Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Contains dance cards, member dues receipts and nomination cards, event programs, and ribbons. Organizations represented include: Theta Delta Chi, Order of Tonti, Knights of Columbus, Improved Order of Red Men, Knights of Pythias, Haymakers Association, Bethesda Temple of Honor, D. of R., C.M.B.A, White Cloud Council, I.O.R.M. Arietta Tribe, Wah-he Tribe, Tecumseh Tribe.
Series Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Series 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.
Series Citation:
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Fraternal Orders, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Two financial reports:Report of The Grand Master of The Exchequer, Gettysburg, PA (1896 August) andReport of The Committee On Finance And Mileage, (1896 August).
Series Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Series 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.
Series Citation:
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Fraternal Orders, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Series 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.
Series Citation:
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Fraternal Orders, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Thomas, J. Maurice (John Maurice), 1900 or 1901- Search this
Extent:
5.5 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Audiocassettes
Video recordings
Photographs
Date:
circa 1894-2001
Summary:
The papers of Washington, D.C. painter and art educator Alma Thomas, date from circa 1894-2001 and measure 5.5 linear feet. The papers document Thomas's work as a teacher, and her development and success as a painter of the Washington Color School, through biographical material, letters, notes and writings, personal business records, exhibition files, printed materials, scrapbooks, photographs, an audio recording, and two video recordings.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of Washington, D.C. painter and art educator Alma Thomas, date from circa 1894-2001 and measure 5.5 linear feet. The papers document Thomas's work as a teacher, and her development and success as a painter of the Washington Color School, through biographical material, letters, notes and writings, personal business records, exhibition files, printed materials, scrapbooks, photographs, an audio recording, and two video recordings.
Biographical material includes identity cards, chronologies, an audio recording including a biographical account, and scattered documentation of Thomas's education and teaching careers with D.C. Public Schools, Howard University, and Thomas Garrett Settlement in Wilmington, Delaware. Also found are records relating to Thomas's participation in a summer marionette class taught by Tony Sarg in 1934, and a tour of European art centers which Thomas took in 1958.
Letters relate primarily to the exhibition of Thomas's work and related events and are from galleries, museums, other art institutions, colleagues, and friends including Franz Bader, Adelyn Breeskin, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Howard University Gallery of Art, Martha Jackson Gallery, Nathalie J. Cole Johnson, Vincent Melzac, Celine Tabary, and Joshua Taylor.
Notes and writings include four notebooks and autobiographical writings by Thomas, a "Birthday Book," and an annotated engagement calendar. J. Maurice Thomas's writings about Alma Thomas, her research for a bibliography on James Weldon Johnson, and writings by others, including Jacob Kainen, about Alma Thomas, are also found here.
Exhibition files contain a wide variety of documentation for many group and solo exhibitions of Thomas's work from the early 1950s through a 1998-2000 traveling retrospective exhibition, including solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1972. The records include letters from Franz Bader Gallery, David Driskell at Fisk University, and Vincent Melzac. Photographs include Thomas with individuals including William Buckner, Jeff Donaldson, David Driskell, James W. Herring, and Vincent Melzac. Also found is a photograph of the 1951 Little Paris Studio Group picturing Lois Mailou Jones, Celine Tabary, Alma Thomas, and others. Two video recordings are of events related to the 1998-2000 retrospective at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and the Columbus Museum of Art. Records documenting a 1981-1982 exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, A Life in Art: Alma Thomas, includes the script of a video written by Adolphus Ealey.
Personal business records include price lists, gift and loan receipts, and files concerning the Art in Embassies Program, the Martha Jackson Gallery, a benefit auction for the Corcoran School of Art, and the designation of the Thomas family home in Washington, D.C. as a historic property.
Eleven scrapbooks document Thomas's teaching career through the activities of the art classes she taught at Shaw Junior High School.
Printed materials include announcements and catalogs for exhibitions and other events; clippings which document Thomas's career and subjects of interest to her; Christmas cards featuring block prints designed by Thomas; and other programs and publications featuring Thomas.
