewis films, Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), Cinderfella (1960), and The Ladies Man (1961). Warren also composed instrumental pieces one being a "Mass in Honor of St. Anthony".
Warren returned to Broadway in 1956 with the musical Shangri-La, based on the novel Lost Horizon. The show was not a success and closed after fewer than thirty performances. He composed the title song for the Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr film, An Affair to Remember (1957); this song brought him his last nomination for an Academy Award. The song was later used in the motion picture Sleepless in Seattle (1993) starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
During the 1950s, Warren started his own music publishing company, Four Jays Music Corporation. After writing the songs for The Ladies Man, Warren retired from films but continued to write for piano, even composing the song for the Miss Oklahoma Pageant. His last film effort was to compose one song for the motion-picture Rosie (1968). During the last years of his life Warren composed and ran his music publishing business, but remained largely forgotten as the man who had composed a great deal of America's musical heritage.
With the resurgence in the appreciation of the movie musical in the early 1970s, the tunes composed during Warren's heyday were back in vogue, brought on in a large part by the phenomenal success of MGM's That's Entertainment! (1974). In 1980, he was asked to compose the musical numbers for an upcoming movie musical entitled, Manhattan Melody but it was never produced.
1980 brought the Warren name back to the marquees of Broadway with the David Merrick production of 42nd St.. The full budgeted big Broadway musical used the basic storyline from the 1933 film and drew upon the whole of the Warren and Dubin catalogue for the score. The production proved to be wildly popular, running in excess of five years on Broadway. Warren died in California on September 22, 1981. He was interred in the Sanctuary of Tenderness at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles beside his wife and son. After Warren's death, his daughter Joan "Cookie" Warren Jones administered the music publishing company until her death in 1991.
Key:
OF = Original Film, RV = Reference Video, MV = Master Video
Separated Materials:
The Division of Cultural History (now Division of Cultural and Community Life) has three dimensional objects related to Harry Warren.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution by Julia Riva and Jophe Jones, granddaughters of Harry Warren, on December 15, 2000.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but the audiovisual materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy existsContact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection includes Fox, Ojibwa, and Cheyenne linguistic data obtained from informants; Fox and Ojibwa dictionaries prepared largely from published sources; notes on Powhatan, Cree, Menominee, and comparative Algonquian; publications in and concerning Algonquian languages; correspondence; and miscellaneous personal papers.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 4860
Local Note:
Full series of Father Geary's Algonquian linguistic manuscripts are detailed in inventory of Geary papers, Number 4860, copy in "Master" file.
Autograph document
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Cambridge sculptor and illustrator, Lilian Swann Saarinen, measure nine linear feet and date from circa 1909 to 1977. The collection documents Saarinen's career through correspondence with artists, architects, publishers, and gallery owners; writings and notes, including manuscripts and illustrations for children's books and publications; project and teaching files; financial records; artwork, including numerous project sketches; and photos of Saarinen and her artwork. Saarinen's personal life is also documented through diaries and correspondence with friends and family members, including Eero Saarinen, to whom she was married from 1939-1953.
Biographical material consists of resumes and biographical sketches, as well as a 1951 blueprint for the Eero Saarinen and Associates Office Building in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Correspondence documents Saarinen's personal and professional life through letters to and from Eero Saarinen and other family members, including six letters from Loja Saarinen; correspondence with artists and architects, including Merle Armitage, Charles and Ray Eames, Carl Koch, Henry Kreis, Carl Milles, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Robert Venturi, and Harry Weese; and friends and colleagues at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Knoll Associates. Also documented is Saarinen's business relationship with Midtown Galleries and Caresse Crosby, and publishers and publications including Child Life, Interiors, Otava Publishing Company, and Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc.
Writings and Notes document Saarinen's work on several children's publications, including Picture Book Zoo (1935) and Who Am I? (1946), through correspondence, notes, manuscript drafts, and extensive sketches. This series also includes Saarinen's ideas for other publications and incorporates some early writings and notes, as well as typescripts of her reminiscences about Eliel Saarinen, the Saarinen family, and the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Diaries consist of bound diary volumes, loose-leaf journal entries, and heavily annotated engagement calendars, documenting Saarinen's personal life, artistic aspirations, and career development from the 1930s-1970s. This material provides a deeply personal view of the emotional landscape of Saarinen's life, her struggles to balance her identity as a working artist with the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker, and the complex, and often competing, relationships within the renowned architectural family into which she married.
