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

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 27 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. 27 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.03217.27
catalog number
03217.27
accession number
22582

Table Mountain

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
2013.0196.38
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.38

Arab Soldier

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
original artist
Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano
ID Number
GA.14441.03
accession number
94830
catalog number
14441.03

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 6 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. 6 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.03217.06
catalog number
03217.06
accession number
22582

Millenuims

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Heller, Helen West
ID Number
GA.20059
catalog number
20059
accession number
182887

First Love Letter

Camille Piton made this etching to illustrate a catalog for an auction of works from the collection of J. C. Runkle, which was held in New York on March 8, 1883. Samuel P. Avery, art dealer and himself a collector, organized the sale and the catalog.
Description
Camille Piton made this etching to illustrate a catalog for an auction of works from the collection of J. C. Runkle, which was held in New York on March 8, 1883. Samuel P. Avery, art dealer and himself a collector, organized the sale and the catalog. The New York Times judged Piton’s effort as “handsomely etched.” Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), the original artist of First Love Letter, was a German painter of sentimental genre scenes which were very popular in his day. Originally titled in German, his painting was known by its English title because it had been purchased by an American.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
original artist
Knaus, Ludwig
graphic artist
Piton, Camille
ID Number
GA.14885
catalog number
14885
accession number
94830

The Castle

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
2013.0196.37
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.37

Canada Geese flying above waterway

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.19
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.19

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 7 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. 7 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.03217.07
catalog number
03217.07
accession number
22582

Farm House

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.03
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.03

a sunset

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.06
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.06

Merry Christmas from Ralph Totten

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.22
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.22

Forrest Pool

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.17
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.17

portrait of a man with grey hair and beard

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
2013.0196.34
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.34

Dock Scene, Massachusetts

Robert Swain Gifford’s etching Coal Pockets at New Bedford shows a grimy Massachusetts dock scene with a coal storage facility and a chimney belching smoke. Gifford pictured the southeastern Massachusetts coast, where he had lived as a boy, in many of his prints. As Sylvester R.
Description
Robert Swain Gifford’s etching Coal Pockets at New Bedford shows a grimy Massachusetts dock scene with a coal storage facility and a chimney belching smoke. Gifford pictured the southeastern Massachusetts coast, where he had lived as a boy, in many of his prints. As Sylvester R. Koehler noted in the American Art Review, which published the print in 1880, “The artist lifts the commonplace into the ideal, and teaches us to see beauty where our unguided eyes would have failed to discover it.” The print continued to be popular and was republished several times. In later impressions like this one, the date “-79’’ at bottom right has almost disappeared. Probably the publishers did not want the print to seem out of date.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1879
graphic artist
Gifford, Robert Swain
maker
Gifford, Robert Swain
ID Number
GA.14871.02
catalog number
14871.02
accession number
94830

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 26 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. 26 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.03217.26
catalog number
03217.26
accession number
22582

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 3 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. 3 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.03217.03
catalog number
03217.03
accession number
22582

Arab Soldier

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
original artist
Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano
ID Number
GA.14441.02
accession number
94830
catalog number
14441.02

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No 19 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 19 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.03217.19
catalog number
03217.19
accession number
22582

Ravenswood Winery (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 1976 logo for Ravenswood Winery shows three intertwined ravens in a triskelion on the label designed by Goines for the release of the winery’s first vintage of Zinfandel. Winemaker Joel Peterson, the founder of Ravenswood Winery, told the artist of something he experienced in harvesting his first vintage. Ravens were the vineyard protectors who cawed at him through his stormy, debut harvest. Years later, the image is well known from the wine label which has remained as Goines designed it in 1976 (number 83 in the Goines repertory), on what became one of the most popular wines in the country.
The label even inspires tattoos. Peterson says that anyone showing up at the winery with a tattoo of said Ravenswood/Goines image will receive tastings of the wine free. Since 2008, every July the Winery holds a Tattoo Coming Out Party and Poetry Slam where people without permanent ink on their bodies can receive a temporary tattoo if they write a poem that “declares your love for tattoos, Ravens, or tattoos.”
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1979
maker
Goines, David Lance
ID Number
2012.0169.01
accession number
2012.0169
catalog number
2012.0169.01

Sable Antelope

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.26
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.26

Nandina domestica

Japanese wood block print. No. 20 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. 20 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.03217.20
catalog number
03217.20
accession number
22582

Ferris's Daughter May

Stephen James Ferris etched an undated portrait of his daughter, May, in the costume of a bull fighter, and dedicated this impression to her. May Electa Ferris was born in 1871, eight years after her brother, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.
Description
Stephen James Ferris etched an undated portrait of his daughter, May, in the costume of a bull fighter, and dedicated this impression to her. May Electa Ferris was born in 1871, eight years after her brother, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Like her father and brother, she was an artist. She learned to etch from her father and became known as an etcher and landscape painter, exhibiting in the 1880s and 1890s. Her paintings were reproduced as calendar artwork into the 1920s under her married name, May Ferris Smith.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c. 1890
graphic artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.14405.01
accession number
94830
catalog number
14405.01

Erinnerung an de Tag der Confirmatim/Confirmation Certificate (translated title)

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1884
publisher
Kaufmann, Ernst
ID Number
2012.0093.28
accession number
2012.0093
catalog number
2012.0093.28

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