Communications

WANN Microphone

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.

Resource Type: Drawings

Study of Man in a Suit

Stephen Ferris made his sketch in a class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879. (His son Gerome had been enrolled at the Academy since 1878).
Description (Brief)
Stephen Ferris made his sketch in a class at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879. (His son Gerome had been enrolled at the Academy since 1878). On the verso there is an outline sketch of bare- breasted woman with large necklace and long hair, holding a bowl on her left hip with cup raised in right hand.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1879-02-14
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16688
catalog number
16688
accession number
119780

Boy with a Snowball

The signed pencil drawing was squared with faint grid lines for transfer to another medium, probably a plate for reproduction as an etching or engraving. It could also have been squared for transfer to a canvas.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
The signed pencil drawing was squared with faint grid lines for transfer to another medium, probably a plate for reproduction as an etching or engraving. It could also have been squared for transfer to a canvas.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16633
catalog number
16633
accession number
119780

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Peanuts

This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Peanuts comic strip shows Lucy pulling the football away just as Charlie Brown tries to kick it.Charles Monroe Schulz (1922-2000) started the weekly single-panel humor series Li'l Folks shortly after World War II.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Peanuts comic strip shows Lucy pulling the football away just as Charlie Brown tries to kick it.
Charles Monroe Schulz (1922-2000) started the weekly single-panel humor series Li'l Folks shortly after World War II. The series included and introduced Schulz's characters, Charlie Brown and a Snoopy-like dog. Peanuts, a revised version of the same strip, was debuted in 1950. Schulz drew the strip for the length of its run.
Peanuts (1950-2000) debuted after a revision of a similar strip Li'l Folks. During the course of its run the strip ran internationally with its universally recognizable characters Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, and others. One of the strip's more popular story lines involved Charlie Brown trying to kick a football, and Lucy pulling it away at the last minute. Peanuts was adapted into various media, including comic books, commercial animations, feature films, television specials (such as A Charlie Brown Christmas) and the Broadway musical You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, which had a five-year run in the 1960s.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-09-25
graphic artist
Schulz, Charles M.
publisher
United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
ID Number
GA.22400
catalog number
22400
accession number
277502

Study for Here Comes the Bride, 1759

The unsigned rough pencil sketch of a man in Scottish military dress probably corresponds to a soldier of the Forty-second Black Watch Regiment, who appears in the painting Here Comes the Bride, 1759.
Description (Brief)
The unsigned rough pencil sketch of a man in Scottish military dress probably corresponds to a soldier of the Forty-second Black Watch Regiment, who appears in the painting Here Comes the Bride, 1759. Ferris believed members of the regiment, which was stationed in the colonies in 1759, would have been present at Washington’s wedding.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
20th century
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16562.08
catalog number
16562.08
accession number
119780

Cheyenne Pictures. Soldiers Charging on Sioux and Cheyennes.

Unknown artist, about 1894“Cheyenne Pictures. Soldiers Charging on Sioux and Cheyennes.”Pencil and colored pencilThis drawing of U.S. Army cavalry soldiers in a charge displays the uniformity of the colors, equipment, and methods of the military.
Description
Unknown artist, about 1894
“Cheyenne Pictures. Soldiers Charging on Sioux and Cheyennes.”
Pencil and colored pencil
This drawing of U.S. Army cavalry soldiers in a charge displays the uniformity of the colors, equipment, and methods of the military. The soldiers fire their rifles at the Sioux and Cheyenne targets ahead of them. Some of these drawings are so accurate that the specific unit uniforms and types of firearms can be identified.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1894
original artist
unknown
ID Number
GA.08109
catalog number
GA*08109
accession number
1897.031963

Study of Military Dress

Gerome Ferris noted that the unsigned watercolor shows two men from “Foot/first Regiment,” one of the oldest foot regiments in the British Army.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Gerome Ferris noted that the unsigned watercolor shows two men from “Foot/first Regiment,” one of the oldest foot regiments in the British Army.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
20th century
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16562.11
catalog number
16562.11
accession number
119780

Notes and Sketches for Here Comes the Bride, 1759

Gerome Ferris took pains with his historical paintings as this unsigned sheet about Washington’s marriage demonstrates.
Description (Brief)
Gerome Ferris took pains with his historical paintings as this unsigned sheet about Washington’s marriage demonstrates. There are contemporary details of Martha Custis’s wedding gown and of what Washington would have worn with the comment, “Hair powdered (thank God for that).” Sometimes the researcher finds altogether too much information: Ferris noted, probably in some despair, “none of these agree.”
Location
Currently not on view
date made
20th century
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16562.10
catalog number
16562.10
accession number
119780

Clam Diggers

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
1991.0405.01
catalog number
1991.0405.01
accession number
1991.0405
catalog number
1991.405.01

