Advertising

Advertising is meant to persuade, and the themes and techniques of that persuasion reveal a part of the nation's history. The Museum has preserved advertising campaigns for several familiar companies, such as Marlboro, Alka-Seltzer, Federal Express, Cover Girl, and Nike. It also holds the records of the NW Ayer Advertising Agency and business papers from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Carvel Ice Cream, and other companies. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana comprises thousands of trade cards, catalogs, labels, and other business papers and images dating back to the late 1700s.

Beyond advertising campaigns, the collections encompass thousands of examples of packaging, catalogs, and other literature from many crafts and trades, from engineering to hat making. The collections also contain an eclectic array of advertising objects, such as wooden cigar-store Indians, neon signs, and political campaign ads.

The Girl on the Land Serves the Nation's Need. American World War I poster by artist Edward Penfield for the Y.W.C.A. Land Service Committee.
Description
The Girl on the Land Serves the Nation's Need. American World War I poster by artist Edward Penfield for the Y.W.C.A. Land Service Committee. Depicted are four women in uniform walking through a field, carrying tools and a basket of produce while leading a team of horses.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1917 - 1921
ID Number
1986.3051.01
catalog number
1986.3051.01
nonaccession number
1986.3051
Destroy This Mad Brute. American World War I poster by artist Harry R. Hopps for the U.S. Army. Depicted is a crazed gorilla, representing Germany, carrying a bloody club and the limp body of a woman while standing on the American shore.Currently not on view
Description
Destroy This Mad Brute. American World War I poster by artist Harry R. Hopps for the U.S. Army. Depicted is a crazed gorilla, representing Germany, carrying a bloody club and the limp body of a woman while standing on the American shore.
Location
Currently not on view
associated date
1917 - 1918
ID Number
AF.74258M
catalog number
74258M
accession number
291785
During World War II, the United States government recognized that full public support and dedication to the war effort was essential to victory.
Description
During World War II, the United States government recognized that full public support and dedication to the war effort was essential to victory. To bolster support, the government hired artists to create propaganda posters, designed to promote patriotism with simple, catchy slogans and colorful images. Toiling factory workers, thrifty home front mothers, and fearless soldiers were among the most popular images used by artists to communicate the message.
This 1942 poster commissioned by the War Shipping Administration encouraged a specific mission, designed to attract former seamen back into the Merchant Marine. At the time, American shipyards were producing cargo ships faster than crews could be assembled, forcing recruiters to rely not only on new volunteers, but also to persuade experienced mariners to leave retirement and go back to sea.
The creation of incentive posters mainly fell under the watch of the Office of War Information, a government agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1942 to consolidate public information services and coordinate the sanctioned release of war news. The OWI reviewed and approved the content of newsreels, radio broadcasts, and billboards, in addition to producing hundreds of posters. Initially, the most pressing message to be communicated through posters was a warning to Americans about the dangers of discussing sensitive information like production schedules and troop movements that could be overheard by enemy spies. Over the course of the war, posters covered a variety of topics, such as encouraging the purchase of war bonds and galvanizing the work force at shipyards to keep production going on the assembly line.
date made
1942
commissioned poster
War Shipping Administration
directed poster program
United States. Office of War Information
Associated Name
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
ID Number
1991.0856.07
catalog number
1991.0856.07
accession number
1991.0856
Who’s Absent? Is it You? British World War I poster for the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 1915. Depicted is John Bull in a Union Flag waistcoat, pointing at the viewer in front of a line of British soldiers.Currently not on view
Description
Who’s Absent? Is it You? British World War I poster for the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 1915. Depicted is John Bull in a Union Flag waistcoat, pointing at the viewer in front of a line of British soldiers.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1915
associated date
1917 - 1918
ID Number
AF.303736.22
accession number
303736
catalog number
77092M
Concrete Ammunition / Second Line Defense. American World War I poster by artist Gerrit A. Beneker, 1918. Depicted is an African American man pushing a wheelbarrow through a construction site. Printed on reverse is a propoganda leaflet.
Description
Concrete Ammunition / Second Line Defense. American World War I poster by artist Gerrit A. Beneker, 1918. Depicted is an African American man pushing a wheelbarrow through a construction site. Printed on reverse is a propoganda leaflet. In the first section, titled "Work or Fight," workers are encouraged to build an Army Supply Base in the best possible time. In the second section, titled "This is War War," workers are told that "working a ten hour day in the hot sun... takes guts"
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
ID Number
AF.74266M
catalog number
74266M
accession number
291785
Halt the Hun! American World War I poster by artist Henry Patrick Raleigh for the Third Liberty Loan. Depicted is an American soldier pushing a German soldier away from a woman and child as fires burn in the background.Currently not on view
Description
Halt the Hun! American World War I poster by artist Henry Patrick Raleigh for the Third Liberty Loan. Depicted is an American soldier pushing a German soldier away from a woman and child as fires burn in the background.
