Janese Swanson developed video game software, a website, and an array of toys and gadgets aimed at making technology more accessible to girls. The collection contains approximately six hours of original and reference video footage of Swanson's Innovative Lives Presentation, in which she discussed her background and demonstrated her inventions with her daughter, Jackie. The material also includes a brief interview.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains six (6) hours of original (BetaCam SP) recordings, six (6) hours of master (BetaCam SP) recordings, and six (6) hours of reference (VHS) copies documenting the life and work of Dr. Janese Swanson, inventor of toys, books, a website, magazine, and software. This video documentation was created on March 25, 1998. The recordings include a presentation by Swanson for the Lemelson Center's Innovative Lives Program. Audience participants are students from Thoreau Middle School (Vienna, Virginia), Options Charter School (Washington, D.C.), Carrollton Elementary School (New Carrollton, Maryland), and Rosa Parks Middle School (Olney, Maryland). The collection also contains a brief interview with Dr. Swanson.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into three series.
Series 1, Original Videos, 1998
Series 2, Master Videos, 1998
Series 3, Reference Videos (viewing copies), 1998
Series 4, Photographs and Slides, 1998
Biographical / Historical:
Janese Swanson, a native of California, was the founder and CEO of Girl Tech (1995), a company created to bring girls into the world of technology. The second of six children, Swanson was raised by her mother after her father died in the Vietnam War. From a young age, Swanson had an interest in technology, often tinkering with household appliances. Building on her experience as a flight attendant and school teacher, Swanson served on the team at Broderbund Software that developed the video game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? She produced Playroom and Treehouse, early learning software, and has developed award-winning curricula, electronic toys, and books that encourage girls to explore technology and inventions. Some of Swanson's toy inventions include the Snoop Stopper Keepsake Box, Me-Mail Message Center, Zap N' Lock Journal, YakBak, and Swap-It Locket. Her publications include Tech Girl's Internet Adventures, Tech Girl's Activity Book, and Girlzine: A Magazine for the Global Girl. Swanson received her Ed.D. in Organization and Leadership Technology in 1997 from the University of San Francisco.
The Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation was founded in 1995 at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History through a generous gift from the Lemelson Foundation. The Center's mission is to document, interpret, and disseminate information about invention and innovation; to encourage inventive creativity in young people; and to foster an appreciation for the central role invention and innovation play in the history of the United States. The Innovative Lives series brings together museum visitors and, especially, school aged children, and American inventors to discuss inventions and the creative process and to experiment and play with hands-on activities related to each inventor's product. This collection was recorded by the Innovative Lives Program of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.
Provenance:
The collection was transferred to the Archives Center by the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation in 1998.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but the original videos are 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 intellectual property rights. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions. Copies of oral history releases on file.
This collection primarily includes photographic prints, slides, and transparencies of Diné (Navajo) artist R.C. Gorman and the work he completed with Houston Fine Press between 1976 and 2000.
R.C. (Rudolph Carl) Gorman was born in Chinle, Arizona in 1931 to Adele Katherine Brown and Carl Nelson Gorman, who was a Navajo Code Talker during World War II. Gorman grew up listening to Diné (Navajo) legends and stories of his family history. When he was little, he would draw pictures in the dirt and on rocks while tending sheep. After high school, Gorman served in the United States Navy before attending Northern Arizona University where he studied literature and art. He continued to study and create art at Mexico City College and San Francisco State University. In 1968, Gorman opened the Navajo Gallery showcasing 55 artists. It was the first indigenous-owned fine art gallery in the United States. Gorman's artistic style was heavily influenced by his time in Mexico where he was introduced to stone lithography and the artistic approaches used by Diego Rivera and other Mexican social realist artists. He moved away from more European depictions and began painting strong Navajo women, in honor of those who raised him. Gorman's use of bold colors earned him the title "Picasso of American Indian Art." In addition to lithographs, Gorman worked with ceramics, oil pastels, serigraphs, woodcuts, and etchings. R.C. Gorman passed away in 2005.
Houston Fine Art Press:
In 1975, Tamarind-trained, master printer Richard Newlin and Yoko Saito established a printing business in Berkley, California. The pair relocated to Texas in 1980 and founded Houston Fine Press. Newlin first printed an R.C. Gorman lithograph in 1976 and continued to work with Gorman for over a decade, in multiple countries. Saito often served as Gorman's model when he was in the Houston Fine Press studio.
Related Materials:
Yousuf Karsh Photographs of R.C. Gorman, NMAI.AC.310
Provenance:
Gift of Richard Newlin in honor of Yoko Saito, 2019.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives 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:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, 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. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Genre/Form:
Lithographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); R.C. Gorman Collection, image #, NMAI.AC.402; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The folder includes a work sheet, articles, a narrative history, a planting plan and a features plan.
