2.44 Cubic feet (consisting of 4.5 boxes, 1 folder, 5 oversize folders, 2 flat boxes (partial), 1 map case folder.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Business ephemera
Business letters
Publications
Receipts
Business cards
Trade literature
Logs (records)
Sales catalogs
Print advertising
Ephemera
Catalogs
Advertising mail
Commercial catalogs
Invoices
Trade cards
Technical reports
Trade catalogs
Advertising
Manuals
Reports
Manufacturers' catalogs
Commercial correspondence
Catalogues
Printed materials
Illustrations
Bulletins
Technical manuals
Printed material
Transcripts
Letterheads
Printed ephemera
Advertisements
Advertising cards
Radio scripts
Correspondence
Advertising fliers
Business records
Date:
1893-1992
Summary:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Accounting and Bookkeeping forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
The radio category contains material primarily related to radio company products, radio broadcasts and programs, technical documentation on the use of radios, and material documenting the effect of radio on modern life. The bulk of the material covers sales catalogues and advertisements, though no complete records for single companies are present.
The radio broadcast transcripts and programs include fictional or anecdotal stories, transcripts of contests, interviews, or speeches, and notifications about future broadcasts.
Literature concerning the effect of radio on modern life includes brief radio historiographies, discussions about the need for advanced education for the radio field, and documentation of the use of radio in leisure time or in rural life. Additional publications address the uses and effects of radio during times of war. While no extensive documentation exists on any one topic, the publications may provide general histories of the radio with snapshots of specific facets of radio history.
Arrangement:
Radio is arranged in three subseries.
Business Records and Marketing Material
Genre
Subject
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Missing Title
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Radio is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
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.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Radios, 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).
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protecte by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protecte by sleeves.
Collection 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.
1 Item (Silver gelatin on cellulose acetate film sheet., 7.2" x 9.0".)
Container:
Box 417, Folder 7
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Date:
undated
Local Numbers:
AC0055-0000092.tif (AC Scan)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Biographical files cover the period from 1938-1989 and include resumes, clippings, correspondence, certificates, awards, speeches, brochures for exhibitions, and artwork.
The project files cover the period from 1934-1961 and contain clippings, catalogs, brochures, and scrapbooks. This material documents Bach's work as an industrial designer, architect, and painter from 1934-1992.
The files on the Ridgeway Center mall are particularly extensive. Photographs cover the period from 1937-1961 and document Bach's design projects, particularly the Ridgeway Center, his house in Stamford, and the Miami and New York offices of Callaway Mills. Portraits of Bach and his family are included as well.
Glass lantern slides document Bach's interior and exterior design projects. Also included are several signed and numbered prints of Bach's watercolor scenes of the Riviera.
Arrangement:
The Collection i s arranged into three series.
Series 1: Biographical Materials and Project Files, 1934-1989
Series 2: Photographs, 1942-1961
Series 3: Lantern slides (glass), undated
Biographical / Historical:
Industrial designer, architect, and painter. Born in Germany, 1904. Bach studied film directing and design in Europe. He turned to industrial design upon immigrating to the United States in 1926. His design work from 1932-1953 include a Philco radio, furniture for Heywood-Wakefield, carpets for Bigelow-Sanford, and appliances for General Electric. Bach designed and built his own home in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1938.
In the late 1940s, he developed a plan for one of the first shopping malls in America, the Ridgeway Center in Stamford, Connecticut. He remodeled the interior and exterior of Sach's furniture store, 1948-1949, and redesigned the Seneca Textile Building on 34th Street in Manhattan in 1952. Bach moved to Florida in 1959, where he designed the Palm Trail Plaza, a marina apartment complex in Delray Beach, completed in 1961. In addition, Bach was also a noted painter. His watercolors were featured in numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe.
Related Archival Materials:
Materials at the Smithsonian
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Drawings and Prints Department holds 431 drawings of designs for furniture, textiles, lamps, pianos, clocks, appliances, and retail, office, and home interiors
Provenance:
Collection donated by Alfons Bach in 1993.
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.
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.
Wholesale Radio Service Co., Inc. ; Lafayette Camera Corp. ; Lafayette-Concord Radio ; Div. of Radio Wire Television Inc. ; Lafayette Radio Search this
Notes content:
Large electronics distributor for National Company Radio , Hammarlund , Hallicrafters , Raytheon , General Electric , Amphenol , Workshop Associates , Advance , Motorola , Garrard , Electro-Voice , Fisher , Bell , Marantz , P. R. Mallory & Co. Inc. , and various other manufacturers ; portable radios ; AC-DC Superheterodyne "Superhet" ; table radios ; "phono-radio" record player and radio ; "radiocorder" (records radio broadcasts) ; cabinet radios ; "Combination" record player radio ; electric record players ; Crosley radios ; Lionel trains and accessories ; Erector sets ; "Chemcraft" chemistry sets ; RCA sound control studio (makes sound effects) ; RCA electronic lab kit ; RCA portable record player ; cameras and photography supplies ; radio parts and tubes ; soldering irons ; HAM radio equipment ; Motorola semiconductors ; stereophonic and monaural "hi-fi" components ; high fidelity ; stereo systems ; public address systems ; transistor radios ; clocks ; electric refrigerators ; RCA "Magic Brain" television remote control ; home intercom system ; fluorescent lights ; World War II wartime catalog .
