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 725 items.
Page 67 of 73
Engraved woodblock of a" Wolpi horn rattle"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Wolpi horn rattle” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 574 (p.397) in an article by James Stevenson (1840-1888) entitled “Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona in 1879” in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1880-81.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1883
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- photographer
- Hillers, John K.
- author
- Stevenson, James
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.0918
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.0918
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Indian mask from the northwest coast of America"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Indian mask from the northwest coast of America” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XIV.23 (p.173) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82. According to the annual report, the image shows a “dancing mask used by the Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory” and was originally drawn by J.G. Swan (1818-1900).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- original artist
- Swan, J. G.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1011
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1011
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Dancer 'swallowing' the great plumed arrow"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Dancer ‘swallowing’ the great plumed arrow” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 55 (p.434) in an article by Dr. Washington Matthews (1843-1905) entitled “The Mountain Chant: a Navajo ceremony” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- block maker
- A.P.J. & Co.
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- author
- Matthews, Washington
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1112
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1112
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "New Zealand tattooed head and chin mark"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “New Zealand tattooed head and chin mark” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 35 (p.75) in an article by Garrick Mallery (1831-1894) entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: a preliminary paper” in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1882-83.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Mallery, Garrick
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1184
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1184
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of an "Australian grave and carved trees"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of an “Australian grave and carved trees” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Figure 37 (p.76) in an article by Garrick Mallery (1831-1894) entitled “Pictographs of the North American Indians: a preliminary paper” in the Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1882-83.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1886
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Mallery, Garrick
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1206
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1206
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of a "Haida medicine rattle"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of a “Haida medicine rattle” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate XXII.50 (p.189) in an article by William Healey Dall (1845-1927) entitled “On Masks, Labrets, and Certain Aboriginal Customs with an Inquiry into the Bearing of Their Geographical Distribution” in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1881-82. According to the annual report, the mask shows “the shaman, frog, and kingfisher with continuous tongues.” The image was drawn from a “specimen obtained by J. G. Swan [(1818-1900)] at Port Townsend, W. T. from a Queen Charlotte Island Haida.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1884
- publisher
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Dall, William H.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1294
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1294
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved woodblock of the "Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597"
- Description
- This engraved woodblock of the “Earliest map showing [the] location of the Cherokees, 1597” was prepared by the Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.; the image was published as Plate VII (p.128) in an article by Charles Royce (1845-1923) entitled “The Cherokee Nation of Indians: a narrative of their official relations with the colonial and federal governments” in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1883-84.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1887
- publisher
- Government Printing Office
- Bureau of American Ethnology
- printer
- Government Printing Office
- author
- Royce, Charles C.
- block maker
- J. J. & Co.
- ID Number
- 1980.0219.1531
- catalog number
- 1980.0219.1531
- accession number
- 1980.0219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Union type chest Headquarters Army of Potomac, Printing Department, No. 6, about 1863
- Description
- This type chest, measuring roughly 1’H x 2.5’W x 1.5’D, was purchased from L. Johnson & Company for the Printing Department of the Union Army of the Potomac. At least five other type chests were made for that unit. The top of the chest reads Headquarters Army of Potomac, Printing Department, No. 6. A virtually identical chest markedNo. 5 is displayed at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1863
- maker
- L. Johnson & Company
- issuing authority
- Army of the Potomac
- ID Number
- 1982.0203.2739
- accession number
- 1982.0203
- catalog number
- 1982.203.2739
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Adams Cottage Press No. 4, patented 1861
- Description
- Every Man His Own Printer! advertised the makers of the Lowe and Adams presses. Easy to use, these presses inspired military and amateur printers during and after the Civil War to make use of the portable presses to print military orders, receipts, billheads, and other documents.
- Albert Adams's New York cylinder press was described as useful for the armed forces and merchants. It was patented on March 19, 1861, and manufactured and distributed by entrepreneur Joseph Watson and the Adams Press Company in New York.
- The Adams Cottage Press was designed without a frisket. The frisket, a separate inner frame hinged to the cloth-covered tympan, served to hold the paper in place and protect the printed sheet. The press included an automatic tympan which closed with the movement of the cylinder. The Adams Cottage Press and other portable presses did not include a self-inking system. The type was inked by hand, a sheet of paper was placed over the inked type, and the bed of the press was cranked below the cylinder to produce an impression and the printed sheet.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1861
- maker
- Adams, Albert
- manufacturer
- Adams Press Company
- ID Number
- 1982.0203.2740
- accession number
- 1982.0203
- catalog number
- 1982.203.2740
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bernice Palmer's Kodak Brownie camera
- Description
- Sometime around her 17th birthday, Canadian Bernice Palmer received a Kodak Brownie box camera, either for Christmas 1911 or for her birthday on 10 January 1912. In early April, she and her mother boarded the Cunard liner Carpathia in New York, for a Mediterranean cruise. Carpathia had scarcely cleared New York, when it received a distress call from the White Star liner Titanic on 14 April. It raced to the scene of the sinking and managed to rescue over 700 survivors from the icy North Atlantic. With her new camera, Bernice took pictures of the iceberg that sliced open the Titanic’s hull below the waterline and also took snapshots of some of the Titanic survivors. Lacking enough food to feed both the paying passengers and Titanic survivors, the Carpathia turned around and headed back to New York to land the survivors. Unaware of the high value of her pictures, Bernice sold publication rights to Underwood & Underwood for just $10 and a promise to develop, print, and return her pictures after use. In 1986, she donated her camera, the pictures and her remarkable story to the Smithsonian.
- date made
- ca 1912
- user
- Ellis, Bernice P.
- maker
- Eastman Kodak Company
- ID Number
- 1986.0173.38
- accession number
- 1986.0173
- catalog number
- 1986.0173.38
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center