General:
A common garden, 100 feet north to south and 120 feet east to west, it is bordered by six houses on each of two streets on the Upper East Side. The name refers to an area once owned by the family of Edith "Jones" Wharton, who acquired the land in 1790. Architect Edwin S. Hewitt bought the developed twelve brownstones in 1919. He removed the walls and fences separating the backyards to create a single common area to be shared by all the owners, called the "Gerry Gardens" for a previous owner. Hewitt unified the architecture of the houses by installing planting beds, pathways, fountains, and pools, and set up the covenants to allow no structural additions. The garden is one of the few protected open green spaces left in the midst of high rises and a dense population. The trees, including an America elm, form an umbrella over formal beds of taxus, ilex, hostas and ivy. An upper terrace includes a large fountain with sculptured figure in the center. The lower terrace contains a pool and mask wall fountain. The surrounding area--once a large reflecting pool--was bricked over. Few changes have been made to the property since the first design.
Persons and firms associated with the garden include: Robert and Louise Matilda Livingston (builders of twelve houses, late 1850s-1869); Edwin S. Hewitt (architect, 1919); Kennett Lynch & Sons (statuary and fountain figure, 1960s and 1997); Frances D. Dewey (head gardener, 1980-2000); Susan Murray (lighting, 1986); and Chris Stager ("Swiss Capes" fountain restoration, 1997). List of owners' names in 1921 included in documentation.
Related Materials:
The Jones' Wood Garden related holdings consist of 1 folder (13 35 mm. slides (photographs))
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.
Two color prints of industrial subjects in Elgin, Texas, and Taylor, Texas, 1995-1996; and 35mm color slide copies of 20" x 24" color prints: 12 from "Texas Cotton Towns series, 1995-1996, and 10 from "Guatemalan Altars" series, 1989-1996.
Scope and Contents:
Collection consists of color prints of industrial subjects in Elgin, Texas, and Taylor, Texas, 1995-1996 and color slide copies of 20" x 24" color prints.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into twp series.
Series 1: Color Prints
Series 2: Color Slides
Biographical / Historical:
Born in Rho (Milan) Italy in 1963. BFA, San Francisco Art Institute; M.F.A. in photography, Yale University 1988. Since then, she has completed projects in Italy, Guatemala, Turkey and the United States. She has received several awards and fellowships, including the Friends of Photography/Calumet Emerging Photographer award in 2000 and the Paul Taylor/Dorothea Lange Prize from Duke University in 2001, Puffin Foundation Grant in 2003, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography in 2004 and Harnish Visiting Fellowship at Smith College 2005–11 and 2016–17. Her work has been collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Ferrario is the author of 19 Pictures, 22 Recipes 2012. She has published criticism in such publications as Art in America and Photograph magazine. She is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art in New York. Asssistant Professor of Photography, Rhode Island College, Providence.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Paola Ferrario, December 18, 1998 and June 26, 2002.
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:
Paola Ferrario retains copyright. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection contains advertising and promotional materials primarily created by the Fred/Alan Advertising Agency, 1981-1992, for the MTV Network. Also advertising and promotional materials for Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, VH-1 and Ha! Comedy Networks.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials created by the Fred/Alan advertising agency between 1981 and 1992 for the MTV network, which includes Music Television, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, VH-1, and Ha! Comedy Network. Also included are advertising and promotional material for the Disney Channel, the Movie Channel, Showtime, Home Box Office and other Fred/Alan clients including Miller Beer, General Foods and Myers Rum. The materials demonstrate the intersection between American popular culture and advertising in several ways. First, because many of the advertisements were designed for trade publications of the cable television and advertising industries, they reveal some of the thinking behind the cable television industry's attempts to establish and stabilize its market during the 1980s, a decade which witnessed the emergence and spectacular rise of cable programming. Secondly, because MTV Networks began as a commercial proposition to attract a difficult-to-reach teenage audience and later, to capture the baby boom generation, the collection also provides evidence of the 1980s trend toward market segmentation. Finally, both in content and style, MTV Networks pioneered a new aesthetic which has had repercussions throughout American popular culture, and particularly in television programming and advertising.
Arrangement:
the collection is arranged into three series.
Series 1: Print Advertising and Promotional Material
Subseries 1.1: Music Television, 1981-1991
Subseries 1.2: Nickelodeon, 1988-1992
Subseries 1.3: Nick at Nite, 1987-1991
Subseries 1.4: Video Hits-1, 1987-1991
Subseries 1.5: Ha! Comedy Network, 1990-1991
Subseries 1.6: The Disney Channel, 1981
Subseries 1.7: The Movie Channel, 1982
Subseries 1.8: Fred/Alan and other clients, 1987-1989
Series 2: Videotaped Commercials
Series 3: Photographic Materials
Subseries 3.1: 2x2 color slides
Subseries 3.2: Still photos
Provenance:
Collection donated by Fred Seibert, President of the Fred/Alan advertising agency in New York City, February 15, 1992.