Project files document Saarinen's work on book cover designs, federal and post office commissions in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, reliefs for the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, and other important commissions including the Harbor National Bank Clock in Boston, Massachusetts, the KLM Airlines installation at JFK Airport, the Fountain of Noah sculpture at the Northland Center in Detroit, Michigan, and the interior of Toffenetti's restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Also documented is her role in designs for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, with Eero Saarinen.
Teaching files document Saarinen's "Language of Clay Course" which she taught at Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Financial records document exhibition and sales expenses for two exhibitions, including her show at G Place Gallery in 1944.
Printed material consists of clippings about Saarinen and her family, exhibition announcements and catalogs for herself and others, and reference files from the 1930s-1940s, primarily comprising clippings of animals.
Additional printed material documenting Saarinen's career can be found in one of two scrapbooks found in the collection. An additional scrapbook consists of clippings relating primarily to Saarinen's parents.
Artwork comprises extensive sketches, particularly animal and figure sketches, in graphite, crayon, ink, pastel, and watercolor. The sketches demonstrate in particular Saarinen's developing interest in and skill with animal portraiture from her childhood to the 1960s.
Photographs are primarily of artwork and Saarinen's 1944 exhibition at G Place Gallery. Also found are one negative of Saarinen, probably with Eero Saarinen, and a group photo including Lilian, Eero, and Eliel Saarinen with the model for the Detroit Civic Center, circa 1940s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 11 series.
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1930s-1960s (3 folders; Box 1, OV 12)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1920-1974 (1.9 linear feet; Boxes 1-2, 8, OV 12)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, 1920s-1973 (1.3 linear feet, Boxes 2-3, 8, OVs 13-16)
Series 4: Diaries, 1930-1973 (1.4 linear feet, Boxes 3-5, 8)
Series 5: Project Files, 1931-1966 (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 5-6, 8, OVs 17-19)
Series 6: Teaching Files, 1966-1970 (3 folders, Box 6)
Series 7: Financial Records, 1940s-1970s (2 folders, Box 6)
Series 8: Printed Material, circa 1930s-1970s (0.2 linear feet, Box 6)
Series 9: Scrapbooks, circa 1909-1974 (2 folders; Boxes 6, 9)
Series 10: Artwork, circa 1920s-circa 1960s (1.7 linear feet, Boxes 6-7, 9-10, OVs 20-27)
Series 11: Photographs, circa 1940s, 1977 (0.5 linear feet, Boxes 7, 11, OV 27)
Biographical / Historical:
Cambridge artist and sculptor, Lilian Swann Saarinen (1912-1995), studied at the Art Students League with Alexander Archipenko in 1928, and later with Albert Stewart and Heninz Warneke from 1934-1936, before moving to Michigan where she studied with Carl Milles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1936-1940. Saarinen was an accomplished skier and a member of the 1936 US Olympic ski team.
At Cranbrook, Swann met architect Eero Saarinen, whom she married in 1939. She subsequently worked with Saarinen's design group on a variety of projects, including the Westward Expansion Memorial, which later became known as the "Gateway Arch" in St. Louis. Lilian and Eero had a son, Eric, and a daughter, Susie, before divorcing in 1953.
Saarinen, who had developed an affinity for drawing animals in childhood, specialized in animal portraits in a variety of sculptural media. In 1939, she exhibited her sculpture Night, which depicted Bagheera the panther from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, at the World's Fair. The sculpture was placed in the Boston Public Garden in 1986. In the 1930s and 1940s Saarinen was commissioned to work on a variety of architectural projects, including reliefs for post offices in Bloomfield, Indiana, Carlisle, Kentucky, and Evanston, Illinois, and the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. She also executed commissions for the Harbor National Bank in Boston, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) at JFK Airport, the Northland shopping Center in Detroit Michigan, and Toffenetti's Restaurant in Chicago.
Saarinen was a contributing author and illustrator for a variety of publications, including Child Life, Interiors and Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly. In 1935 she illustrated Picture Book Zoo for the Bronx Zoo and in 1946 Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. published Who Am I?, a children's book which Saarinen wrote and illustrated.