Location
Currently not on view
associated date
1914-1918
artist attribution; illustrator
Raleigh, Henry Patrick
ID Number
2015.0155.23
accession number
2015.0155
catalog number
2015.0155.23
Sousscrivez! Et Nous Aurens La Victoire (Subscribe! And We Will Be Victorious). French World War I poster by artist Imre Karoly Simay for the National Loan, 1918. Depicted is a tank coming out of a trench and barbed wire on a battlefield.Currently not on view
Description
Sousscrivez! Et Nous Aurens La Victoire (Subscribe! And We Will Be Victorious). French World War I poster by artist Imre Karoly Simay for the National Loan, 1918. Depicted is a tank coming out of a trench and barbed wire on a battlefield.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
ID Number
AF.65963M
catalog number
65963M
accession number
232120
One of the Thousand Y.M.C.A. Girls in France. American World War I poster by artist Neysa McMein for the Y.M.C.A. United War Work Campaign, 1918. Depicted is a Y.M.C.A. canteen worker in uniform holding a steaming cup in her right hand and a stack of books in her left hand.
Description
One of the Thousand Y.M.C.A. Girls in France. American World War I poster by artist Neysa McMein for the Y.M.C.A. United War Work Campaign, 1918. Depicted is a Y.M.C.A. canteen worker in uniform holding a steaming cup in her right hand and a stack of books in her left hand. Behind her is the red triange symbol of the YMCA.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1918
ID Number
1986.3051.04
catalog number
1986.3051.04
nonaccession number
1986.3051
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1967
ID Number
1988.0239.01
catalog number
1988.0239.01
accession number
1988.0239
A color print of an advertising poster. The scene is a race track in front of a judge’s stand. The winning horse, still hitched to his sulky and driver, is getting a blanket thrown over his back. Other horses covered in blankets are being led away. Men push the sulkys.
Description
A color print of an advertising poster. The scene is a race track in front of a judge’s stand. The winning horse, still hitched to his sulky and driver, is getting a blanket thrown over his back. Other horses covered in blankets are being led away. Men push the sulkys. The driver of the winning horse gestures to the judges in the stand with his whip. The spectators are dressed in sporty suits and converse on the track in groups of three or four. The surrounding area has wooded hills.
Worth was a noted comic and genre artist. He was born in February of 1834 in New York City. He sold his first comic sketch to Nathaniel Currier in 1855 and later became one of the most popular of the artists whose work was lithographed by Currier and Ives. Though best known for his comics he also did make may racing scenes. He lived for many years on Long Island, though eventually he moved to Staten Island. Worth died in 1917.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1889
maker
Currier & Ives
Worth, Thomas
ID Number
DL.60.3229
catalog number
60.3229
This colored broadside advertises “The Great Moving Mirror of Slavery,” a travelling panoramic painting exhibited in New England in 1858. According to the inscription, it was on display in the Methodist Church.
Description
This colored broadside advertises “The Great Moving Mirror of Slavery,” a travelling panoramic painting exhibited in New England in 1858. According to the inscription, it was on display in the Methodist Church. Purported to reveal “Slavery As It Is,” this poster contains two preview illustrations. One shows a young girl lying in a canopied bed attended by a doctor, as her mother and a black man sit nearby. The other image depicts a white man riding a bucking horse as three black men and a black woman watch. Headings on the poster advertise, “Scenes in Africa,” an “Auction Sale of Slaves,” and “Life-Like Scenes!” The exhibit also promises a personal appearance by Anthony Burns.
Burns (1834-1862) was born a slave in Stafford County, Virginia in 1834, became a Baptist preacher,and escaped to Boston in 1853/1854. The next year, he was captured and put on public trial, inspiring protest by thousands of abolitionists. Several people were arrested and wounded, while they attempted to free Burns and a U.S. Marshall was fatally stabbed. Under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act, Burns was returned to his "owner" in Virginia. In 1855, Leonard Grimes, a free black Baptist minister bought Burns’ freedom. Burns then travelled north and studied theology at Oberlin College in Ohio and emigrated to Canada and worked as a non-ordained minister . In 1858, he toured with “The Great Moving Mirror,” using the opportunity to sell copies of narrative of his life to sympathetic anti-slavery Northerners. He died in 1862 of tuberculosis at the age of 28, having never regained his health after enduring several months in a Richmond slave jail.
