Communications

Tools of communication have transformed American society time and again over the past two centuries. The Museum has preserved many instruments of these changes, from printing presses to personal digital assistants.

The collections include hundreds of artifacts from the printing trade and related fields, including papermaking equipment, wood and metal type collections, bookbinding tools, and typesetting machines. Benjamin Franklin is said to have used one of the printing presses in the collection in 1726.

More than 7,000 objects chart the evolution of electronic communications, including the original telegraph of Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell's early telephones. Radios, televisions, tape recorders, and the tools of the computer age are part of the collections, along with wireless phones and a satellite tracking system.

Henrietta Shore (1880-1963) was an early pioneer of the Modernism movement of art on the West Coast. She discovered lithography while traveling in Mexico, and took inspiration from the southern landscape and indigenous traditions.
Description (Brief)
Henrietta Shore (1880-1963) was an early pioneer of the Modernism movement of art on the West Coast. She discovered lithography while traveling in Mexico, and took inspiration from the southern landscape and indigenous traditions. On returning to California in 1928, Shore began working in the Los Angeles lithography workshop of master printer Lynton Kistler making her one of the first women lithographers working in California. "Water Carrier" was one of the prints produced during her time there.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1928
original artist
Shore, Henrietta
graphic artist
Kistler, Lynton R.
ID Number
1978.0650.1746
accession number
1978.0650
catalog number
1978.0650.1746
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.18
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.18
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.28
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.28
This postcard view of San Francisco Solano Mission was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of San Francisco Solano Mission was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif. using photomechanical processes.
The Van Ornum Colorprint Company (1908-1921) was one of many picture postcard publishing companies specializing in California landscapes and historic sites.
Mission San Francisco Solano was founded in 1823, the last of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions established in California between 1769 and 1823. All were founded for the purpose of coverting American Indians of the region to Catholicism.
Today the mission site is operated by the Sonoma State Historic Park system.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1908-1921
graphic artist
Van Ornum Colorprint Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.0479
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.0479
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1927
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.04
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.04
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920
ID Number
1992.0254.01
catalog number
1992.0254.01
accession number
1992.0254
This postcard view of La Purísima Concepcíon Mission was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of La Purísima Concepcíon Mission was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif. using photomechanical processes.
The Van Ornum firm (1908-1921) was one of many picture postcard publishing companies producing California landmark scenes.
Mission La Purísima Concepcíon is located northwest of Santa Barbara in Lompoc, California. It was the eleventh of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions founded in California between 1769 and 1823, and was established to convert American Indians of the Chumash tribe to Catholicism.
Today the mission, along with the Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma, is managed by the California State Park system.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1908-1921
graphic artist
Van Ornum Colorprint Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.0496
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.0639.0496
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.15
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.15
Unsigned sheet; Gerome Ferris explores in pencil a possibility for the central group in his painting, San Salvador, 1492. Here Columbus flourishes his sword above his head whereas in the painting he gestures forward with it.
Description (Brief)
Unsigned sheet; Gerome Ferris explores in pencil a possibility for the central group in his painting, San Salvador, 1492. Here Columbus flourishes his sword above his head whereas in the painting he gestures forward with it. There is also a preliminary study for the crossbowman at left front in the painting.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920s
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
1985.0650.007
accession number
1985.0650
catalog number
85.0650.007
"The Green Calash" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), produced in 1925 after her 1904 painting. The print is a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman seated with her hands resting together in her lap.
Description
"The Green Calash" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), produced in 1925 after her 1904 painting. The print is a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman seated with her hands resting together in her lap. She is wearing a large green bonnet or hood called a calash because of its resemblance to the folding top of an 18th-century carriage known as a calash.
"The Green Calash" was shown at the Smithsonian as part of a print exhibition in November 1936. Other exhibitors were Gabrielle DeVeaux Clements, Margaret Hoyt, and Lesley Jackson. Clements and Hale experimented extensively with color printmaking throughout their careers. They were especially inspired by French artist René Ligeron's 1924 treatise on color intaglio, which Hale translated into English for the Smithsonian exhibition. Clements wrote to curator R.P. Tolman that she and Hale had "been working on an interesting line of experiments in printing etchings in color" and that they had "lately gained better control of the medium, and greater simplicity."