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith

This pen-and-ink drawing for the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strip shows Aunt Loweezy telling Snuffy to punish Jughaid for using her prize-winning quilt and petticoat to make a tent and a kite.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing for the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strip shows Aunt Loweezy telling Snuffy to punish Jughaid for using her prize-winning quilt and petticoat to make a tent and a kite. Snuffy can’t seem to understand why that’s a problem until he finds out what Jughaid did with his whittling knife.
Fred Lasswell (1916-2001) started his career in the 1920s as a sports cartoonist for the Tampa Daily Times. During the course of his work there he began assisting Billy DeBeck with Barney Google. After DeBeck’s death in 1942, Lasswell took over the strip entirely. During his service in World War II Lasswell also created a strip called Sgt. Hashmark. Lasswell continued to draw Barney Google and Snuffy Smith until his death in 2001.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (1919- ) started out as a sports strip titled Take Barney Google, F'rinstance. The title character was portrayed as a very short man who was regularly seen at sporting events. The addition of a race horse named Spark Plug, in 1922, caught the nation's attention and prompted creator DeBeck to make the horse a regular cast member. Hillbilly Snuffy Smith, also very short in stature, joined the cast in 1934 and soon was added to the title of the strip. Since the 1950s, Snuffy Smith has been the central character of the strip.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-06-12
graphic artist
Lasswell, Fred
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22603
catalog number
22603
accession number
277502

The Sultana's Bath

A signed and dated pencil study with subject matter similar to the drawing GA*16628Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
A signed and dated pencil study with subject matter similar to the drawing GA*16628
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1898
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16627
catalog number
16627
accession number
119780

Evangeline

Gerome Ferris signed and dated the pen and ink drawing of Evangeline, heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem of that name, for reproduction as a photo-engraving for an auction catalog.
Description (Brief)
Gerome Ferris signed and dated the pen and ink drawing of Evangeline, heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem of that name, for reproduction as a photo-engraving for an auction catalog. There is a penciled note below the image about Evangeline’s spindle to New York publisher Charles Klackner. The touches of white were meant to heighten the black and white contrast for reproduction.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1887
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16623
catalog number
16623
accession number
119780

Camera-ready comic strip, entitled Apartment 3-G

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Apartment 3-G comic strip shows the characters discussing how much they miss Peter. A new neighbor, named Newton Figg, is just arriving to move into 3-B, across the hall.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Apartment 3-G comic strip shows the characters discussing how much they miss Peter. A new neighbor, named Newton Figg, is just arriving to move into 3-B, across the hall. Figg raises some eyebrows because he’s arriving with two oversized, stuffed animals named Wilbur and Wendell.
Alex Kotzky(1923-1996), while an art student in New York in 1940, became an assistant at DC Comics. In the 1950s he worked for publishers Quality Comics and Ziff-Davis. During this time he also ghost-drew for comic strips such as Steve Canyon and Big Ben Bolt. In 1961 he and writer-psychiatrist Nick Dallis began producing Apartment 3-G.
Apartment 3-G (1961- ) portrayed the lives of three young women who live together: art teacher Lu Ann Powers, nurse Tommie Thompson, and Margo Magee (who over time held different jobs). The soap opera-style comic includes the interactions of the three young women and their friendly, fatherly neighbor Professor Aristotle Papagoras.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-08-07
graphic artist
Kotzky, Alex
publisher
Publishers Newspapers Syndicate, Inc.
ID Number
GA.22528
catalog number
22528
accession number
277502

Cheyenne Pictures. Cheyennes Charging on U.S. Troops

Unknown artist, about 1894“Cheyenne Pictures. Cheyennes Charging on U.S. Troops.”Pencil, colored pencil, ink and watercolorThe Cheyenne Indians pictured in this drawing are displayed in identifiable warrior society clothing.
Description
Unknown artist, about 1894
“Cheyenne Pictures. Cheyennes Charging on U.S. Troops.”
Pencil, colored pencil, ink and watercolor
The Cheyenne Indians pictured in this drawing are displayed in identifiable warrior society clothing. The warriors ride at a gallop, the hoof marks indicating movement, while firing their rifles at the U.S. troops. Two riders lean low behind the necks of their trained war horses shielding themselves from the bullets flying in all directions.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1894
original artist
unknown
ID Number
GA.08110
catalog number
GA*08110
accession number
1897.031963