Photographs are of Alma Thomas, family, and friends and colleagues including Sam Gilliam, James V. Herring, and Nathalie V. Cole Johnson; art classes taught by Thomas; Thomas's homes in Columbus, Georgia and Washington, D.C.; and exhibitions not documented in Series 4: Exhibition Files, including photographs of Alma Thomas at an opening at Barnett Aden Gallery with Alonzo Aden and others.
Arrangement note:
The papers have been arranged into 8 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1911-2001 (Box 1; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Letters, circa 1930-2001 (Boxes 1-2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Notes and Writings, circa 1920s-circa 1998 (Box 2; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition Files, 1951-2000 (Boxes 2-3, OV 7; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 5: Personal Business Records, circa 1950s-1994 (Box 3; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, circa 1908-2000 (Boxes 3-5, OV 7; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1930-1946 (Box 5; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 8: Photographs, circa 1894-2001 (Boxes 5-6; 0.6 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Washington, D.C. painter and art educator Alma Thomas (1891-1978) was known for her abstract paintings filled with dense patterns of color, and was considered a major artist of the Washington Color School.
Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1894, and was the eldest of the four daughters of John Harris Thomas and Amelia Cantey Thomas. The family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1906 and Thomas was first introduced to art classes at Armstrong Technical High School. Following her graduation in 1911 she took a course in kindergarten teaching at the Miner Normal School, and subsequently worked as a substitute teacher in the Washington, D.C. public school system until 1914, when she took a teaching position on the Eastern shore of Maryland. From 1916 to 1923 she taught kindergarten at Thomas Garrett Settlement House in Wilmington, Delaware.
Thomas originally enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. as a home economics major in 1921, but after studying under Lois Mailou Jones amd James V. Herring in Herring's newly established art department, she earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art in 1924, and became the first person to graduate from the program. Thomas then began her teaching career at Shaw Junior High School in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1924, until her retirement in 1960. During this time she established community arts programs that would encourage her students to develop an appreciation of fine arts. Activities included marionette programs, distribution of student-designed holiday menu cards for dinners given for soldiers at the Tuskegee Veterans' Hospital, art clubs, lectures, and student exhibitions. In 1943 she became the founding vice president of Barnett Aden Gallery, which was established by James V. Herring and Alonzo Aden and was the first integrated gallery in Washington, D.C.
In 1934 Thomas earned an M.A. degree in Art Education from Columbia University. At American University in Washington, D.C., she studied creative painting under Joe Summerford, Robert Gates, and Jacob Kainen from 1950 to 1960, and began to break away from representational painting and experiment more seriously with Abstract Expressionism. In 1958 she participated in a tour of the art centers of Western Europe under the auspices of the Tyler School of Fine Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Following her retirement from teaching in 1960, Thomas devoted herself full-time to painting, and continued to develop her signature style. She was inspired by nature and the desire to express beauty through composition and color, and refused to be constrained by societal expectations related to her race, gender, and age, achieving her greatest success in the last decade of her life. Her work was exhibited at the Dupont Theatre Art Gallery, Franz Bader Gallery, and the Howard University Gallery of Art, before she was honored in 1972 with exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Thomas's work has been exhibited at the White House and can be found in the permanent collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Separated Materials note:
In 1979, J. Maurice Thomas loaned papers for microfilming. Most, but not all, of the loaned material was later donated and is described in this finding aid. Loaned materials not donated at a later date are available on reels 1541-1543 and are not described in the container listing of this finding aid.
Provenance:
J. Maurice Thomas, the artist's sister, loaned portions of the collection for microfilming in 1979. Most, but not all of this material was then later donated in several accretions by J. Maurice Thomas, between 1979 and 2004. Charles Thomas Lewis, Thomas' nephew, gave additional papers in 2010.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate copies requires advance notice.
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.
