Photographs made by Hamilton Wright Jr. in Egypt, South Africa, India, Lebanon, Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, Hong Kong, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Haiti, the Virgin Islands, Canada, Alaska, Colorado, and New Hampshire. They include images of modern and ancient structures and monuments, artifacts, industries, cities, markets, caves, festivals, beaches, scenery, and sporting events. Most appear to have been made for the Hamilton Wright Organization, an international agency that made films and photographs to support public relations campaigns of foreign governments. Also included are some lantern slides depicting historical sites in Egypt, directed by Hamilton Wright, Sr., and one-sheets for motion picture films produced by the Hamilton Wright Organization. Additional material includes slide narration for a lecture and short news stories relating to the images in the collection.
Biographical/Historical note:
In 1908, Hamilton Wright Sr. founded the Hamilton Wright Organization, a public relations firm that specialized in making travelog and newsreel film and distributing it to motion picture houses around the world, often on behalf of domestic and foreign governments. Wright's son, Hamilton Wright Jr., managed the company after his father and expanded it's work. In 1963, a Senate committee criticized the Hamilton Wright Organization for hosting press junkets and distributing its photographs, newsreels, and stories in American news media without reporting its sources. The Hamilton Wright Organization was closed by Hamilton Wright Jr.'s son in the late 1960s.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 76-35
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Films by the Hamilton Wright Organization can be found in the Human Studies Film Archive in HSFA 94.19.
The Film and Television Archive at the University of California at Los Angeles holds the motion picture film and related material of the Hamilton Wright Organization.
L'art dans l'Afrique australe; impressions et souvenirs de mission, avec 220 dessins de l'auteur, dont 12 planches en couleur, 1 planche en noir et 207 illustrations dans le texte; préface deM. Philippe Berger ..
The letters of Lady Anne Barnard to Henry Dundas, from the Cape and elsewhere, 1793-1803, together with her Journal of a tour into the interior, and certain other letters Newly edited with an introduction and notes by A.M. Lewin Robinson
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Raquel Rabinovich, 2012 September 25 and October 9. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Edited film documents travel of Fleischmann family (Julius and Dorette) and friends around Africa on cruise ship "Camargo". Journey begins in Palermo, Italy, with scenes of the city and port. Party visits Herculaneum, near Naples and the Tarxien temples on Malta before sailing to Port Said at the mouth of the Suez canal where the trip around Africa begins. Stops include the port of Jidda, Saudi Arabia (views of the "Mecca gate", street scenes, camel trains outside the city walls, the port, and dhows sailing and docked); Port Sudan and Suakin, Sudan (street sceens, a fruit seller and itinerant sandal maker, and desert scenes); Berbera, Somalia (camel train, warthogs, market and street scenes, the Kings African Rifles on parade, and a meeting with the governor of British Somaliland, Sir Arthur Lawrence); Mombasa, Kenya (in port, loading dhows, customs dock, street activity, Wanyika women, and camels turning a "sim-sim?" mill); travel by train through countryside to Nairobi (countryside, wildlife, Masai tribespeople); Thika Falls (cranes, sisal field, ox carts, Kota market, and Chuka women); Meru: Nunyuki (silverbeck Hotel on the equator and Mount Kenya); Thompson's Falls; flamingos; and a sand storm at Lake Nakuru. (End film roll 1) Continuing on their travels they visit Kavirondo labor camp near Eldoret, Kenya (Nandi women, Nandi men sacking grain, and dancing); Tororo, Uganda (Kitosh market, unidentified man dancing with spear, storks or maribou, women and children, men fishing with conical baskets, and musicians); Owens Falls (missionary converts and men dancing); Kampala (tomb of King Mtesa); Kabale (wedding party, musicians, drumming and farms); Uganda-Congo frontier; Fort Portal, Uganda (ferry across channel between Lake Edward and Lake George (market at Fort Portal and pygmies at market); Murchison Falls (digging for crocodile eggs and river steamer); cotton fields (cotton gin and unidentified tribespeople brandishing spears and shields near Kisumu, Kenya); back to Nairobi (train station and Nandi market); and arriving in Zanzibar, Tanzania by water (street scenes in Zanzibar, women washing clothes). (End film roll 2) Travels continue with stops at a Dutch-style plantation house, Groot Constantia, near Capetown, South Africa; Lagos, Nigeria (children flirting with camera, market scenes, street celebration, wedding party in western dress, hairdresser, and leatherworker); in port of Accra, Ghana (customs man descends from Camargo and is rowed ashore); rowing ashore at Monrovia, Liberia (view of Camargo at anchor, Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia, tapping rubber, "witch doctors" dance for camera, and pygmy hippo); Freetown, Sierra Leone; market in Dakar, Senegal (man weaving on a loom and Senegalese soldiers on horseback); Las Palmas, Canary Islands (street vendor and street activity); banana packing plant near Tenerife; Madeira (Camargo party being carried in hammocks, climbing Monte Tierra de Lucca, and sliding down hill on cobblestone streets; Funchal (oxcarts and flower stalls); and street scenes in Tangier, Morocco. (End film roll 3)
Legacy Keywords: Africa ; Marketplaces ; Yachts Africa Description and travel ; Sudan ; Somalia ; Kenya ; Uganda ; Zanzibar ; South Africa ; Accra (Ghana) ; Liberia ; Sierra Leone ; Senegal ; Nigeria ; Suez Canal ; Malta
Local Numbers:
HSFA 1994.9.3
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Julius and Dorette Fleischmann films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Picturesque scenery of South Africa : a series of original and artistic photographs, accompanied by a concise history of Southern Africa. [Microform] / Compiled by H.P. Smith ; with a new and correct map of the country
A soldier-artist in Zululand : William Whitelocke Lloyd and the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 / David Rattray ; foreword by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales ; biographical notes and chronology by Martin Everett