Saarinen taught ceramic sculpture to soldiers for the Red Cross Arts and Skills Unit rehabilitation program in 1945, served on the Visiting Committee to the Museum School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1959-1964, where she taught ceramics, and later taught a course entitled "The Language of Clay" at the Cambridge Art Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of Saarinen's private students at Cambridge was her cousin, Edie Sedgwick.
Saarinen died in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1995 at the age of 83.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reels 1152 and 1192) including a scrapbook containing clippings, copies of letters and telegrams received, and reproductions of Saarinen's work. There is a copy of Saarinen's book, "Who Am I?", and three albums containing photographs of Saarinen, photographs and reproductions of her work, a list of exhibitions, quotes about her, and writings by her about sculpture. Lent material was returned to the lender and is not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Lilian Swann Saarinen donated the collection in 1975. She lent additional materials for microfilming in 1976.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Sculptors -- Massachusetts -- Cambridge Search this
Lilian Swann Saarinen papers, circa 1909-1977. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by The Walton Family Foundation; and John R. & Barbara Robinson and Deborah Schmidt Robinson & Dr. R. Perry Robinson, The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation.
The scattered records of the ACA (American Contemporary Art) Galleries date from 1917 through 1963 and include writings by founder Herman Baron, artists Philip Evergood and Anton Refregier, and art critic Elizabeth McCausland; printed materials; and photographs of Baron, ACA artists, art collectors, works of art, and exhibitions. Correspondence is with David Burliuk, Philip Evergood, William Gropper, Lewis Mumford, Moses Sawyer, Max Weber, and others. Also found is a small group of Herman Baron's personal papers.
Scope and Content Note:
The scattered records of the ACA (American Contemporary Art) Galleries date from 1917 through 1963 and include writings by founder Herman Baron, artists Philip Evergood and Anton Refregier, and art critic Elizabeth McCausland; printed materials; and photographs of Baron, ACA artists, art collectors, works of art, and exhibitions. Correspondence is with David Burliuk, Philip Evergood, William Gropper, Lewis Mumford, Moses Sawyer, Max Weber, and others. Also found is a small group of Herman Baron's personal papers.
The records are a rich resource for documenting the Social Realist artists and the militant socialist artists during the great depression and the post-World War II era of "McCarthyism".
Correspondence with ACA artists consists of letters from Philip Evergood, David Burliuk, William Gropper, Robert Gwathmey, Joseph Hirsch, Lewis Mumford, Elizabeth Olds, Alton Pickens, Moses Soyer, Max Weber, and Art Young. Some of the letters concern the socialist and communist views of some of the artists, including responses to Congressional Representive George A. Dondero's public statements and attacks on modern art as a conspiracy to spread communism in the United States. There is a letter written by Holger Cahill to the editor of Time magazine concerning WPA artists. Also found is a letter from Raphael Soyer written to the ACA Galleries concerning the American Artists' Congress.
Writings include Herman Baron's written history of the ACA Galleries and scattered pages of Baron's book on Joe Jones and William Gropper. There are essays and writings by art critic Elizabeth McCausland, and artists Anton Refregier and Philip Evergood. Printed materials consist of ACA publications, newspaper clippings, published articles, printed illustrations by Philip Evergood, and printed materials about Congressman Dondero.
Photographs are of David Burliuk, Bruce Calder, Nicolai Cikovsky, Hy Cohen, Robert Cronbach, Alexander Dobkin, Philip Evergood, Mike Gold, Chaim Gross, William Gropper, Joe Jones, Mervin Jules, Irene Rice Pereia, Geri Pine, Philip Reisman, Vic Shifreen, Harry Sternberg, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, James Baare Turnbull, Nicky Walker, Abraham Walkowitz, Nat Werner, and Art Young. Photographers include Berenice Abbott, Arnold Newman, and Alfredo Valente. Additional photographs are of unidentified installations or exhibitions.
Herman Baron's personal papers include letters written to his wife and friends during World War I, writings by Baron for various magazines including Glazier's Journal. Personal photographs are of Herman Baron in his army uniform. There is also an obituary for Herman Baron written by art critic Elizabeth McCausland.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, circa 1930s-1960s (Box 1; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 2: Writings and Notes, 1938-circa 1960s (Box 1; 8 folders)
Series 3: Printed Material, 1939-1960 (Box 2; 4 folders)
Series 4: Photographs, circa 1930s-circa 1960s (Box 2; 0.25 linear feet)
Series 5: Herman Baron Personal Papers, circa 1910s, 1940s-1960s (Box 2-3; 0.3 linear feet)
Historical Note:
Herman Baron, Stuart Davis, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Adolf Dehn founded the American Contemporary Art (ACA) Galleries on August 16, 1932. Located at 1269 Madison Avenue in New York City, the galleries' first show featured watercolorist Hy Cohen. Baron encouraged freedom of expression and did not censor the artworks displayed in his gallery. As a result, the gallery became an outlet for generally unknown and socially conscious artists, including the Social Realists.
