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.

Place: United States

Bonanza press

This rail press by an unknown maker dates from between 1880 and 1900. It is marked “Bonanza”’ in its casting.
Description (Brief)
This rail press by an unknown maker dates from between 1880 and 1900. It is marked “Bonanza”’ in its casting. The press, on a Museum-made base, has a height of 7 inches a width of 4 inches and a length of 11.5 inches; its chase measures 2 inches by 3.5 inches.
Rail presses were simple, cast-iron toys sold through novelty dealers for about one dollar. They took full-size or, later, half-length printer’s type. Rail presses, manufactured to stand on a full length strip of metal, were produced in large numbers and varieties between about 1880 and 1900, after which presses made for rubber type became more popular. The rail-press makers are usually unknown.
Donated by John C. and James C. Draper, 1973.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
between 1880 and 1900
ca 1880 - 1900
maker
unknown
ID Number
GA.23864.160
catalog number
GA.23864.03
accession number
304826

Picture postcard, "Ruins of Fray Junipero Serra's Death Chamber, Carmel Mission, California. Founded 1770"

This postcard view of the "Ruins of Fray Junípero Serrá's Death Chamber" was printed by the Detroit Publishing Company in about 1910, using a copyrighted photolithographic process called "Photostint."The Detroit Publishing Company previously known as the Detroit Photographic Comp
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of the "Ruins of Fray Junípero Serrá's Death Chamber" was printed by the Detroit Publishing Company in about 1910, using a copyrighted photolithographic process called "Photostint."
The Detroit Publishing Company previously known as the Detroit Photographic Company was first listed in Detroit city directories in 1888. Its manager, William A. Livingstone, invited the famous landscape photographer William Henry Jackson to join the company as a partner in 1897. Jackson brought with him his own photographic images which would be used by the company.
Mission San Carlos Borroméo del rio Carmelo, or the Old Mission Chapel, was established in 1770 by Fr. Junípero Serra, the Spanish Franciscan who founded twenty-one missions in California between 1769 and 1823. San Carlos was the second of these missions which were established to convert American Indians of the Esselen and Ohlone, Costanoan, tribes to Catholicism. Father Serra died at the Carmel Mission on August 28, 1784, at the age of 71.
Today the mission serves as a parish church.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1910
graphic artist
Detroit Publishing Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.2016
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.2016

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

Hoe Railway press

This flatbed stop-cylinder, cylinder press was made by R. Hoe & Company after 1862; the crank handle is missing. The press bed measures 31 inches by 46 inches.The Railway press, introduced in 1862, was designed for newspapers of medium circulation.
Description (Brief)
This flatbed stop-cylinder, cylinder press was made by R. Hoe & Company after 1862; the crank handle is missing. The press bed measures 31 inches by 46 inches.
The Railway press, introduced in 1862, was designed for newspapers of medium circulation. Its name derived from the fact that the bed was carried back and forth on a four-wheel truck running on two strong rails, an arrangement based on presses built by the French engineer,
Marinoni. The Railway was a “country press” made to be turned by hand. It could deliver up to 800 impressions per hour. The press was built in Hoe’s Boston plant and cost $1,350 new. Printed newspaper sheets were normally carried around the press on cloth tapes and delivered by mechanical sheet flyers. For posters with large wooden type and no gutter space on the page for the tapes, the sheets were “flown” by press boys.
Donated by Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Robinson, 1971.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
after 1862
maker
R. Hoe & Company
ID Number
GA.23275
accession number
297416
catalog number
23275

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

Campaign speeches are useful, at that

This pen-and-ink comic art drawing by Rube Goldberg from 1924 features the concept of using “windy” political speeches as free energy.Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an engineer before he was a comic artist.
Description (Brief)
This pen-and-ink comic art drawing by Rube Goldberg from 1924 features the concept of using “windy” political speeches as free energy.
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an engineer before he was a comic artist. After receiving an engineering degree, he started his career designing sewers for the City of San Francisco, but then followed his other interest and took a job as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. After moving to New York in 1907 Goldberg worked for several newspapers, producing a number of short-lived strips and panels—many of which were inspired by his engineering background, including his renowned invention cartoons. In the late 1930s and 1940s he switched his focus to editorial and political cartoons and in 1945 founded the National Cartoonists Society. The Reuben, comic art’s most prestigious award, is named after him.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1924-10-31
original artist
Goldberg, Rube
ID Number
GA.23492
catalog number
23492
accession number
299186

Picture postcard, "Pala Mission Chapel, Founded 1816, near Oceanside, California"

This postcard view of Pala Mission Chapel was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of Pala Mission Chapel 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 producing scenes of California landscape and history.
Pala Mission or San Antonio de Pala Asistencia, founded in 1816, is situated about 25 miles northeast of Oceanside. It was an ancillary mission to the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, the eighteenth of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions built in California between 1769 and 1823.
Today the mission is the only of the twenty-one original Spanish Franciscan missions which continues to minister to an American Indian community.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1908-1921
graphic artist
Van Ornum Colorprint Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.0480
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.0480

Golding Improved Pearl No. 11 jobber

This platen jobber with a clamshell mechanism was made by William Golding of Boston beginning about 1900.
Description (Brief)
This platen jobber with a clamshell mechanism was made by William Golding of Boston beginning about 1900. Its chase (missing) measures 7 inches by 11 inches.
William Golding of Boston set up shop as a printer’s supply house in 1869, and soon graduated to the manufacture of seals, then small amateur presses, and finally full-size jobbing presses. The very popular Pearl series, which had a simple clamshell mechanism, was introduced under a patent of 1871, and went through a number of models. The “Improved Pearl,” with impression throw-off lever, arrived in 1895. This specimen is from the 1900 series.
Donated by Melba Trilli Geckner, Guido P. Trilli, and Delmo F. Trilli, 1976.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
circa 1900
date made
ca 1900
maker
Golding Co.
ID Number
GA.24289
accession number
1977.0066
catalog number
GA*24289