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 Video Press Kit Collection contains press kits produced from the late 1970s to the early 1990s for over 5,000 film titles for domestic and foreign productions dating from the 1930s to the early 1990s. This collection was created by Erol's Video Club in Springfield, Virginia. The date span of the collection reflects the release dates of the films profiled in the press kits.
Scope and Contents:
This collection was complied over approximately ten years by the Erol's Video Club in Springfield, Virginia. The Video Press Kit Collection contains an extensive range (over 5,000 titles) of press kits produced from the late 1970s to the late 1980's for domestic and foreign productions. Materials relating to earlier, vintage film and television are included but only as they pertain to their video release. Within each series, the materials are arranged alphabetically according to title. Some composite title press kits were built around a major title; these kits have been filed according to the most prominently displayed title. Not all secondary titles are listed in the finding aid. Folders containing combined advertisements for more than one movie are filed under the title used in the original order of the material as it was received by the Archives Center. The boxes are described giving an alphabetical range of titles contained in that box. Materials may include press releases, publicity stills, posters, clip-art, ad slicks, advertising, product packaging. Dates, when given, are either video release dates or original theatrical release dates, some entries remain undated since it is unclear what date to assign to the press kit or theatrical release. There may be some series' co-mingling due to original order; the researcher is advised to check all series even if on first glance it may not seem to apply to the title being searched. Works bearing the same title but with different release dates may sometimes be filed together under that title.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into ten series and is arranged alphabetically by video title.
Series 1: Commercial Motion Pictures, 1935-1993, undated, contains press kits relating to the video release for motion pictures that were initially produced for the commercial film market or expressly for a straight-to-video release. They are arranged alphabetically by title and constitute the bulk of the collection.
Series 2: Children, 1985, undated contains titles produced especially to appeal to the children's market. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 3: Documentaries and Educational, 1985, undated contains non-fiction titles produced as either a documentary or for an educational purpose, excepting sports related videos.
Series 4: Instructional, undated contains titles produced for instruction. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 5: Varied Materials, 1985-1993, undated contains a variety of titles and material not easily assigned to any other series and a wide variety of advertising and publicity materials including catalogues, slides, photographs, and ephemera within this series. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 6: Performances, undated contains titles of filmed performances including dance, opera, concerts, and comedy. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 7: Sports and Fitness, 1988, undated contains sports-related titles and fitness videos (i.e., Jane Fonda's Workout). They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 8: TV Series, undated contains press kits for video collections of television shows released on video either singly or as part of a collection. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 9: Video Collections, undated contains titles released as a collection, usually centering on a particular performer, director, or genre. They are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series 10: Oversize Materials, 1947-1993, undated contains oversize stand-up displays and quarter, half, and full size posters. They are foldered according to size and titles are listed alphabetically within their respective folders.
Biographical / Historical:
The explosion of the video rental and purchase industry in the 1980s meant that not only would a motion picture, television show, or even a theatrical production, have a revenue-producing first run, it would have a second revenue generating life on video cassette geared to the home viewing market. The growth of the home viewing market also spurred an industry of exclusively made-for-video productions, compilations of popular and vintage television shows, educational and documentary features, and filmed theatrical entertainment. Video "clubs," as retail video tape rental/purchase stores were called, proliferated as the VCR revolution took hold throughout the United States. At first, local independent one-store operations and small chains dominated the market but within a few years, video rental purveyors had been consolidated into larger national and regional chains. Two examples are Erol's Video Club in the east and Blockbuster Video nationwide. As video moved into the 1990s further consolidation of video clubs took place. Erol's Video Club ceased to exist as a separate entity circa 1992 when it was sold to Blockbuster Video.
To help "sell" the video product and assist video clubs in their rental/sale operations, production companies treated many video releases like a traditional first-run theatrical movie release - by preparing a press kit. These kits included some, but not all, of the standard publicity elements: 8x10 glossy photographs, posters, stand-ups, talent biographies and interviews, reviews, ad slicks, and other types of material. Some press kits were quite elaborate while others contained the barest essentials. Elaborate or simple, the goal of the press kit was to place the video product prominently in the viewing public's mind.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Erol's Video Club Collection, 1984-1991 (AC0687)
The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials for Erol's Video, Inc.
Provenance:
Donated to the Division of Cultural History, National Museum of American History from Erol's Video Club in 1993.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research but boxes 1-83 are 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. Reproduction permission from Archives Center: fees for commercial use. Standard copyright restrictions apply to all copyrighted material.