Born in Lithuania in 1892, Herman Baron immigrated to the United States as a child. He served in World War I and later attended New York University. Baron founded and edited Glazier's Journal (later Glass Digest) in 1924 as the first journal for the professional glazing trade. Additionally, he wrote short stories and plays for American Hebrew and Young Israel.
In response to economic issues facing the art market during the depresssion of 1930s, ACA Galleries organized relief efforts to financially support their artists. During this period, the gallery became closely allied with militant artists' organizations and some of the more politically radical artists. In 1935, the ACA Galleries and Herman Baron hosted the first meeting of the American Artists' Congress in the gallery space.
The ACA Galleries featured exhibitions of works by artists David Burliuk, Stuart Davis, Philip Evergood, William Gropper, Robert Gwathmey, Joe Jones, Rockwell Kent, Lee Krasner, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Lewis Mumford, Louise Nevelson, Alton Pickens, Moses Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Max Weber, Art Young, and others. Baron also organized exhibitions of many artists employed by or associated with the Works Progress Administration of the federal arts program. Due to the progressive nature of the works of art found in the ACA Galleries, Herman Baron came under considerable criticism during the McCarthy Era. Baron was condemned by Representative George A. Dondero for supporting "un-American" sympathies and was forced often to defend his gallery and artists.
For years the gallery focused on artists rights and supporting the work of artists, rather than a profit. In the 1950s, a shift occurred when Baron's nephew Sidney Bergen initiated professional business practices and transformed the gallery into a profitable venture. Now located at 529 West 20th Street in New York City, ACA Galleries continues to promote and support various social causes.
Related Material:
The Archives of American Art holds the Herman Baron papers, dating from 1937-1967 which were donated by Syracuse University, George Arents Research Library in 1984. Some exhibition catalogs may be found here.
Provenance:
Ella Baron, widow of the ACA Galleries' founder Herman Baron, donated the records to the Archives of American Art in 1965 and 1966.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
This series contains Herman Baron's ACA Galleries' correspondence with artists, collectors, and museums. Some of the letters concern Works Progress Administration projects and the American Artists' Congress.
Arrangement note:
Correspondence is arranged by artist and subsequently by date with undated materials filed at the end. General correspondence is arranged chronologically.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
ACA Galleries records, 1917-1963. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
ACA Galleries records, 1917-1963. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Collection documents the business activities of the Palmer Paint Sales Company creators and manufacturers of Craft Master Paint by Number kits. Materials Include mail order forms, photographs, advertisements, product information, newspaper and magazine articles, invoices, original artwork, trade literature, and scrapbooks.
Scope and Contents:
Collection documents the history and business activities of the Palmer Paint Sales Company primarily the sale of its products and in particular the Craft Master paint by number kits. The kits were sold as boxed sets starting with a canvas and later board printed with a blue line drawing. The drawing's numbered sections corresponded to specific paint colors which were also included in the kits along with brushes and instructions. The paint by number kits varied in size, detail, skill level, and targeted audience. The Palmer Paint Sales Company was not the only merchandiser of paint by number kits, but it was the largest and most prolific probably due to Klein's marketing skills and the artistic talents of the company's employees. The collection includes advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles, invoices, mail order forms, scrapbooks, photographs, original artwork, and trade literature. It is arranged in fourteen series: Series 1, Advertising and Promotional Materials, 1952-1955, undated; Series 2, General Motors Corporation, undated; Series 3, Newspaper Articles, 1953-1954, undated; Series 4, Photographs, 1954, undated; Series 5, Transparencies, undated; Series 6, Painting and Sketch Sets, undated; Series 7, Sketches, undated; Series 8, Paintings, undated; Series 9, Paintings with Color Sketches, undated; Series 10, Paintings, Transparencies, and Sketches, undated; Series 11, Sketches, undated; Series 12, Scrapbooks, 1953-1957, undated; Series 13, Paint By Number Kits, undated; and Series 14, Sheet Music, undated
Arrangement:
Collection is arranged in fourteen series.