The 1936 exhibition came near the end of Hale's and Clements's careers. By that time they had been producing prints for more than sixty years. Their work was included in the first exhibition of etchings exclusively by women at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1887. Curator Sylvester R. Koehler included more than 400 etchings by twenty-five artists in a very successful exhibition titled Women Etchers of America. In 1888 the Union League Club in New York exhibited the same works, plus about 100 more by eleven additional women. A traveling exhibition celebrating the centennial of these two ground-breaking shows, American Women of the Etching Revival, was organized by the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988. The NMAH lent works by Hale, Clements, and other women printmakers, and the Museum showed the exhibition in Washington in 1989.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1925
ID Number
GA.17165
catalog number
17165
accession number
142035
Until recently, “wireless” meant radio and operators used keys to send radio messages via Morse code. This wireless telegraph key operated a Poulsen arc transmitter on the Italian-made dirigible S.S. Roma. The Roma, purchased by the U.S.
Description (Brief)
Until recently, “wireless” meant radio and operators used keys to send radio messages via Morse code. This wireless telegraph key operated a Poulsen arc transmitter on the Italian-made dirigible S.S. Roma. The Roma, purchased by the U.S. Army in 1921, was destroyed in a landing accident at Hampton Roads Naval Station. Henry Epsal was in the rescue party that entered the airship and retrieved this key before the ship was destroyed.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1920
ID Number
EM.319445
catalog number
319445
accession number
238754
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code and can spark when the circuit opens. This wireless telegraph key features a large disc on the knob to protect against the accidental shock.
Description (Brief)
Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code and can spark when the circuit opens. This wireless telegraph key features a large disc on the knob to protect against the accidental shock. Until recently “wireless” meant radio, and early wireless equipment often used high voltages.
A standard wireless telegraph key. Stamped on base: "Boston Key Clapp-Eastham Co." and on lever: " Clapp-Eastham Co". All metal parts are of nickel-plated brass except for the steel pin that forms the central bearing. Mounted on an engraved formica base. Current is carried through the heavy conductors directly to the binding posts. Current rating of this unit is unknown, but Boston Keys were manufactured in ratings of 10, 20, 30, and 50 amperes. Reference: Clapp-Eastham bulletin FZ-1922, page 27.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1922
maker
Clapp-Eastham Co.
ID Number
EM.320854
catalog number
320854
accession number
241556
Unsigned sheet of pencil studies, showing swords and helmets, some of which can be linked to the figure of a crossbowman in Ferris’s painting in which Christopher Columbus takes possession of present-day San Salvador for Spain.Currently not on view
Description
Unsigned sheet of pencil studies, showing swords and helmets, some of which can be linked to the figure of a crossbowman in Ferris’s painting in which Christopher Columbus takes possession of present-day San Salvador for Spain.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920s
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
1985.0650.005
accession number
1985.0650
catalog number
85.0650.005
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.43
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.43
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.31
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.31
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.27
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.27
This postcard view of San Luís Rey Mission was printed using photomechanical processes by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.The Van Ornum Colorprint Company (1908-1921) was one of many picture postcard publishing companies featuring sites of interest in Calif
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of San Luís Rey Mission was printed using photomechanical processes by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.
The Van Ornum Colorprint Company (1908-1921) was one of many picture postcard publishing companies featuring sites of interest in California.
Mission San Luís Rey de Francia was the eighteenth of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions to be founded in California between 1769 and 1823. Its dedication ceremonies took place in 1798 near the town of Oceanside. This mission was established to convert American Indians of the Kumeyaay and Luiseno tribes.
Today the mission serves as a parish church, a museum, and a retreat site.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1908-1921
graphic artist
Van Ornum Colorprint Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.0467
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.0467
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.24
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.24
Telegraph relays amplify an electrical signal in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages travel as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver.
Description
Telegraph relays amplify an electrical signal in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages travel as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. The pulses fade in strength as they travel through the wire, limiting the distance a message can be sent. Relays remedy that problem by detecting a weak signal and automatically re-transmitting that signal down the line using a local power source.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1927
Maker
Western Union Corporation
maker
Western Electric
ID Number
EM.331829
model number
G-2-A
catalog number
331829
accession number
294351
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.30
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.30
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.23
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.23
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.20
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.20
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.33
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.33
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
ca 1935
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.44
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.44

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