Popular Entertainment - Overview
This Museum's popular entertainment collections hold some of the Smithsonian's most beloved artifacts. The ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz reside here, along with the Muppet character Kermit the Frog, and props from popular television series such as M*A*S*H and All in the Family. But as in many of the Museum's collections, the best-known objects are a small part of the story.
The collection also encompasses many other artifacts of 19th- and 20th-century commercial theater, film, radio, and TV—some 50,000 sound recordings dating back to 1903; posters, publicity stills, and programs from films and performances; puppets; numerous items from World's Fairs from 1851 to 1992; and audiovisual materials on Groucho Marx, to name only a few.
"Popular Entertainment - Overview" showing 76 items.
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Evelyn Nesbit
- Description
- Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. started taking photographs in 1884 while working at his father's engineering firm. In 1889, he joined the local camera club in Yonkers, New York, and began contributing articles on photographic chemistry, lighting, and technique to journals like the Photographic Times. He turned professional in 1896, relying on commercial work for financial support while continuing to develop his skills as an art photographer. Eickemeyer gained critical acclaim in America and Europe for his landscape and portrait photography.
- In 1901, Eickemeyer was hired by architect Stanford White to photograph Evelyn Nesbit, an aspiring model and performer. The resulting images helped establish Nesbit's career and are among the most recognized of Eickemeyer's body of work.
- Shortly before his death in 1932, Eickemeyer endowed a fund for the development of the Smithsonian's Section of Photography and donated a large portion of his personal collection.
- Date made
- 1901
- depicted
- Nesbit, Evelyn
- commissioned the portrait
- White, Stanford
- maker
- Eickemeyer, Jr., Rudolf
- ID Number
- PG*4135.B5.24
- accession number
- 128483
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Technicolor Camera
- Description
- In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy's journey from Kansas to Oz is symbolized by a shift from black and white to Technicolor. This camera was one of several used to film the Oz scenes.
- Invented in 1932, the Technicolor camera recorded on three separate negatives--red, blue and green--which were then combined to develop a full-color positive print. The box encasing the camera, a "blimp," muffled the machine's sound during filming.
- The Early Color Cinema Equipment Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000039] includes equipment, media and ephemera related to color motion pictures from the birth of the cinema to the mid twentieth century. This collection is comprised of 5 motion picture cameras, 3 movie projectors, more than 34 pieces of editing and other apparatus, more than 60 pieces of early color film and two notebooks illustrating the Technicolor process.
- Reproducing natural color on film had been an industry goal since the earliest days of motion picture production, but it took several decades to perfect a technology for making movies in color. Motion picture directors often toned or hand-tinted monochromatic film in the industry’s early days to add life and emotion to their productions. Though movie producers continued to use toning and tinting, these costly and inefficient processes could never produce the full range of color that movie cameras failed to record. Therefore, innovators increasingly focused on the use of color filters during capture and projection to reproduce color detail.
- Danish-American inventor August Plahn built and patented a camera and projector that split motion picture images through three color lenses using 70mm film. When the film, with three images printed across its width, was projected through the same colored filters, movies’ natural color was restored. The collection includes forty five short lengths of processed film and documents related to Plahn’s work as well as one camera, three projector heads and over seventy-five pieces of apparatus used by the engineer.
- While Plahn had little success marketing his inventions, the Boston-based Technicolor Corporation effectively marketed their similar technology to become the industry standard. The color cinema collection includes four Technicolor cameras as well as over twenty-five pieces of equipment related to the Technicolor process and a book of photographs illustrating Technicolor film processing in a train car.
- The Society of Motion Picture Engineers, the industry’s leading trade group, donated examples of a number of other early color film technologies, including Prizma, Kelley-line screen, Krayn Screen, Naturalcolor, Multicolor and Morgana color processes.
- This finding aid is one in a series documenting the PHC’s Early Cinema Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000018]. The cinema-related objects cover the range of technological innovation and popular appeal that defined the motion picture industry during a period in which it became the premier form of mass communication in American life, roughly 1885-1930. See also finding aids for Early Sound Cinema [COLL.PHOTOS.000040], Early Cinema Equipment [COLL.PHOTOS.000037], Early Cinema Film and Ephemera [COLL.PHOTOS.000038] and the Gatewood Dunston Collection [COLL.PHOTOS.000021].
- date made
- 1937
- maker
- Technicolor Corporation
- ID Number
- PG*8166
- catalog number
- 8166
- maker number
- Patent No: 2,000,058
- accession number
- 260112
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Gatemouth Brown
- Description
- Talented on many instruments--guitar, fiddle, harmonica, drums--Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924-2005) was one of the most versatile musicians of his time. Defying easy categorization, Gatemouth said he just wanted to play American music "Texas-style."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1976
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.003
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.003
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Harmonica Frank Floyd
- Description
- Photographed backstage, "Harmonica" Frank Floyd (1908-1984) was an entertainer for the better part of the 20th century. After running away from home at age twelve, he began playing harmonica in carnivals and medicine shows. His repertoire included jokes, tricks, songs, and stories.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1973
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.006
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.006
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Stonewall Jackson
- Description
- Named after his Civil War ancestor, Stonewall Jackson (b. 1932) began performing professionally in the 1950s. Thanks to tour with Ernest Tubb, Jackson had a string of hits from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1972
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.008
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.008
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Loretta Lynn
- Description
- Loretta Lynn is a classic country singer whose life--from her autobiography, Coal Miner's Daughter--is a well-known story. She was one of the first stars to sing with a feminist point of view. Her songs, like "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' (with Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "The Pill," broke new ground in country music. Lynn (b. 1935) and Conway Twitty were named Vocal Duo of the Year by the Country Music Association for years in a row in the early 1970s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1971
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.011
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.011
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner
- Description
- Dolly Parton joined Porter Wagoner and the Wagonmasters in 1967. She launched her solo career in 1974.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1972
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.018
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.018
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ricky Skaggs
- Description
- Henry Horenstein photographed Ricky Skaggs (b. 1954) several times as a member of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band and as a memeber of J. D. Crowe & the New South. A multi-talented singer and instrumentalist, Ricky Skaggs's success helped inspire the new traditionalist movement, and was largely responsible for a back-to-basics movement in country music.
- negative
- 1980
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.020
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.020
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Porter Wagoner
- Description
- One of the most recognizable figures in country music, Porter Wagoner was known as the "Thin Man from West Plains, Missouri." He began recording music in 1954 after several years of singing on a local radio station. In 1961, Wagoner (b. 1927) began to host his own country music television show, which was syndicated for 21 years.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1972
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.022
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.022
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Doc Watson and Merle Watson
- Description
- Doc Watson (Arthel Lane Watson, b. 1923), blind since his early life, achieved national acclaim primarily as a result of his involvement in the folk song revival of the 1960s. Watson remained a powerful influence in many different forms of acoustic music, including blues, old time, country, and bluegrass. His, son Merle (1946-1985), frequently performed on guitar with him until his untimely death in a tractor accident.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1974
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.024
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.024
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center