Series 1, Advertising and Promotional Materials, 1952-1955, undated
Series 2, General Motors Corporation, undated
Series 3, Newspaper Articles, 1953-1954, undated
Series 4, Photographs, 1954, undated
Series 5, Transparencies, undated
Series 6, Painting and Sketch Sets, undated
Series 7, Sketches, undated
Series 8, Paintings, undated
Series 9, Paintings with Color Sketches, undated
Series 10, Paintings, Transparencies, and Sketches, undated
Series 11, Sketches, undated
Series 12, Scrapbooks, 1953-1957, undated
Series 13, Paint By Number Kits, undated
Series 14, Sheet Music, undated
Biographical / Historical:
The concept of paint by number was conceived in 1949 by Max Klein (1922-1993) engineer and owner of the Palmer Paint Sales Company and commercial artist John Daniel (Dan) Robbins (1925-2019). Klein was interested in increasing paint sales when he presented Dan Robbins, the company's creator of package designs and children's book illustrations, the challenge. Under the Craft Master name, they created kits with the assistance of other artists who helped Robbins with the task of making the outlines, creating transparent overlays, painting, printing, and proofing artwork. Both Klein's and Robbins's wives spent time painting samples for Craft Master to test and display. In 1959 Klein sold Craft Master which he set up as a separate company after the product became so successful. It has since gone through several ownerships.
Related Materials:
Materials at the Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Every Man a Rembrandt! Episode 188, May 1954, demonstrates manufacturing painting sets with numbers. Palmer Paint Sales Company, Detroit, Michigan.
Materials at the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Division of Social History, Exhibition Records Accession 04-069
Office of Exhibits Central, Exhibition Records Accession 08-051
Division of Social History, National Museum of American History
See http://americanhistory.si.edu/paint/reminiscence.html
Materials at Other Organizations
Paint By Numbers Museum
Detroit Historical Society
Detroit Historical Museum
Museum of Modern Art
Separated Materials:
Related objects located in the Division of Home and Community Life (now Division of Cultural and Community Life).
Provenance:
Collection donated by Jacquelyn Schiffman, September 21, 1997.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Electricity and Modern Physics Search this
Extent:
46 Cubic feet (150 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Clippings
Newsletters
Scrapbooks
Notebooks
Motion pictures (visual works)
Photographs
Date:
1884-1965
Scope and Contents:
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 periodicals collected by Du Mont. Information about Allen Du Mont is largely limited to his professional development and activities, except for a few travel photographs and information about and logbooks from his boat.
Materials date from 1884 to 1965, but the bulk come from the years 1931 1960; mostly scattered periodicals comprise the earlier years.
The collection includes correspondence, photographs, blueprints, films, videotapes, pamphlets, books, periodicals, newspaper and magazine clippings, annual reports, organization charts, stock records, ticker tape, legal documents, patent documents, bills, accountants' reports, meeting minutes, scrapbooks, technical drawings, advertisements, catalogs, and technical manuals. Processing included revising the previous series order, refoldering and reboxing all items, and completely revising the finding aid. Duplicates were weeded out; two copies were retained of any multiple item. Materials in binders were unbound. An example of each binder with the DuMont logo was retained, and the materials once contained therein refer to the appropriate binder in the container list. Plain office binders were discarded.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into 16 series.
Series 1: Personal Files, 1920s-1965
Series 2: Executive Records, 1938-1964
Series 3: Stock Records, 1937-1962
Series 4: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Patents and Legal Proceedings, 1884-1960
Series 5: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Financial Records, 1931-1964
Series 6: DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Operations, 1938-1958
Series 7: Radio Technical Planning Board, 1944-1946
Series 8: Federal Communications Commission, 1940-1959 and undated
Series 9: DuMont Laboratories, Marketing and Sales, 1939-1961 and undated
Series 10: Telecommunications for Venezuela, 1952-1957 and undated
Series 11: Du Mont Network, 1944-1952 and undated
Series 12: Du Mont Publications, 1933-1963 and undated
Series 13: Photographs, 1928-1960 and undated
Series 14: Clippings/Scrapbooks, 1933-1962
Series 15: Non-Du Mont Publications, 1892, 1907-1963 and undated
Series 16: Audiovisual Materials, 1948-1955
Series 17: Addenda, 1933-1959
Biographical / Historical:
Allen Balcom Du Mont was born Jan. 29, 1901, in Brooklyn, NY to S. William Henry Beaman and Lillian Felton Balcom Du Mont. He contracted poliomyelitis when he was eleven and was confined to bed for nearly a year. During his illness, he began to amuse himself with a crystal radio set; by year's end, he had built a receiving and transmitting set. He was licensed as a ship's wireless operator when he was fifteen, and took a job a year later as a radio operator on a passenger vessel that ran between New York and Providence, RI. He worked as a radio operator for the next seven years.