African Americans -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Place:
Hill District (Pittsburgh, Pa.) -- 1940-1950
Pittsburgh (Pa.) -- 1940-1950
Date:
1944
Scope and Contents:
Part of HIll District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Building Interiors series.
Local Numbers:
AC0270-0000026 (AC scan)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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 collection documents Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, an engineer, and his experiments in wireless technology. Materials include Greenleaf Pickard notebooks and patents issued to Nikola Tesla.
Arrangement:
Series 1: Greenleaf Pickard Notebooks, 1898-1941
Series 2: Nikola Tesla Patents, 1890, 1896 (bulk 1901-1918)
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Greenleaf Whittier Pickard was born February 14, 1877, in Portland, Maine and died on January 8, 1956 in Newton, Massachusetts. Dr. Pickard was a grandnephew of the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, and was a graduate of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1899 he received a grant from the Smithsonian Institution to support his wireless research at Blue Hill Observatory in Milton, Massachusetts. He was an engineer at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (1902-1906); and after 1945 he was head of Pickard and Burnes, an electronics engineering firm.
Pickard discovered that a number of naturally occurring crystalline minerals could detect radio signals. The contact between a fine metallic wire (cat's whisker) and the surface of certain crystalline materials rectifies and demodulates high frequency alternating currents, such as those produced in a receiving antenna by radio waves. Pickard patented a crystal detector in 1906. The point-contact rectifier was the forerunner of the transistor invented in 1948. Pickard conducted experiments to determine the effect of sun and sunspots, meteor showers, atmosphere pressure and temperature on reception. He contributed to the development of the direction finder, and noted in 1908 that errors in reading radio compasses might be caused by buildings, trees, and other objects.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by the Cardwell Condenser Corporation, through Paul Meyer and David C. Kjeldsen in November 2004.
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. No copyright, patent, trademark or related interests were conveyed in the deed of gift. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The collection documents the history and development of the Wurlitzer Company and consists of company publications, business records, employee files, manufacturing records, sales and marketing records, product information, publicity, advertising, photographs, audiovisual materials, and organ installation drawings.
Scope and Contents:
The collection documents the history and the development of the Wurlitzer Company. Materials include company publications, business records, employee files, manufacturing records, sales and marketing records, product information, publicity, advertising, photographs, audiovisual materials, and organ installation drawings. The material in the collection spans from 1856-1986, although information prior to 1899 is sparse.
Arrangement:
The Collection is arranged into fourteen series.
Series 1: Wurlitzer Company Histories, Company Events, and General Business Materials, circa 1880-1987; undated
Series 2: Publications, 1910-1989; undated
Series 3: Advertising and Promotional Materials, 1911-1978
Series 4: Product Information, 1860-1984; undated
Series 5: Photographs of Wurlitzer Manufacturing Plants, Employees, Stores, and Dealerships, 1869-1970; undated
Series 6: Photographs of Wurlitzer Products and Product Sales Promotions, 1900-1978; undated
Series 7, Photographs Used in Wurlitzer Advertising and Public Relations, 1904-1970; undated
Series 8: Wurlitzer Employee Records and Related Materials, 1909-1961; undated
Series 9: Production and Shipping Records, 1905-1987
Series 10: Shipping and Sales Records for Wurlitzer Dealerships, Wurlitzer Retail Stores, and Rembert Wurlitzer, Incorporated, 1917-1952
Series 11, Records of Stock Certificates, Meeting Minutes, and Related Financial and Legal Documents, 1907-1972
Series 12, Rudolph Wurlitzer Company Financial Records, 1893-1986
Series 13, Maps and Charts, 1931-1976
Series 14, Organ Installation Drawings, 1920-1931; undated
Historical Note:
The Wurlitzer Company began in 1856 when Rudolph Wurlitzer, a Cincinnati bank clerk, sold seven hundred dollars worth of musical instruments he had bought from family and friends in Germany. The busi¬ness was incorporated in Ohio in 1890 under the name the Ru¬dolph Wurlitzer Company." For the first fifty years, Wurlitzer was primarily a retail instrument business operating out of its Cincinnati Store headquarters. Although fire destroyed the com¬pany's headquarters in 1904, a new building was completed in time to celebrate Wurlitzer's fiftieth anniversary in 1906.
