Smithsonian Libraries

Before Google images: The Kubler Picture Archive at Cooper-Hewitt Library

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

 

 

With millions of digital images at our fingertips, it’s easy to forget the long history of picture collections that proceeded.  Many public and academic libraries across the country collected images from books, magazines, and various ephemera that might have otherwise been sold for scrap.  These picture collections, in physical and now digital formats, continue to meet the needs of artists, illustrators, designers, teachers, students and general researchers.  One such picture collection is the George A. Kubler Collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Library.

George Adolf Kubler (1876-1944) was the founder and president of Certified Dry Mat Corporation.  The firm made stereotype matrices, an essential product for rotary press printing of newspapers that was used all over the world.  His passion for printing extended beyond newspapers to collecting and cataloging thousands of prints.  He painstakingly clipped, mounted, filed, and indexed over 60,000 images.  His widow donated the product of his lengthy labor to the Cooper Union Museum Library in 1948.

An earthquake scene from the Kubler Collection.

The range of topics covered is vast.  Archery, boxing, dry docks, funerals, irrigation, milk peddlers, riots, stenography, volcanoes and wrecks is a random sampling of subject areas included in the collection.  Portraits and city views, occupations and churches, emigrants and historical events may all be found.  Mr. Kubler acquired European and American books and periodicals, dating almost exclusively from the nineteenth century, and removed the illustrations, most of which are wood or steel engravings.  One can consult a list of roughly 400 titles from which the prints came.  It includes many popular works, such as Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Puck, Illustrated London News, and King’s New York City Views, plus obscure volumes such as Zuni and Colorado Rivers by Sitgreaves (1855).

Currently one can only gain access to the prints by using an extensive card catalog that occupies 24 drawers.  The cataloging system is almost exclusively by subject with no regard for artist, engraver, or source of the picture.  Despite these drawbacks, the Kubler Collection has been very useful for picture research, exhibition materials, and answering reference questions.

Mr. Kubler's card catalog.

To make this collection more accessible, library staff and volunteers have been transcribing Mr. Kubler’s card catalog into electronic format.  Many of these cards are hand written by Kubler himself, posing the added challenge of reading his handwriting.  Luckily many cards are also typed.  Over 17,000 have been entered to date.  The library is also exploring ways to digitize this large visual collection.  In the meantime, please enjoy a large sampling of what the Kubler collection has under the category “Niagara Falls”.  Note: the Flickr slideshow below requires Flash for viewing.

 

Digitization Dispatch: How to listen to music, circa 1900

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

 

Weighing in at a mere 7 pages, On Certain Obstacles to the Highest Enjoyment of Music, provides an unexpectedly scathing glimpse into Daniel Chester French's musical perspective. One of the latest digitizations from the AAPG general collection, this thin volume is a veritable ode to his own imagination via a condemnation of the sensory distractions of other human beings. He hates the musicians and their "bald heads as highlights" to an already disagreeable scene littered with white cuffs and shirttails. He hates the lighting which calls attention to female vocalists who frustratingly replace the "beautiful invisible singer" conjured by his imagination. And don't get him started on the racket caused by fellow concert attendees. He does not care for their applause. That "Bravo!" is superfluous at best, and of course, an obstacle to the highest enjoyment of music at worst!

 

On certain obstacles to the highest enjoyment of music by Daniel Chester French

 

What would the late Mr. French think of John Cage's 1952 ode to ambient sound, "4'33"? The modern masterpiece is properly played when the musicians don't play their instruments so that the audience may give the unique sounds which arise their full attention. Perhaps he might have appreciated it's honesty and musing on silence as sound? Or at least had a chuckle at the thought of sacrificing "music" for the sake of other obstacles to listening enjoyment! 

Click here for a youtube clip of a BBC Four performance of "4'33"
Click here for an 1974 oral history interview with John Cage from the Archives of American Art. 

William Henry Holmes’ Random Records

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.  

 

Although the majority of the material held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library is not unique, the library does hold a select few unique archives. The most important archival material held by the library is arguably the Random Records of a Lifetime, 1846-1931: Cullings, Largely Personal, from the Scrap Heap of Three Score Years and Ten, Devoted to Science, Literature and Art. Comprising of twenty volumes, the Random Records  were collected and compiled by William Henry Holmes, the former head of Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology and the first Director of what is now known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

 

William Henry Holmes, Chief, Bureau of American Ethnology, ca. 1905. Random Records, v. 14, p. 48.

 

Although ultimately becoming renowned as one of the United States’ preeminent anthropologists, William Henry Holmes first sought to pursue a career as an artist. Born in 1846 near Cadiz, Ohio, Holmes was drawn to art and was primarily self taught. However, finding little support for his artistic endeavors despite multiple attempts to become a student of local respected artists, by 1871 he decided to pursue a career in education. However a tip from a local in Cadiz sent him on a detour to the Washington, D.C. studio of the artist Theodor Kaufmann who accepted him as a pupil. As luck would have it, the eldest daughter of the Smithsonian’s first secretary, Joseph Henry was also in an oil-painting class taught by Kaufmann and she suggested finding items to sketch in the collections held in the Smithsonian Castle. While sketching two birds in a display at the Castle, Holmes caught the attention of a resident ornithologist who was impressed by his work. The researcher took Holmes to the research rooms in the Castle where he met many other Smithsonian scholars. Soon the budding artist was illustrating for reports written by Fielding Bradford Meek for the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Meek, a paleontologist and resident of the Smithsonian, mentored Holmes in both science and illustration.