Du Mont graduated in 1924 from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, with a degree in electrical engineering. He had already begun his first invention for the Sound Operated Circuit Controller, a device that turns a switch on or off when it hears a sharp sound; he used it to turn off his radio during commercials with a hand clap. Du Mont began working for the Westinghouse Lamp Company (later a division of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation), raising their output of radio tubes from 500 a day to 5,000 an hour in four years. For this, he received the Westinghouse Achievement Award in 1927. He left Westinghouse to become chief engineer at the De Forest Radio Company in 1928; his inventions increased output there to 30,000 radio tubes a day, and he was promoted to vice president in charge of production. In 1929, he received his first patent, for a radio tube mounting device.
He also worked with television at De Forest, using mechanical receivers with a spinning "Nipkow disk" that scanned electrical impulses and gave the effect of a motion picture. The De Forest experimental transmitter, W2XCD, in Passaic, NJ, broadcast television programs in 1930. Du Mont quickly concluded that there was no future in scanning discs; they produced a small, dark picture, and were difficult to build correctly. Others had developed television pictures that were produced by an electronic beam scanning rapidly across a florescent screen at the end of a tube. However, those cathode ray tubes were still imported from Germany, were very expensive, and burned out after only twenty five to thirty hours.
Du Mont left his job at De Forest in 1931 and started a cathode ray manufacturing business in a garage laboratory at his home. He developed a tube that lasted a thousand hours and could be manufactured inexpensively. There was almost no market for his tubes; gross sales income the first year was only $70. However, the tubes were an integral part of the cathode ray oscillograph, an instrument widely used in physics laboratories that measures and records changes in electrical current over time. The business, incorporated in 1935 as DuMont Laboratories, Inc., prospered in the oscillograph market. DuMont Labs moved in 1933 into a series of empty stores, then to a plant in Passaic, NJ, in 1937. Du Mont also acted as consultant to manufacturers with cathode ray tube problems and served as an expert witness in patent litigations.
Du Mont used the money he made from oscillographs to develop television. His innovations in making precise, quickly manufactured, inexpensive, long lasting cathode ray tubes made commercial television possible. In 1938, Du Mont sold a half interest in his company to the Paramount Pictures Corporation to raise capital for broadcasting stations. In 1939, the company became the first to market a television receiver for homes, and was part of a major display at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Television development and sales were cut off by World War II, since DuMont Laboratories converted entirely to wartime production of oscillographs and to radar research. DuMont Laboratories returned to television production in 1946 and was the first company to market a postwar television set. By 1951 the company grossed $75 million a year and had four plants manufacturing television sending and receiving equipment in Passaic, Allwood, East Paterson, and Clifton, NJ. Du Mont had become the television industry's first millionaire. He was chosen in a Forbes magazine poll as one of the twelve foremost business leaders of America that same year, and was once characterized as "one of the very few inventors in the annals of American industry who have made more money from their inventions than anyone else has" (Rice, 36).
Du Mont began an experimental television station, W2XTV, in Passaic, NJ, in 1939. He added WABD (later WNEW TV) in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WDTV (later KDKA) in Pittsburgh, PA. He concentrated on technology and business, leaving entertainment to others in the company. However, the DuMont Network "featured such names as Ernie Kovacs, Morey Amsterdam, Ted Mack, Ernest Borgnine, Jan Murray, and Dennis James. Its long running variety hour, Cavalcade of Stars, showcased not only Jackie Gleason but The Honeymooners, which made its debut as a Cavalcade sketch" (Krampner, 98). The 1950s
superhero Captain Video became famous on the DuMont network, and Bishop Fulton Sheen's inspirational show, "Life is Worth Livinq," won surprisingly high ratings (Watson, 17). Ultimately, America's fourth network failed: in 1955, DuMont Broadcasting separated from Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., becoming the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company and, with the addition of other properties, Metromedia, Inc.