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Marmaduke

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Marmaduke single-panel daily comic strip shows the Great Dane upset because Phil Winslow, his owner, has put ice in his daughter Barbara’s water, but not in his own water.Brad Anderson (1924- ) began his career as a comic artist selling s
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Marmaduke single-panel daily comic strip shows the Great Dane upset because Phil Winslow, his owner, has put ice in his daughter Barbara’s water, but not in his own water.
Brad Anderson (1924- ) began his career as a comic artist selling some of his cartoon art to an aviation magazine while still in high school. After college and four years' service in the U.S. Navy, Anderson began working in advertising and prepared freelance drawings for magazine cartoons in 1953. His creation Marmaduke was debuted in newspapers across the country in 1954. Today Anderson continues to draw Marmaduke with the help of his son.
Marmaduke (1954- ) is a newspaper daily panel and Sunday comic strip. The title character is a Great Dane belonging to the Winslow family, including husband and wife, Phil and Dottie, and two children, Barbara and Billy. The running theme involves the human characteristics of the title character, which contribute to the household's general unease and confusion.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1963-04-22
graphic artist
Anderson, Brad
maker
United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
ID Number
2010.0081.009
accession number
2010.0081
catalog number
2010.0081.009

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Bringing Up Father

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Bringing up Father comic strip shows Mother mentioning that she worries about Father and his absentmindedness. When she and Nora are at the matinee, Father takes a message for Mother.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Bringing up Father comic strip shows Mother mentioning that she worries about Father and his absentmindedness. When she and Nora are at the matinee, Father takes a message for Mother. He doesn’t recall all the details about the message, and when Mother becomes angry about that he reveals that she was the one who had forgotten to meet someone for lunch earlier that day.
Frank Fletcher (1919- ) began his career in the advertising field. He also served as art director for the Pictorial Review and the Saturday Home Magazine, and provided artwork for popular comic books. Fletcher also became the artist for the Bringing Up Father comic strip after the death in 1954 of its creator, George McManus. Fletcher continued drawing the strip in the Sunday edition until 1984.
Bringing Up Father (1913-2000) featured an Irish immigrant named Jiggs; his wife, Maggie; and their two children Nora and Ethelbert (known as Sonny). The story usually revolved around Jiggs’s attempts to cope with his newfound wealth after receiving winnings from the Irish Sweepstakes. Much of the time Jiggs longed for his working-class friends, habits, and general lifestyle. Meanwhile Maggie, a social climber, had embraced her nouveau riche status and demanded that Jiggs do the same.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-09-25
author
Fletcher, Frank
graphic artist
Kavanaugh, Bill
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22587
catalog number
22587
accession number
277502

Camera-ready comic strip for Archie

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Archie comic strip shows Veronica hosting a party and suggesting to Archie that he and Jughead can later sleep on the couch, which turns into a bed.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Archie comic strip shows Veronica hosting a party and suggesting to Archie that he and Jughead can later sleep on the couch, which turns into a bed. Archie suggests to Jug that pressing the button for the foldout couch will also provide him food.
Robert William "Bob" Montana (1920-1975), in his youth, drew caricatures of customers in his father’s restaurant in New Hampshire. Later he became a freelance illustrator and at age twenty-one, in the 1940s, Montana created and started drawing Archie for the comic book series Pep Comics, and soon after the Archie comic strip. Montana drew the daily and Sunday Archie strips as well as Archie comic books until his death in 1975.
Archie (1947- ) is said to have been based on the 1930s and 1940s Andy Hardy movies, such as A Family Affair and Love Finds Andy Hardy. Even though the comic subject was originally included as filler in the publication called Pep Comics, which included mostly superhero stories, after about a year Archie appeared on the comic book cover. Archie was syndicated in newspapers across the country beginning in 1947. The subject was also included in radio and television spin-offs.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-07-18
graphic artist
Montana, Bob
publisher
Archie Comic Publications, Inc.
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22441
catalog number
22441
accession number
277502

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Ponytail

This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Ponytail comic strip shows the title character asking Stickshift, her mechanically inclined friend, to help start the new lawn mower, after being brushed off by her boyfriend, Donald.Lee Holley (1933- ) sold his first cartoon at age fifte
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Ponytail comic strip shows the title character asking Stickshift, her mechanically inclined friend, to help start the new lawn mower, after being brushed off by her boyfriend, Donald.
Lee Holley (1933- ) sold his first cartoon at age fifteen, and just a few years later went to work for Warner Bros. Animation Studios as an artist. In 1957 he began ghostwriting the Dennis the Menace Sunday strip. In 1960 he launch his own strip Ponytail, which ran until 1989. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Holley also contributed artwork to Warner Bros. comic books.
Ponytail (1960-1989), like earlier strips Emmy Lou and Penny, was a strip about the adventures and social mishaps of a teenage girl. Though Ponytail premiered after other comics with similar themes, it was an instant hit. It was also briefly adapted as a comic book.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-07-31
graphic artist
Holley, Lee
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22554
catalog number
22554
accession number
277502

