Communications - Overview
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.
"Communications - Overview" showing 5 items.
Electrotype of "Hu'petha"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Hu’petha” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 28 (p.163) in an article by Alice C. Fletcher (1838-1923) and Francis La Flesche (1857-1932) entitled “The Omaha Tribe” in the Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1905-1906.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1911
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Flecher, Alice C.
- LaFlesche, Francis
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.066
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.066
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Incidents in the life of Jaw (drawing by himself)"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Incidents in the life of Jaw (drawing by himself)” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 63 (p.392) in an article by David I. Bushnell, Jr. (1875-1941) entitled Frances Densmore (1867-1957) entitled “Teton Sioux Music” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1918).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1918
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Densmore, Frances
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.104
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.104
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Feathers"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Feathers” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 81 (p.176) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.122
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.122
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of “Corn from basket maker caves"
- Description
- This electrotype of “Corn from basket maker caves” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 65 (p.152) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.124
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.124
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Electrotype of "Ruins in Northeastern Arizona"
- Description
- This electrotype of ruins in Northeastern Arizona was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate 14 (p.48) in an article by Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885-1963) and Samuel J. Guernsey (1868-1936) entitled “Archeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona” in Bureau of American Ethnology,Bulletin 61, (1919).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1919
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Kidder, Alfred Vincent
- Guernsey, Samuel J.
- ID Number
- 2000.0207.130
- catalog number
- 2000.0207.130
- accession number
- 2000.0207
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center