Du Mont testified frequently before the Federal Communications Commission to set technical standards for American television broadcast between 1945 and 1952. In 1946, Du Mont's company was one of several to oppose the Columbia Broadcasting System's petition to the FCC to establish color television standards; Du Mont preferred to wait for further research to develop all electronic color television, rather than the mechanical method CBS favored. He felt that method produced a picture far less than optimal, and would have required persons who did not own color sets to purchase adapters to receive broadcasts being produced in color. Standards were developed by the National Television Standards Committee in 1951 1953; the Federal Communications Commission accepted them in 1953, and regular transmission of color programs began on the major networks, including the DuMont Network, in 1954.
Sales of television receivers from DuMont Laboratories, Inc. peaked in 1954; by the late 1950s, the company was losing money. The Emerson Radio and Phonograph Company purchased the division that produced television sets, phonographs, and high fidelity and stereo equipment in 1958. In 1960 remaining Du Mont interests merged with the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation. Du Mont was president of DuMont Laboratories, Inc., until 1956, when he became chairman of the Board of Directors. His title changed to Chairman and General Manager in 1959. In 1961 he became Senior Technical Advisor, Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation.
Du Mont received many awards for his work, including honorary doctorates from Rennselaer (1944), Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1949), Fairleigh Dickinson College (1955), and New York University (1955). He received the Marconi Memorial Medal for Achievement in 1945, and an American Television society award in 1943 for his contributions to the field. In 1949, he received the Horatio Alger Award, "a yearly prize bestowed by the American Schools and Colleges Association on the man whose rise to fortune most nearly parallels the virtuous careers of Ben the Luggage Boy and Tattered Tom" (Rice, 35). He held more than thirty patents
for developments in cathode ray tubes and other television devices. His inventions included the "magic eye tube" once commonly seen on radios and the Duovision, a television that could receive two programs simultaneously. Du Mont was also noted for success in predicted log power boat racing; in his television equipped Hurricane III, he became the national champion of the power cruiser division of the American Power Boat Association in 1953 1955 and 1958. Du Mont died November 15, 1965; his obituary appeared on the front page of the New York Times. He was survived by Ethel Martha Steadman, whom he married in 1926, and their two children, Allen Balcom, Jr., and Yvonne.
Sources
Current Biography 1946, pp. 162 164.
Krampner, Jon. "The Death of the DuMont [sic] Network: A Real TV Whodunit." Emmy Magazine (July August 1990): 96 103.
Obituary, New York Times, 16 November 1965, 1:3.
Rice, Robert. "The Prudent Pioneer." The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 1951.
Watson, Mary Ann. "And they Said 'Uncle Fultie Didn't Have a Prayer . . . "11 Television Quarterly 26, no. 3(1993): 16 21.
Who's Who in America, 1962.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Edward J. Orth Memorial Archives of the New York World's Fair, 1939-1940
Warshaw Collection, Worlds Expositions, New York World's Fair, 1939 (AC0060)
Larry Zim World's Fair Collection (AC0519)
George H. Clark "Radioana" Collection, ca. 1880-1950 (AC0055)
Division of Work and Industry
Related artifacts consist of cathode ray tubes, oscillographs, television receivers (including a Duoscope), and other instruments. See accession #:EM*315206, EM*315208, EM*315209, EM*327728, EM*327735, EM*327742, EM*327743, EM*327745, EM*327749, EM*327751, EM*327756, EM*327758, EM*327759, EM*327760, EM*327763, EM*327770, EM*328155, EM*328178, EM*328182, EM*328193, EM*328198, EM*328200, EM*328209, EM*328212, EM*328224, EM*328231, EM*328247, EM*328253, EM*328258, EM*328264, EM*328269, EM*328271, EM*328277, EM*328280, EM*328282, EM*328283, EM*328286, EM*328299, EM*328305, EM*328306, EM*328315, EM*328316,
EM*328322, EM*328325, EM*328327, EM*328336, EM*328337, EM*328343, EM*328348, EM*328352, EM*328353, EM*328366, EM*328368, ZZ*RSN80323A74, ZZ*RSN80552U05, ZZ*RSN80748U09, ZZ*RSN80748U11, ZZ*RSN80844U09, and ZZ*RSN81576U01.
