The collection includes thirty-eight punchboards, all unpunched and in very good to excellent condition, and featuring a range of products and imagery. The collection also includes two punchboard manufacturers' catalogs from the 1940s, which detail the money-making opportunities for jobbers and retailers.
The collection also contains correspondence, employment forms, promotional literature, photographs and sales training literature from Evan "Ding" Rangeloff=s early career as a sales representative and regional sales manager for Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. Of particular interest are sales training manuals which explore the psychology of selling in the 1950s, manuals which detail sales cigarette marketing strategies at military bases and on Indian reservations, and materials relating to Liggett & Myers sponsorship of Formula One car racing in the 1970s.
Arrangement:
Series 1: Business Records, circa 1954-1991
Series 2: Photographs, circa 1920-1970
Series 3: Sales Training Literature, circa 1955-1957, 1974, 1979
Series 4: Punchboards, circa 1910-1970
Historical:
During and after his employment as a salesman and regional sales manager with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in Duluth, Minnesota, Mr. Rangeloff began collecting the gambling and sales promotion devices known as punchboards. In 1999-2000, he donated a large and representative selection of punchboards to the Archives Center. The term "punchboard" (or in some cases "punch board," "push board," "punchcard," or "pushcard") refers to a gambling device popular in the United States from roughly 1910 until 1970. Punchboards could be used for fundraising, sales promotion and gambling--sometimes all at once. Punchboards were typically found in places where men gathered socially, such as bars, pool halls, barber shops, and men's clubs. Punchboards also could be found in beauty parlors, drug stores, and other small retail establishments. With their promise of easy money, punchboards enjoyed great success during the Depression, and continued to enjoy popularity during and after World War II. According to Scarne's Complete Guide to Gambling (New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1961), approximately 30 million punchboards were sold between 1910 and 1915. Scarne estimated that 50 million punchboards were sold in 1939 alone, at the peak of their popularity. Punchboard sales declined significantly after WWII, and by the mid-1970s the boards had been outlawed in most states.
Punchboards trace their lineage to 18th century lottery game boards. These handmade boards, with the winning ticket placed by the operator, offered no safeguards against corruption, however, and their misuse may have contributed to the game=s waning popularity. In 1905, C.A. Brewer and C.G. Scannell patented a new version of the traditional game. By 1910, modern manufacturing techniques, including the invention of board stuffing machines and ticket folding machines, contributed to the reinvigoration of the punchboard. The new punchboards were constructed out of cardboard, with a sheet of paper or foil covering both front and back of the board. This covering was intended to prevent the operator from discovering where the winning tickets were or otherwise tampering with the board. Cheap, portable, disposable, and offering a ready vehicle for advertising, punchboards are an exuberant, if ephemeral, expression of 20th century mass culture.
A modern punchboard typically consists of a square or rectangular piece of pressed wood or cardboard (from 2 inch to one inch in thickness) in which hundreds or thousands of holes have been drilled in a regular pattern, then loaded with tiny slips of rolled or folded paper. Each slip of paper had a number or symbol printed on it. Both front and back of the board were covered with a foil or paper seal. The front of the board typically featured some form of attention-getting commercial imagery and a chart listing the winning number or combination of numbers and symbols, along with the prizes or cash amounts to be awarded to the winners. The boards were sold with a metal stylus or "punch" for the players to use.
A player paid the punchboard's operator a set amount of money (typically a nickel, dime, or quarter) for a chance to use a metal stylus to break the seal on the hole of his choice, and punch one of the slips of paper out of the board. If the number or symbols found on the slip of paper matched one of the pre determined winning combinations, the player was awarded the corresponding prize.
Punchboard manufacturers sold the boards blank or preprinted. Blank boards were sold to "jobbers" or salesmen who then added their own imagery or advertisement, and many surviving punchboards feature advertisements for products that were inexpensive and had mass appeal, such as peanuts, candy and cigarettes. Some of these boards offered the advertised product as the prize; these came to be known as prizeboards. Some prizeboards were constructed with a shadow box meant to contain prizes such as rhinestone sunglasses, wristwatches, Bowie knives, or even handguns. Punchboard manufacturers also sold the board pre-printed with various kinds of commercial imagery--sports, gambling, and patriotic imagery were well-represented, as were folk figures, racial and ethnic stereotypes, and the ubiquitous pin-up girls. Most of these boards were played for cash.
Provenance:
Gift of Evan Rangeloff, October 1999.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
In the vicinity of the mining camp at the Río Tundaime. Along trail from military base El Condor to the look-out point., Zamora-Chinchipe, Ecuador, South America - Neotropics
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm Collection focuses on the all-female, racially and ethnically diverse big band group that started in 1937 and disbanded in 1949. The collection contains news clippings, photographs, correspondence, ephemera from USO travels, and newsletters. Also included are books related to the group, as well as a tribute CD and a 33 rpm vinyl sound recording.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists mostly of photographs and news clippings documenting the International Sweethearts Band of Rhythm's performances, rehearsals, and travels. It also includes tribute materials to the band, including books and audio CDs.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into three series.