Picture postcard, "La Purísima Concepcíon Mission, California. Founded December 8, 1787"

This postcard view of Mission La Purísima Concepcíon was printed by the Detroit Publishing Company in about 1910, using a copyrighted photolithographic process called "Photostint."The Detroit Publishing Company (previously known as the Detroit Photographic Company) was first list
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of Mission La Purísima Concepcíon was printed by the Detroit Publishing Company in about 1910, using a copyrighted photolithographic process called "Photostint."
The Detroit Publishing Company (previously known as the Detroit Photographic Company) was first listed in Detroit city directories in 1888. Its manager, William A. Livingstone, invited famous landscape photographer William Henry Jackson to join the company as a partner in 1897. Jackson brought with him his own photographic images, which would be used by the company.
Mission La Purísima Concepcíon is located northwest of Santa Barbara in the city of Lompoc. 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 is one of two missions managed by the California State Park system. The other is the Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1910
graphic artist
Detroit Publishing Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.2040
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.2040

Hand press, Fuchs & Lang

This lithographic hand press, model 2, no.
Description (Brief)
This lithographic hand press, model 2, no. 6828, was made by Fuchs & Lang, of Rutherford, New Jersey, in about 1905; its bed has a width of 23 inches and a length of 28 inches.
This press is typical of the hand presses known to many lithographers today as transfer presses, but was originally used for direct printing. Presses of this pattern were known in the United States from the 1870s, and earlier. The leather-covered scraper in its adjustable support hangs over the stone, which is covered with an oiled tympan sheet of thin metal. Lowering the long lever raises the press bed to bring the stone and scraper together. Then the crank is turned to move the bed and stone under the pressing scraper.
Fuchs & Lang set up shop in 1870 as suppliers of bronzing powders; they were building machines by 1893.
Donated by Piedmont Label Company, 1961.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
circa 1905
date made
ca 1905
maker
Fuchs and Lang Manufacturing Company
Fuchs and Lang Manufacturing Company
ID Number
GA.21024
catalog number
GA*21024
accession number
237315

Picture postcard, "Mission San Juan Capistrano - 1776. Midway Between San Diego and Los Angeles, California"

This postcard view of San Juan Capistrano was printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago using photomechanical processes. It was published about 1914 by the I. L.
Description (Brief)
This postcard view of San Juan Capistrano was printed by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago using photomechanical processes. It was published about 1914 by the I. L. Eno company in San Diego, Calif.
The Curt Teich Company manufactured postcards between 1898 and 1978 in association with several publishers. The firm used the term "photochrom," later "colortone," to describe its color printing processes.
Mission San Juan Capistrano is located in the town of the same name. It was the seventh of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions established in California between 1769 and 1823, and was founded for the conversion to Catholicism of American Indians of the Luisen, or Juaneno, tribe.
Today the mission compound includes a parish chapel and a museum.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1914
graphic artist
Eno, I. L.
ID Number
1986.0639.0332
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.0639.0332

Bunnell type 368-B telegraph relay

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
Maker
Western Union Corporation
maker
J. H. Bunnell & Co.
ID Number
EM.332327
model number
368-B
accession number
294351
catalog number
332327

Hand stamp

Date made
1867
circa 1867
patent date
November 19, 1867
maker
Willbur, J. M.
ID Number
1971.293320.2983
accession number
293320
patent number
071105
catalog number
1971.293320.2983
1971.293320.2983

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

Threadless U.S. Tel. Co. / Chester Glass Insulator

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1865
maker
Chester, Charles T.
ID Number
EM.231782.2
catalog number
231782.2
accession number
43532

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

Picture postcard, "Ruins of San Juan Capistrano Mission, Founded 1776, Capistrano, California"

This postcard image of the ruins of San Juan Capistrano Mission was printed by the Van Ornum Colorprint Company in Los Angeles, Calif.
Description (Brief)
This postcard image of the ruins of San Juan Capistrano 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 producing California landmark scenes.
San Juan Capistrano Mission, founded in 1776, is located southeast of Los Angeles. It was the seventh of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions built in California between 1769 and 1823. The mission was founded to convert American Indians of the Juaneño and Luiseño tribe to Catholicism.
Today the mission serves as a chapel and a museum.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1908-1921
graphic artist
Van Ornum Colorprint Co.
ID Number
1986.0639.0488
accession number
1986.0639
catalog number
1986.639.0488

Stanhope press, miniature

This wooden model of a Stanhope press was manufactured in the late 19th century; it has a height of 11 inches, a width of 7.5 inches, and a length of 11 inches.The Stanhope was invented in England by Charles Earl Stanhope in about 1800.
Description (Brief)
This wooden model of a Stanhope press was manufactured in the late 19th century; it has a height of 11 inches, a width of 7.5 inches, and a length of 11 inches.
The Stanhope was invented in England by Charles Earl Stanhope in about 1800. It was a screw press with a stout iron frame. The leverage of the screw was compounded by a system of levers. Very heavy and very powerful, the press was welcomed both in Great Britain and in Europe as a successor to the old wooden presses. Stanhope presses were even imported into the United States, though rarely, before the American iron presses of the 1820s made their appearance.
This is a much-simplified model made by the U.S. Patent Office for their own reference purposes.
Transferred by Department of the Interior, 1906.
Citation: Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
late 19th century
maker
U.S. Patent Office
U.S. Patent Office
ID Number
GA.11014
catalog number
GA*11014
accession number
1906.46812

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

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

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