Library of Congress
Records of the Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc. 1930 1960 (bulk 1945 1960). 56 lin. ft. Consists of nine series: Administrative Files, 1935 1960; General Correspondence, ca. 1930 1960; Interoffice Correspondence, ca. 1935 1960; Financial Records, 1932 1960; Sales and Advertising File, 1936 1960; Production and Engineering File, 1932 1960; Television File, ca. 1935 1960; Hearings File, 1935 1957; and General Miscellany, ca. 1937 1960. National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections number 68 2021; National Inventory of Documentary Sources number 2.1.243.
Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs
John H. Zieger Papers, 1942 1980. 1 box (type not specified). Correspondence, clippings, leaflets, and memoranda, related to Zieger's union activities with Western Electric Employees
Association and Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories. National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections number 91 2872.
Provenance:
Immediate source of acquisition unknown.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Gloves must be worn when handling unprotected photographs and negatives. Special arrangements required to view materials in cold storage. Using cold room materials requires a three hour waiting period. Only reference copies of audiovisual materials may be used. Contact the Archives Center for more information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Agnes Pelton papers, 1885-1989. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
3.8 Linear feet ((partially microfilmed on 3 reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1926-1965
Scope and Contents:
Correspondence, notes, photographs and printed materials concern Fiene's painting, publications and other art-related activities.
REELS 2353-2355: Correspondence (1926-1957) concerns art-related activities and the American Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers (1935-1936). A subject file on the Tupperware Art Fund contains applications (1953-1955) and photographs of Fiene painting. Printed material includes clippings (1930-1960) and exhibition catalogs for Paul Fiene (1933), Ernest Fiene (1926-1959) and the American Artists Council (1936). Three scrapbooks (1923-1961) contain clippings, exhibition catalogs and photographs of Fiene and his artworks. Other materials include a resume, an autobiographical account, a 1938 lecture, "Toward New Horizons", delivered at the Art Students League, and Alex Domonkos' (1954) notes on lectures by various artists, including Fiene's discussion of landscape painting.
UNMICROFILMED: Correspondence (1957-1964) concerns art-related activities. Photographs show Fiene, working on the mural in the High School for Fashion Industries, and works of art, including murals for the Interior Department and the council room of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Other materials include a manuscript, a typescript and illustrations for Fiene's book COMPLETE GUIDE TO OIL PAINTING (1963-1964), clippings (1940-1964), exhibition catalogs (1964), 2 galley proofs and minutes (1957-1958) from 2 meetings at the National Academy of Design.
ADDITION: Letters from friends, including other artists, 1932-1965; passport and membership cards; financial records, consisting of banking records, invoices and receipts, insurance policies, and records of investments; and a few printed items and photographs.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, lithographer, etcher, illustrator and teacher. Died 1965.
Provenance:
Material on reels 2353-2355 lent by Maria Fiene, daughter of Ernest Fiene. Unfilmed material (0.8 ft.) donated by Syracuse University, 1984, and an additional 0.8 ft. donated by Maria Fiene, 1994.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Eliot Candee Clark papers, 1839-1984. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Stanton L. Catlin papers, 1911-1998, bulk 1930-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund
Constable, W. G. (William George), 1887-1976 Search this
Extent:
7.5 Linear feet (Box 16-24, OV 28-29)
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1922-1976
Scope and Contents:
Constable's research files contain notes, lists, correspondence, bibliographic reference cards, and printed and photographic reference material related to research on artists, conservation, collections, collecting, and other topics.
Arrangement:
This series is arranged as 9 subseries:
Missing Title
8.1: Artists, 1925-1964
8.2: Artists, Canaletto, 1934-1976
8.3: Artists, Vedute Painters, 1922-1967
8.4: Museum Conservation, circa 1940-1960
8.5: Museums and Galleries, 1930-1965
8.6: Private Collections, 1930-1964
8.7: Public Collections, circa 1930-1960
8.8: Reference Cards, circa 1940-1960
8.9: Schools of Art, circa 1940-1960
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Glass plate negatives are housed separately and not served to researchers.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
W.G. Constable papers, 1905-1983, bulk 1920-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Digitization of this collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