The print was created by the firm of J.H. & F.F. Farwell & Gordon Forrest. The three men founded a Boston lithographic firm active around the middle of the 19th century. Gordon Forrest enlisted in Company G of the First Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. He was killed on July 18, 1861, during a skirmish at Blackburn’s Ford, Virginia, one of the first engagements of the conflict. Little is known about J.H. and F.F. Farwell. The printers were also known as Farwells & Forest.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1858
referenced
Burns, Anthony
maker
Farwells & Forrest
ID Number
DL.60.3001
catalog number
60.3001
accession number
228146
Besides freeing all slaves held in areas of the United States under rebellion, the Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for black men to enlist in the United States Army. Around 190,000 African-Americans fought for the Union and made up one tenth of the entire Federal Army.
Description
Besides freeing all slaves held in areas of the United States under rebellion, the Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for black men to enlist in the United States Army. Around 190,000 African-Americans fought for the Union and made up one tenth of the entire Federal Army. Their successes in battle dispelled existing arguments that black men could not be trusted to bear arms. Despite this, they were only paid half as much a white soldiers, were often assigned menial tasks, and provided inferior clothing and medical care. The U.S.C.T. suffered an extremely high casualty rate, and 40,000 perished by the war’s end.
This print, published by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, served as a recruitment poster for the U.S.C.T. In the illustration, 18 African American soldiers look out at potential black volunteers, calling upon them to join the fight in liberating those who remained enslaved. A black drummer boy plays in the lower right. The soldiers’ white commanding officer stands on the left, since black men could not become commissioned officers until the final months of the war. The men are stationed near Philadelphia at Camp Penn, the largest camp that exclusively trained U.S. Colored Troops. This image was based on a photograph taken in Philadelphia, in February 1864, of either Company C or G of the U.S.C.T.’s 25th Regiment.
Peter S. Duval, a French-born lithographer, was hired by Cephas G. Childs in 1831 to work for the firm of Childs & Inman in Philadelphia. Duval formed a partnership with George Lehman, and Lehman & Duval took over the business of Childs & Inman in 1835. From 1839 to 1843, Duval was part of the lithography and publishing house, Huddy & Duval. He established his own lithography firm in 1843, and was joined by his son, Stephen Orr Duval, in 1858.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1863 -1865
maker
P.S. Duval & Son Lith.
ID Number
DL.60.3320
catalog number
60.3320
Publicity poster for the 1980 animated political film I Go Pogo, a Possom Production. The poster features personified, stop-motion animated animals, and inset scenes from the stop-motion animated film.
Description (Brief)
Publicity poster for the 1980 animated political film I Go Pogo, a Possom Production. The poster features personified, stop-motion animated animals, and inset scenes from the stop-motion animated film. The film included the characters from the comic strip of the same name by Walt Kelly.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1980
Associated Name
Kelly, Walt
maker
Graphic Arts International Union
ID Number
1983.0554.01
accession number
1983.0554
catalog number
1983.0554.01
Movie poster for the 1934 film Little Miss Marker from the Palace Theatre in Port Richmond.
Description
Movie poster for the 1934 film Little Miss Marker from the Palace Theatre in Port Richmond. Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, and Dorothy Dell star in this family comedy.
Movie posters such as this cardboard poster were placed in shop windows to advertise the movie that was playing in the local movie house. The shop owner was given two movie passes for displaying it in their store window.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1933
referenced
Temple, Shirley
ID Number
1985.0541.01
accession number
1985.0541
catalog number
1985.0541.01
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Associated Name
Wales, Wally
ID Number
PG.76.87.22
catalog number
76.87.22
accession number
2008.0095
Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Mrs. O'Flahrety's Boarding House." An attached photograph shows a man seated at a table repulsed by a whole pig being served to him by a smiling man in woman's clothing.
Description (Brief)
Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Mrs. O'Flahrety's Boarding House." An attached photograph shows a man seated at a table repulsed by a whole pig being served to him by a smiling man in woman's clothing. In America's growing and diverse cities at the dawn of the twentieth century, people came in frequent contact with unfamiliar cultural practices and these encounters often found their way into early comic films. In this picture, the man at the table seems unaccustomed to Mrs. O'Flahrety's cooking; similar jokes were aimed at other Eastern European, Asian and Latin American cuisines which many Americans first experienced in the early 20th century.
Description
The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.
The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.
Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.
Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.