Series 1: Piney Woods School, 1937-1944
Series 2: Rosalind Cron Materials, 1933-2005
Series 3: Dixie Hardy Moon Materials, 1935-1951
Biographical / Historical:
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm were a racially and ethnically mixed swing band, all of whose members were women. They were organized in 1937 by Laurence Clifton Jones, who started the Piney Woods School near Jackson, Mississippi. He formed the band from students at Piney Woods and the band toured to raise money for the school, performing at fairs, dance halls, churches, and theaters. In 1939, the band began to tour outside of Mississippi and traveled across the American South and Midwest. In 1941 they separated from Piney Woods, started out on their own as professional musicians and relocated to Arlington, Virginia. While in Arlington, the band recruited professional musicians to replace the underage students who stayed in school. The band's venues included the Apollo Theatre and Savoy Ballroom in New York and the Howard Theatre in Washington DC They performed frequently at military bases and were quite popular during World War II. In response to requests from GIs serving overseas, the Sweethearts undertook a six month tour of Europe starting in July 1945. The tour was supported by the United Service Organization (USO) Camp Shows. The band played in Paris, France and throughout Germany, including the cities of Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Munich, and Mannheim. The group disbanded in 1949, but reunited for a reunion in 1980 at the Third Annual Women's Jazz Festival in Kansas City.
Rosalin Cron was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1925 and began playing music at nine years old. She joined the band in 1943 and primarly played the alto saxophone, but was also trained to play the clarinet and flute. Cron was a part of the overseas tour. She was with the band until 1946. Dixie Hardy Moon is the niece of founder Laurence Clifton Jones. Catherine (Cathy) Hughes, was born in 1947 in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the granddaughter of founder Laurence Clifton Jones and her mother, Helen Jones Woods (1923-2020), played the trombone with the Sweethearts. Hughes is considered a media pioneer and founder of Radio One/TV One.
Provenance:
Collection donated to the Archives Center in 2011 by Rosalind Cron.
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.
The majority of the photographs were made by Thomas B. Card during World War II and the postwar years in Japan, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. He documented people, architecture, and scenery, as well as military bases and personnel in Okinawa, Japan. Additionally, there are images of Mexican archeological sites, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana (made in 1944), the 1932 Amur River flood, and Benito Mussolini's execution.
The collection also includes photographs taken by Paul W. Card in China before World War II, including images of the Yangtze River, historical architecture and art, people, shrines, and cities.
Biographical/Historical note:
Thomas B. Card was an engineer and Army officer during World War II. After completing his freshman year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (September 1916-October 1917), he joined the signal corps in World War I, later transferrimg to become a pilot in the air service. Returning to school, he graduated from the Masssachusetts Institute of Technology in 1921 and received a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Graduate School in 1930. During World War II, he supervised the construction of bases in the Caribbean and Japan, and served as commanding officer of the 601st Engineers Base Depot on Okinawa. He was promoted to Colonel, CE, in 1945. In 1947, he led a group of engineers working on the Bechtel International Modernization Project in Saudi Arabia, as well as other post-war work in Argentina and Trinidad.
Paul W. Card, Thomas B. Card's brother, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1927 and was assigned to work in China's Yangtze River region until 1938. He spent most of his time protecting the United States Legation in Nanjing and gathered intelligence as a "naval observer."
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 2000-02, NAA Photo Lot 97-43
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Photographs made by Thomas B. Card, previously filed in Photo Lot 97-43, have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 2000-02. These photographs were were made at the same time and places and form part of this collection.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing.
Photo Lot 2000-02, Thomas B. Card and Paul W. Card photographs of world travels and World War II, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Beverly J. Blackwood in memory of Charles J. Blackwood, Sr.
No access restrictions Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu
This collection contains materials that were created and collected by Corporal Harold E. Brown circa 1952-1953 and relate to his service in the United States Army when he was stationed in Alaska during the Korean War (1950-1953). The materials include letters from Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) artist Florence Nupok Malewotkuk (1906-1971) to Cpl. Brown and an album containing photos that Cpl. Brown shot while stationed in Alaska.
Arrangement:
The materials are organized in 2 boxes.
Biographical / Historical:
Relatively little is known about Corporal Harold E. Brown. Brown was born October 6, 1929 and lived in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He married Mary Helen (1938-2010) and they had at least one child Padraic Brown. Harold was a Corporal in the United States Army and served in the Korean War. He died on November 24, 2012.
Separated Materials:
The archival materials in this collection are part of a larger collection donated to NMAI by Anita and Padraic Brown. The other collection items were made by Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) artist Florence Nupok Malewotkuk (1906-1971) and include 2 hide yo-yos (26/9291 and 26/9292); 1 pair of mukluks (26/9293); and 3 pairs of slippers with beadwork (26/9294, 26/9295, and 26/9296). These objects were either given to or purchased by Corporal Harold E. Brown when he was stationed in Alaska during the Korean War.
Provenance:
Gift of Anita and Padraic Brown, 2014.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Some images restricted: Cultural Sensitivity.
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Corporal Harold E. Brown collection, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