 

The Survey of the Territories was directed by Dr. Ferdinand Hayden and in 1872 Holmes was chosen as the official artist of the Survey in the Yellowstone area of Wyoming. Holmes would spend the days sketching and exploring, and his interest in geology grew alongside his explorations of the Territories. He was appointed as an assistant geologist in 1874 and continued to illustrate for Survey reports and by 1875 was a full geologist in charge of the Survey of the San Juan region of Arizona and New Mexico. At this time he began his investigations of archaeology and anthropology and began to study the extinct cliff-dwelling Anasazi civilization. In 1880 Holmes joined the United States Geological Survey and in 1889 transferred to the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), a research unit of the Smithsonian focusing on North American Indian cultures. Holmes eventually became the head curator of the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian United States National Museum and then chief of the BAE.

From its inception the Smithsonian Institution was authorized to collect and exhibit art. Since the Smithsonian Secretary Henry and Assistant Secretary Charles Jewett (the librarian also in charge of the art collection) believed the Smithsonian would never be able to collect great works of art (since in their mind the “great works” were all in Europe), they collected copies and casts for exhibition as well collecting prints, drawings, and paintings (especially with American Indian subjects). The art collection was placed under the auspices of the Anthropology department, one of the five major divisions of the National Museum of the Smithsonian. As a result, with Holmes as head curator of Anthropology, he oversaw the art collection. Eventually there was a movement towards the formal establishment of a National Gallery of Art for the nation and in 1906 a federal court established that the Smithsonian’s art collection a “National Gallery of Art.” Many important art collection donations followed. Holmes was appointed curator of the National Gallery and served as its curator as well as the head curator of Anthropology until 1920. In 1910, the gallery opened the first exhibits in new US National Museum building (now the Natural History Museum). In 1920 Congress granted the gallery enough funds to become a separate Smithsonian bureau and Holmes resigned his Anthropology post to become the first director of the National Gallery Art (which is now known as the Smithsonian American Art Museum). Thus Holmes came full circle back to art world and he remained director until he retired in 1932.

 

Exhibit of busts by Moses Dykaar, National Gallery of Art, March 5-20, 1926. Random Records v.14, p. 156.

 

The Random Records comprise of twenty volumes of materials including newspaper clippings, personal documents, articles, photographs, correspondence, personal memoirs, anecdotes, and notes. Volumes one through sixteen of the original volumes are held in the Library of Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery (microfilm copies are also held the AAPG library and the Smithsonian Archives). The last four volumes are held by Holmes’ great-granddaughter. The Library is honored to be the home of the volumes chronicling the life and career of such an important figure in the history of the Smithsonian. A truly gifted artist, scientist, researcher, and scholar, William Henry Holmes was an important figure in the Smithsonian’s anthropology department and played a key role as first the curator and subsequently first director of what would become the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

 

Page from volume 5 of Random Records

 

Notes: most of the biographical information of Holmes comes directly from the Random Records.

Other resources providing supplementary information:

Fernlund, Kevin J. William Henry Holmes and the Rediscovery of the American West. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

Fink, Lois Marie. A History of the Smithsonian American Art Museum: An Intersection of Art, Science, and Bureaucracy. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Goetzmann, William H. “Limner of Grandeur: William Henry Holmes and the Grand Canyon.” The American West: The Magazine of Western History 15 (May/June 1978): 20-21, 61-63.

Nelson, Clifford M. “William Henry Holmes: Beginning a Career in Art and Science.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 50 (1980): 252-78.

— Doug Litts

 

Gearing up for the Archives Fair!

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

 

The Smithsonian Libraries is getting ready for tomorrow's Archives Fair! This event is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Archives and Special Collections Council (SIASC) and features a lecture series as well as an "Ask the Smithsonian" Q&A session. In addition, you can meet and chat with Smithsonian archivists and librarians as they host tables representing their units. Our own rare books cataloger, Diane Shaw, will present during the lecture series on "Highlights from the Manuscripts Collection of the Dibner Library of the History of Science & Technology". During the day, she will be joined by  digital image librarian Erin Rushing and Lilla Vekerdy, Head of Special Collections, at the Smithsonian Libraries table.

If you were intrigued by Diane's post last Friday on Mary Smith, check out more of her work on the Smithsonian Collections Search Center blog today! And for more information on the Archives Fair and Archives month, see the Archives of American Art's webpage. If you'll miss the chance to experience tomorrow's activities in person, the Smithsonian Institution Archives will be live blogging the event on their blog.

 

An example of but one archival item in our collections, this scrapbook of Theodore Roosevelt consists of various clippings and photographs pasted in to Roosevelt's book,  African Game Trails. The scrapbook, housed in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History National Museum of Natural History,  is part of the Russell E. Train Africana Collection.