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 71 items.
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Soviet poster, Anti-Hitler catoons
- Description
- During World War II, after the breakdown of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Soviet news agency TASS issued a series of propaganda posters. Topics included anti-Nazi caricatures and Socialist Realist art encouraging the war effort. Beginning in June 1941, the Union of Soviet Artists established a publishing collective to produce the posters on an almost daily basis. Because they were displayed in the windows of the news agency's Moscow office, they are known as TASS window posters. It is estimated that about 1,500 different posters were produced between 1941 and 1945.
- Well-known artists and poets worked on the designs and captions, and most of the posters were produced in limited editions using the stencil process for both graphics and text. Many posters were completed and reproduced within 24 hours, making them very responsive to political issues and war news. Copies were distributed abroad by VOKS, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Their messages helped present the USSR favorably to its new allies, including the U.S. The Museum has six of these posters received in 1943 through VOKS. Other collections outside Russia include the University of Nottingham in England and Columbia and Cornell universities in the U.S.
- TASS window poster No. 711 is a two-panel poster with anti-Hitler cartoons.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1943
- ID Number
- GA*19085
- accession number
- 167088
- catalog number
- 19085
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Heliograph Station--signalling between land and naval forces--near Pasay, Philippine Islands. Copyright 1899 by Underwood & Underwood. [on negative] 20943 Photonegative 1899
- Notes
- Company catalog card included
- Currently stored in box 3.1.51 [100]
- Date
- 1899
- 1890-1900
- publisher
- Underwood & Underwood
- Local number
- RSN 16110
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Drawing made by a Comanche Indian
- Description
- Unknown artist, about 1868
- “Drawing made by a Comanche Indian”
- [Title given by collector Dr. Edward Palmer]
- Media: Colored inks on paper
- This drawing of a Comanche warrior was likely prepared and collected in 1868 at the Kiowa and Comanche Agency in present-day Oklahoma. The artist’s representation of a warrior on horseback follows a tradition of pictographic imagery which presents the subject on one plane without the illusion of depth. Here both of the warrior’s legs and leg sashes are imaged on the viewer’s side of the horse.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1880
- ca 1869
- ca 1882
- original artist
- unknown
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.50
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.050
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Drawing made by a Kiowa Indian
- Description
- Unknown artist, about 1868
- “Drawing made by a Kiowa Indian”
- (Title given by collector Dr. Edward Palmer)
- Media: Pencil on paper
- This Kiowa Indian drawing was likely prepared and collected in 1868 at the Kiowa and Comanche Agency in present-day Oklahoma. Non-Indians were known to have offered paper and illustrating equipment to Plains Indians as early as the 1830s. The drawing displays a Kiowa warrior’s head and neck ornament (possibly a peace medal), and his leg sashes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1880
- ca 1869
- ca 1882
- original artist
- unknown
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.51
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.051
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Indians discovery U.S. Cavalry
- Description
- Koba aka Wild Horse (Kiowa),
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- "Indian Discovery of U.S. Cavalry"
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Colored pencil, ink, and watercolor
- The focus of this drawing by Koba is a Kiowa warrior coming down from his lookout hill. He carries a pair of field glasses (either a trade item or possibly taken from an enemy combatant) which assisted him in the discovery of the cavalry unit riding nearby. The Kiowa camp below is at rest; tribesmen welcome the scout's return and warning.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Koba
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.52
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.052
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Buffalo Chase
- Description
- Wohaw, aka Beef, Wolf Robe, Gu hau de (Kiowa),
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- "Buffalo Chase"
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor
- Wohaw's drawing shows a party of Kiowa warriors participating in a buffalo hunt. The warriors ride tightly together behind the herd. One buffalo has been successfully killed.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Wohaw
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.53
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.053
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Buffalo Chase and Encampment
- Description
- Bear's Heart, or Nock-ko-ist,
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- "Buffalo Chase and Encampment"
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Colored pencil, ink, colored ink, and watercolor
- This drawing shows an encampment, and men and women courting outside their tipis. The men are dressed in black and the women in blue and green. Above them, in another level of the story drawing, are warriors on a buffalo hunt. Three riders prepare to kill the buffalo, with bows drawn and ready.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Bear's Heart
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.54
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.054
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
In Pursuit of Game
- Description
- Shave Head, or O-uk-ste-uh (Cheyenne),
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- “In Pursuit of Game”
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Pencil, colored pencil, ink and colored ink
- This drawing shows two Cheyenne warriors hiding and hunting in a wooded area. Buffalo, elk, a turkey, and a flying bird are present. One of the warriors points his rifle towards the elk and buffalo. The other warrior aims his arrow at the flying bird.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Shave Head
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.55
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.055
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Council (or more properly, Sun Dance or Medicine Lodge)
- Description
- Bear's Heart, or Nock-ko-ist (Cheyenne),
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- "Council" (or more properly, Sun Dance or Medicine Lodge)
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Colored pencil, ink, colored ink, and watercolor
- The drawing of a Sun Dance or Medicine Lodge gathering offers a partial view of one moment in the most sacred of Plains Indian ceremonies. The event is represented here by the Sun Dance lodge with its cloth and tree-branch offerings flying. The people stand outside to bear witness to the sacred offerings being made, while four painted Sun Dancers stand ready to make their sacrifices inside. Four men, probably warrior society officers, stand guard over the ceremony.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Bear's Heart
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.56
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.056
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Hunting Buffalo
- Description
- Shave Head, or O-uk-ste-uh (Cheyenne),
- drawn between 1875 and 1878 at Fort Marion, Florida
- “Hunting Buffalo”
- Collected by Richard Henry Pratt about 1878
- Colored pencil and colored ink
- Shave Head uses a two-level drawing shows a buffalo hunt with four wounded animals, and a separate hunt and the wounding of an elk. The Cheyenne warriors wear full headdress and four of the five also wear their mountain lion bow and quiver, symbolically powerful pieces of hunting gear.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1875-1878
- original artist
- Shave Head
- ID Number
- 2008.0175.57
- accession number
- 2008.0175
- catalog number
- 2008.0175.057
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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