Hawkes, Philip, 1897-1962 -- 20th century Search this
Extent:
0.15 Cubic feet (1.5 document boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
Fryeburg, Maine
Westbrook, Maine
Bingham, Maine
Date:
1934-1950, undated
bulk 1939-1942
Summary:
This collection contains the business records of the Westbrook Theatre Corporation of Westbrook, Maine. Records include the Colby, Rialto, and Knights of Pythias motion picture theatres in Bingham, Fryeburg, and elsewhere. The collection includes financial records, business correspondence, and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
Series 1, Westbrook Theatre Corporation Records, 1934-1950, undated. This series contains ledgers, business-related correspondence and documents, monthly accounts detailing attendance, cost, revenue, and program for the three theatres managed by Westbrook; equipment advertising and specifications, licenses, receipts, documents related to various film exchanges and motion picture production companies (including Paramount, RKO, and Universal), union contracts, check books, a weekly report card book (a book of standardized forms for motion picture projectors produced by the International Photographers of the Motion Picture Industry, a branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)), and black and white photographs of the Colby Theatre in Bingham, Maine.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into one series.
Biographical / Historical:
The Westbrook Theatre Corporation was formed July 30, 1934 in Westbrook, Maine. The president was Colby W. Robinson and Philip W. Hawkes was treasurer. There were 161 shares of stock divided among Robinson (eighty shares), Hawkes (eighty shares), and Marion Hawkes (one share). At its inception the corporation's stock was valued at ten dollars a share. The corporation ran the Colby Theatre in Bingham, the Rialto Theatre, and later rented the Knights of Pythias Hall in Fryeburg, Maine.
The Corporation was independent, not allied with or owned by one motion picture studio. Film rentals were handled through exchanges, and motion pictures produced by Paramount, RKO, and Universal (to name three producers) regularly appeared on its programs. Programs included such first run films as Citizen Kane, Young Man With a Horn, and The Howards of Virginia, motion pictures with well-known stars produced by the major studios. B pictures made up a considerable portion of the fare as well as motion picture serials such as the Blondie comedies, and Westerns. The meticulous recording of daily programs, attendance, and receipts as well as supporting documents provides an accurate basis for research into the daily life of an independently run motion picture theatre.
The papers indicate that day to day management and running of the theatres was the job of Robinson and his wife Verna. Later Verna's sister, Lucy, seems to have joined the business. With Robinson's death in 1950 it is unknown if the Corporation continued or was dissolved. Philip and Marion Hawkes rarely show up in the documents. The Hawkeses eventually moved to Southern California so perhaps that explains their absence from the records.
Colby W. Robinson was born in Bingham, Maine on November 16, 1900, the son of Walter E. Robinson and Nellie M. Preble. Robinson's father was a merchant. On October 21, 1925 Robinson married Verna L. Kimball, the daughter of Leon L. and Ruth Clifford Kimball. Verna's father was a farmer in Albany, Maine and Verna was born on February 28, 1904 in Albany. By the 1940 United States census, they were living in Portland, Maine along with Verna's younger sister Lucy. Robinson listed his occupation as theatre manager; Verna was listed as bookeeper, and Lucy was a theatre cashier. Robinson died in 1950, and it is unclear if the business continued past his death as the records in this collection cease in 1950. Verna died November 28, 1988. Both of them are buried in the village cemetery at Bingham, Maine. They had no children.
Phillip Hawkes, treasurer, was born in Westbrook, Maine on July 17, 1897 to E. Leroy and Maude Laura Hawkes. Leroy Hawkes was a laundryman. He married Marion A. Harlow on April 5, 1924. By the 1930 census, Hawkes is listed as a superintendent in a laundry. Hawkes died on September 21, 1962 and Marion died November 17, 1986. Both are buried at Forest Lawn Cypress Cemetery in Orange County, California.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, by Archives Center employee Craig A. Orr in 2013.
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.
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 Citation:
Westbrook Theatre Corporation Records, 1934-1950, undated, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Westbrook Theatre Corporation Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
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 Citation:
Westbrook Theatre Corporation Records, 1934-1950, undated, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Westbrook Theatre Corporation Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Unrestricted research use on site. Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves.
Collection Rights:
Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.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 Citation:
Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera, ca. 1818-1931, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