The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
date made
ca 1925
ID Number
PG.76.87.18
catalog number
76.87.18
accession number
2008.0095
A campaign broadside in support of Andrew Johnson.Currently not on view
Description
A campaign broadside in support of Andrew Johnson.
Location
Currently not on view
associated date
1864
associated person
Johnson, Andrew
ID Number
PL.227739.1864.F06
catalog number
227739.1864.F06
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Associated Name
Wales, Wally
ID Number
PG.76.87.11
accession number
2007.3053
2008.0095
Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Quarrel Between Husband and Wife." The poster includes two small attached photographs showing scenes from the movie, in which a seated man and woman move their chairs away from each other across a room.
Description (Brief)
Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Quarrel Between Husband and Wife." The poster includes two small attached photographs showing scenes from the movie, in which a seated man and woman move their chairs away from each other across a room. While early motion pictures often promised escapism, they could also make light of familiar and everyday situations.
Description
The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.
The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.
Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.
Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.
The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
PG.76.87.06
catalog number
76.87.6
accession number
2008.0095
This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of “Biotech Beach” (the San Diego area) in 1993. It was created by artist Terry Guyer for Synergistic Designs, a promotional media publisher.For more information, see object 1994.3092.01.
Description (Brief)
This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of “Biotech Beach” (the San Diego area) in 1993. It was created by artist Terry Guyer for Synergistic Designs, a promotional media publisher.
For more information, see object 1994.3092.01.
date made
1993
maker
Synergistic Designs
ID Number
1994.3092.02
catalog number
1994.3092.02
nonaccession number
1994.3092
This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of North Carolina’s “Research Triangle” in 1992. It was created by artists Kat Wilson and Jay Jung for Synergistic Designs, a promotional media publisher.For more information, see object 1994.3092.01.
Description (Brief)
This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of North Carolina’s “Research Triangle” in 1992. It was created by artists Kat Wilson and Jay Jung for Synergistic Designs, a promotional media publisher.
For more information, see object 1994.3092.01.
date made
1992
maker
Synergistic Designs
ID Number
1994.3092.03
catalog number
1994.3092.03
nonaccession number
1994.3092
Posterboard with pre-printed design and painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Biddy the Irish Wash Woman." The attached photograph depicts a scene from the movie, in which a man dressed as a woman doing laundry falls into a washtub.
Description (Brief)
Posterboard with pre-printed design and painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Biddy the Irish Wash Woman." The attached photograph depicts a scene from the movie, in which a man dressed as a woman doing laundry falls into a washtub. This poster showcases two comic themes common to early motion pictures - humor based on ethnic stereotypes and gender-bending performances in drag. Both were characteristic features of vaudeville and burlesque shows and therefore, early movie audiences found these subjects humorous and familiar. Mutoscope movies were primarily marketed to an urban and working-class demographic by the 1920s, when this poster was probably made, and films like this one showed a less serious side of America's growing and ethnically-diverse cities.
Description
The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.
The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.
Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.
Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.
The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920s
ID Number
2008.0095.008
accession number
2008.0095
catalog number
2008.0095.008
Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Now You Stop." Two attached photographs show a scene from the film, in which a woman dances on a stage beside a sign reading "Salome Dance." The dancer is shown to be accosted by a woman in a shawl fr
Description (Brief)
Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Now You Stop." Two attached photographs show a scene from the film, in which a woman dances on a stage beside a sign reading "Salome Dance." The dancer is shown to be accosted by a woman in a shawl from the audience. This movie refers to the contemporary controversy over the overt sexuality in depictions of the biblical character Salome. She was a frequent character in stage, opera and motion picture productions at the turn of the twentieth century.
Description
The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.
The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.
Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.
Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.
The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
2008.0095.023
accession number
2008.0095
catalog number
2008.0095.023
Orange posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Death in the Electric Chair at Sing Sing." The poster includes an attached photograph depicting a scene from the movie, in which a man is escorted to the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison.
Description (Brief)
Orange posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Death in the Electric Chair at Sing Sing." The poster includes an attached photograph depicting a scene from the movie, in which a man is escorted to the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. Like today, early American movie audiences were drawn to films about crime and punishment, and the mutoscope, a movie format not as regularly censored as film screenings, offered patrons a gritty and realistic view of law enforcement. The film "An Execution by Hanging," made by the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company in a Jacksonville, Florida prison in 1898, was the first motion picture to show an actual execution, an event that would not be shown in theaters today.
Description
The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.
The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.
Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.
Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.
The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
2008.0095.005
accession number
2008.0095
catalog number
2008.0095.005

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.