In 1908, the Wurlitzer Company bought the DeKleist Musical In¬strument Manufacturing Company in North Tonawanda, New York. The Rudolph Wurlitzer Manufacturing Company continued produc¬tion of automatic musical instruments including player pianos, military bands and pianorchestras. In 1910, the Wurlitzer Company bought the Hope-Jones Organ Company and began to manufacture unit-or¬chestra pipe organs at their North Tonawanda plant. These were pipe organs equipped with bells, gongs, horns and sirens. They became known as Mighty Wurlitzers and provided the musical back¬ground in silent movie houses all over the world and were also built for churches and private homes. In 1919, Wurlitzer bought the Melville-Clark Piano Company of DeKalb, Illinois. Wurlitzer pianos were then manufactured at the DeKalb facilities under a variety of names: the Apollo Piano Company, the DeKalb Piano Company and the Wurlitzer Grand Piano Company. Each name des¬ignated a different quality, price range and style.
With the decline of sales during the 1920s and 1930s, pro¬duction of automatic musical instruments ceased until the manu¬facture of the first jukebox in 1934. In 1930, the Julius Bauer Piano Company was purchased and continued to build pianos in that name until shortly before World War II. For a brief time, radios and refrigerators were made by the Wurlitzer controlled Air-Amer¬ican Mohawk Corporation. It was not a successful venture and ended in the mid-1930s. Many of the Wurlitzer retail stores were, at that time, in bad locations and needed repairs. The solutions to these problems came about with a reorganization of the company in 1935. With the reorganization, many retail stores were sold, piano manufacturing was consolidated in DeKalb and many subsidiaries were dissolved or absorbed completely into the Wurlitzer Company.
During World War II, Wurlitzer halted production of musical in¬struments. The company's defense production efforts were rec¬ognized in 1943 and 1944 when it is North Tonawanda and DeKalb plants received the Army-Navy "E" Award. In 1946, peacetime production resumed and the Wurlitzer Company introduced two new instruments: the electric organ in 1947 and the electric piano in 1954. In 1956, the Wurlitzer Company celebrated its centennial. That same year a new plant at Corinth, Mississippi, was completed. Later, plants were opened in Holly Springs, Mississippi (1961), Logan, Utah (1970) and Hullhorst, West Germany, (1960). The new facilities replaced those at North Tonawanda and DeKalb. The North Tonawanda plant ceased production of jukeboxes in 1974, becoming the company's engineering and research center. In 1973, the DeKalb plant ended production of pianos maintaining only mar¬keting and administrative offices. In 1977, the Wurlitzer Com¬pany's corporate headquarters moved to DeKalb, including the en¬gineering and research center from North Tonawanda.
Wurlitzer's three sons had assumed leadership of the company after his death in 1914. Each son acted as president then, chair of the board, successively. The company hired R.C. Rolfing in 1934 as vice-president and general manager. His re¬organization helped the company through the Depression years. Rolfing succeeded the last of the founder's sons in 1941 as pres¬ident of the company and in 1966 as chair of the board. Farny Wurlitzer, Rudolph's youngest son, died in 1972. A.D. Arsem succeeded Rolfing in 1974 as chair of the board. George B. Howell succeeded W. N. Herleman as president of the company.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Steinway & Sons Records and Family Papers, 1857-1919 (AC0178)
Chickering & Sons Piano Company Collection, 1864-1985 (AC0264)
Sohmer & Company Records, 1872-1989 (AC0349)
William J. Lenz Piano Tuning Collection, circa 1903-1955 (AC0511)
Janssen Piano Company Records, 1901-1929 (AC0512)
John R. Anderson Piano Trade Literature and Ephemera Collection, circa 1850-1990 (AC1257)
Warshaw Collection of Business America's Piano and Organ related materials (AC0060)
Provenance:
Collection donated by Northern Illinois University, and Regional History Center, 1994, November 11.
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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Made for the U.S. Navy. No. 1136 in image area, SRM 46 110 in ink in bottom margin. Receiver made in Berlin.
Local Numbers:
AC0055-0000031.tif (AC Scan)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
1 Item (Silver gelatin on paper; mounted on paper., 7.0" x 11.0")
Container:
Box 221, Folder 2
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Date:
Circa 1912
Scope and Contents:
Tuner made by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. In ink at bottom of mount: SRM 46 208. "Photo to / G H Clark / from Geo. / Hayes" in ink on mount.
Local Numbers:
AC0055-0000032.tif (AC Scan)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Radio operators receiving transmissions from SS Leviathan and SS Mauretania on 2100 m. band.
Local Numbers:
AC0055-0000047.tif (AC Scan)
Restrictions:
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
Unrestricted research use on site by appointment. Photographs must be handled with cotton gloves unless protected by sleeves.
Collection 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.
