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: Prints

Officer and Laughing Girl after Vermeer

Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject.
Description
Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject. Not until five years later in 1866 did he make a second attempt at etching a painting, this print after Vermeer. It was considered to be one of the best reproductive etchings of the time. The Vermeer painting now hangs in the Frick Collection, New York. But when Jacquemart etched it for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, it was in the collection of Léopold Double, a French artillery officer, bibliophile, and art collector.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1866
original artist
Vermeer, Jan
graphic artist
Jacquemart, Jules
printer
Delâtre
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14601
catalog number
14601
accession number
94830

Sunday In New Orleans - The French Market

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1866
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
original artist
Waud, A. R.
ID Number
GA.311495.02
accession number
311495
catalog number
311495.02

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 5 in a series of progressive proofs of a stylized group of leaves and berries from the shrub Nandina domestica. Designed by Tsubaki Chinzan, engraved by Kotaro Kido, and printed by Iwakichi Yamamoto.Currently not on view
Description
Japanese wood block print. No. 5 in a series of progressive proofs of a stylized group of leaves and berries from the shrub Nandina domestica. Designed by Tsubaki Chinzan, engraved by Kotaro Kido, and printed by Iwakichi Yamamoto.
Location
Currently not on view
engraver
Kido, Kotaro
ID Number
GA.03217.05
catalog number
03217.05
accession number
22582

Parks' Bar Company Works, California

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1854
associated date
1854
graphic artist
Hayes, George H. Wood
ID Number
GA.309390.12
catalog number
309390.12
309390.12

At the Market, Richmond, Virginia

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1868
original artist
Sheppard, W. L.
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
ID Number
GA.311495.03
accession number
311495
catalog number
311495.03

female nude sitting in field

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.07
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.07

Anchovy Stuffed Eggs

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.02
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.02

a windmill

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.05
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.05

Ross's Bar, California

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1854
associated date
1854
publisher
Gleason, Frederick
graphic artist
Pilliner, Frederick J.
ID Number
GA.309390.04
catalog number
309390.04
309390.04

New York Lithographing, Engraving, and Printing Company circular

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1868
maker
Bien, Julius
ID Number
GA.03771
catalog number
03771
accession number
23155

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 25 in a series of progressive proofs of a stylized group of leaves and berries from the shrub Nandina domestica. Designed by Tsubaki Chinzan, engraved by Kotaro Kido, and printed by Iwakichi Yamamoto.Currently not on view
Description
Japanese wood block print. No. 25 in a series of progressive proofs of a stylized group of leaves and berries from the shrub Nandina domestica. Designed by Tsubaki Chinzan, engraved by Kotaro Kido, and printed by Iwakichi Yamamoto.
Location
Currently not on view
engraver
Kido, Kotaro
ID Number
GA.03217.25
catalog number
03217.25
accession number
22582

Uncle Sam

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.12
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.12

Cow-Boys of Colorado - Life In a Dug-Out

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1882
graphic artist
Harper & Brothers
original artist
Rogers, W. A.
ID Number
GA.311495.04
accession number
311495
catalog number
311495.04

Notion Company Works, California

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1854
associated date
1852 - 1857
publisher
Gleason, Frederick
ID Number
GA.309390.03
catalog number
309390.03
309390.03

Vichyssoise

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.27
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.27

Pallido California Extra Virgin Olive Oil Poster

David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country.
Description
David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country. But his Arts and Crafts influenced design is best known on his posters and in books. Goines was a recognized activist in Berkeley, associated with the Free Speech and Anti-War movements, and he did poster and book work for these movements.
Alice Waters, who founded the Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, was a founding inspiration of the fresh, local, and organic food movement. She met David Goines in the Berkeley Free Speech movement. They began to collaborate on a column, “Alice’s Restaurant” for the local alternative paper. She wrote the recipes and he provided the artwork. He collected and printed each column as Thirty Recipes for Framing and the entire set and individual prints from the set began to appear on Berkeley walls and beyond, establishing him with enough profits to buy the Berkeley Free Press, rechristened the St. Hieronymus Press.
He issued his first Chez Panisse poster, "Red-Haired Lady," in 1972 and his most recent, "41st Anniversary," in 2012. In between is a series of anniversary posters, plus occasional others celebrating the restaurant's book releases, such as the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, and other ventures. These works established his place as the primary artist associated with food and wine in the so-called Gourmet Ghetto. His early posters for Chez Panisse were soon followed by requests from other food and wine related sites and events, as well as from many other commercial entities.
The design for this 1987 poster by David Lance Goines was first commissioned as a bottle label by Corti Brothers Grocery in Sacramento to note the introduction of some of the first extra-virgin olive oil made in the United States. According to Corti, the labels were originally made for Antinori, the great Italian wine (and olive oil) producer, but a freeze knocked out the olive crop. Antinori returned the labels to Corti, whose grocery was to carry the Antinori oil. Corti got Goines to re-do the labels for the Pallido and Verdesco oils, “Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spring Harvest Mission Olives,” simultaneously requesting a large number of the 4 color posters (unsigned, number130 in the Goines repertory) which he (Corti) could sell in the store. He also obtained the progressives from Goines, eventually giving the set of progressives and several of the posters to the National Museum of American History in 2012. The poster documents the arrival in the U.S. of the first wave of soon-to-be well known and much favored California-produced olive oils.
Many credit Darrell Corti for introducing chefs, food writers, and food critics to some of the high grades of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, American wines such as Zinfandel, and other foods that have become staples across America.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1987
maker
Goines, David Lance
ID Number
2011.0252.04
accession number
2011.0252
catalog number
2011.0252.04

Christopher Columbus Dying

Sixteen-year-old Gerome Ferris etched this print in 1879 after his own painting of the dying Christopher Columbus, 1506 Last Days of C. Columbus at Vallodolid.
Description
Sixteen-year-old Gerome Ferris etched this print in 1879 after his own painting of the dying Christopher Columbus, 1506 Last Days of C. Columbus at Vallodolid. The current location of the painting is unknown, but the choice of topic anticipates Gerome’s future as a history painter, focusing on American narrative subjects.
After death, Christopher Columbus’s journeys were not over. His remains traveled from Vallodolid to Seville and in 1542 were taken to the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, colonized by Columbus after 1492. After a move to Havana, Cuba, they returned to Seville cathedral in 1898 where they are today.
The etching was printed on chine-collé, a very thin sheet of paper that accepts the image in passing through the press with a heavier sheet of backing paper to which is it glued during the printing.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.14450
accession number
94830
catalog number
14450

Map of the Pilgrim's Progress

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
c. 1850
date made
ca 1800
graphic artist
Melish, John
ID Number
1985.0303.05
accession number
1985.0303
catalog number
1985.0303.05

Orange Duck

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.16
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.16

Mission of San Carlos

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1880
associated date
1852 - 1857
maker
unknown
ID Number
GA.309390.07
catalog number
309390.07
309390.07

Store of H. Bentley, Woodbridge, San Joaquin Co., Cal.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1870
ca 1870s
graphic artist
Evert, Louis H.
ID Number
GA.69.180
catalog number
69.180
accession number
282174

The Bridge

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.16
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.16

Sunbath

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1935
printer
Kistler, Lynton R.
ID Number
1978.0650.1436
accession number
1978.0650
catalog number
1978.0650.1436
78.0650.1436

Deck of the Ship Niantic, at Sea

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1851
associated date
1851
graphic artist
Gleason, Frederick
ID Number
GA.309390.17
catalog number
309390.17
309390.17

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