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Hi and Lois

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Hi and Lois comic strip shows Lois leaving baby Trixie with Hi while she runs some errands.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Hi and Lois comic strip shows Lois leaving baby Trixie with Hi while she runs some errands. Hi quickly falls asleep as Trixie proceeds to wreck the house.
Richard Arthur Allan "Dik" Browne (1917-1989) worked with the New York Journal American and Newsweek, and while he was serving in World War II launched his first comic strip, Jinny Jeep. In the 1950s Browne collaborated with Mort Walker on Hi and Lois. In 1973 Browne debuted another strip called Hägar the Horrible about an uncouth 9th-century Viking. Both of Browne’s strips are still running, and both are drawn by his sons.
Hi and Lois (1954- ) features a married couple and their suburban family, including four children. The couple first appeared in the Beetle Bailey comic strip. Lois is Beetle’s sister. Lois is shown taking a job as a real estate agent in 1980, as a nod to changing times.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1966-05-08
graphic artist
Browne, Dik
Walker, Mort
publisher
King Features Syndicate
ID Number
GA.22451
catalog number
22451
accession number
277502

Camera-ready comic art drawing for Winnie Winkle

This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Winnie Winkle comic strip shows Ethel going sightseeing with Vic Ventura. Vic is trying to deceive Ethel by appealing to her sympathy.Martin Branner (1888-1970) was a vaudeville star-turned-cartoonist after his service in World War I.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink drawing prepared for the Winnie Winkle comic strip shows Ethel going sightseeing with Vic Ventura. Vic is trying to deceive Ethel by appealing to her sympathy.
Martin Branner (1888-1970) was a vaudeville star-turned-cartoonist after his service in World War I. In his first few years working in comics, he produced short-lived strips until he hit on Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner in 1920. The title of the strip was shortened to Winnie Winkle in 1943.
Winnie Winkle (1920-1996), about a female family breadwinner, began as a story about the young woman named Winnie who took care of her adopted younger brother. Winnie matured slightly during the years, and eventually became an adult, got married, and served as a single parent during her husband's soldiering years. Though the strip started out in a daily “gag” format, over time it transitioned into a soap opera-themed strip. Winnie Winkle made a brief crossover into comic books, but the longer storylines were not as popular.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1964-08-16
graphic artist
Branner, Martin
publisher
Tribune Printing Company
ID Number
GA.22610
catalog number
22610
accession number
277502

Seventeenth-Century Ship

Gerome Ferris’s unsigned pencil sketch of a ship under full sail with pennant jauntily flying in the breeze may be related to his circa 1930 painting Henry Morgan’s Knight of the Double Cross, 1670 where there is a similar ship.Currently not on view
Description
Gerome Ferris’s unsigned pencil sketch of a ship under full sail with pennant jauntily flying in the breeze may be related to his circa 1930 painting Henry Morgan’s Knight of the Double Cross, 1670 where there is a similar ship.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920s
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
1985.0650.008
accession number
1985.0650
catalog number
85.0650.008

Portrait of Man with an Earring

The pen and ink portrait, signed and dated 1882, shows a man who might be North African, perhaps someone Ferris sketched on his trip to North Africa and Spain in 1881 and worked up later when he returned to Philadelphia.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
The pen and ink portrait, signed and dated 1882, shows a man who might be North African, perhaps someone Ferris sketched on his trip to North Africa and Spain in 1881 and worked up later when he returned to Philadelphia.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1882
maker
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16621
catalog number
16621
accession number
119780

Study for Here Comes the Bride, 1759

This sheet with a sketch of George Washington in 1759 and notes about weather in Virginia in December, 1818, demonstrates some of the care Ferris took over his historical pictures. He researched the subjects meticulously.
Description (Brief)
This sheet with a sketch of George Washington in 1759 and notes about weather in Virginia in December, 1818, demonstrates some of the care Ferris took over his historical pictures. He researched the subjects meticulously. This sketch shows a Washington very similar to the one in Ferris’s painting Here Comes the Bride, 1759, circa 1930.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16562.06
catalog number
16562.06
accession number
119780

Portrait of Elizabeth Anastasia Moran Ferris

A red chalk drawing of Stephen Ferris’s wife in about 1870. See also GA*16649.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
A red chalk drawing of Stephen Ferris’s wife in about 1870. See also GA*16649.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1870
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16650
catalog number
16650
accession number
119780

Studies for Here Comes the Bride, 1759

Gerome Ferris made two pencil studies of sword grips used by a soldier of the Black Watch regiment. Such a soldier appears in the 1930 painting Here Comes the Bride, 1759, showing Washington’s marriage to Martha Custis.
Description (Brief)
Gerome Ferris made two pencil studies of sword grips used by a soldier of the Black Watch regiment. Such a soldier appears in the 1930 painting Here Comes the Bride, 1759, showing Washington’s marriage to Martha Custis. The small unsigned sheet is bordered in black like mourning notepaper suggesting that Ferris seized whatever came to hand when he had an idea.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
20th century
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16562.07
catalog number
16562.07
accession number
119780

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