Smithsonian AV Archivists

Archivists across the Smithsonian share sound and video from their collections

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“I didn’t convince him of anything, but he didn’t convince me of anything either”

~ William Mauldin, December 3, 1991 (1)

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the art of Bill Mauldin still has the power to put readers deep into life on the front lines. His celebrated characters “Willie” and “Joe” resonated with US soldiers in Europe and brought the personal experience of war to an international audience. In 1945, the year he celebrated his twenty-third birthday, Mauldin saw his work on the cover of Time Magazine and won a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. (2)

But not everyone supported his creativity.

One of Mauldin’s most recognized critics was General George S. Patton, “Old Blood and Guts,” of the Third Army of the United States. Patton saw Mauldin as a threat, insisting that the latter’s rebellious work represented a danger to discipline and to respect for superior officers within the armed forces. The decorated General wanted to put an end to those cartoons. But Mauldin would not stop drawing. (3)

The clash culminated in a meeting in March 1945. Mauldin traveled to Luxembourg to personally see Patton at Third Army Headquarters. (4) As we approach the anniversary of Mauldin’s birthday on October 29th, we wanted to share Mauldin’s recollection of the contested interaction, and the nature of the unresolved conflict that endured between the two men. (5)

Selection runtime 4:18. Interview conducted December 3, 1991, as part of the exhibition “Reporting the War: The Journalistic Coverage of World War II.” William Henry Mauldin, 1921-2003. Video and transcript of full interview available in the Audio-Visual Archive of the National Portrait Gallery.

Charles Zange AV Archives Cataloguer National Portrait Gallery 

(1) Reporting the War: Bill Mauldin, original interview video, National Portrait Gallery, AV.1991.EXH.1, recorded December 3, 1991.

(2) David Michaelis, “‘He Drew Great Mud,’” The New York Times (New York, NY), Mar. 2, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Michaelis-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

(3) “Bill Mauldin Beyond Willie and Joe – Mauldin at War, 1943-1945,” The Library of Congress, Aug. 7, 2003, http://loc.gov/rr/print/swann/mauldin/mauldin-atwar.html.

(4) “Bill Mauldin Beyond Willie and Joe – Mauldin at War, 1943-1945,” The Library of Congress, Aug. 7, 2003, http://loc.gov/rr/print/swann/mauldin/mauldin-atwar.html.

(5) Richard Severo, “Bill Mauldin, Cartoonist Who Showed World War II Through G.I. Eyes, Dies at 81,” The New York Times (New York, NY), Jan. 23, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/arts/bill-mauldin-cartoonist-who-showed-world-war-ii-through-gi-eyes-dies-at-81.html.

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Part 3 of 3 Chichen Itza

Ca. 1937 16mm silent amateur film footage of Chichen Itza, a major Mayan center located on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.  In 1988, the Chichen Itza Cultural Heritage Zone was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.  Film clips of other inscribed heritage sites can be viewed on the HSFA’s YouTube UNESCO World Heritage Sites playlist. 

The film was shot by Guy W. Leadbetter, Sr. who was an orthopedic surgeon in Washington, D.C. and a friend of Mayan archaeologist Sylvester Morley who sparked Leadbetter’s interest in the Smithsonian Institution and anthropology. He also gave astronomy lectures for the National Park Service.  Dr. Leadbetter was born in Bangor, Maine, graduated in 1916 from Bowdoin College and attended Johns Hopkins Medical School.

From the collections of the Human Studies Film Archives, National Anthropological Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

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Part 2 of 3.  Ca. 1937 16mm silent amateur film footage of Chichen Itza, a major Mayan center located on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.  In 1988, the Chichen Itza Cultural Heritage Zone was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.  Film clips of other inscribed heritage sites can be viewed on the HSFA’s YouTube UNESCO World Heritage Sites playlist. 

The film was shot by Guy W. Leadbetter, Sr. who was an orthopedic surgeon in Washington, D.C. and a friend of Mayan archaeologist Sylvester Morley who sparked Leadbetter’s interest in the Smithsonian Institution and anthropology. He also gave astronomy lectures for the National Park Service.  Dr. Leadbetter was born in Bangor, Maine, graduated in 1916 from Bowdoin College and attended Johns Hopkins Medical School.

 From the collections of the Human Studies Film Archives, National Anthropological Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

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Part 1 of 3. Ca. 1937 16mm silent amateur film footage of Chichen Itza, a major Mayan center located on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.  In 1988, the Chichen Itza Cultural Heritage Zone was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.  Film clips of other inscribed heritage sites can be viewed on the HSFA’s YouTube UNESCO World Heritage Sites playlist. 

The film was shot by Guy W. Leadbetter, Sr. who was an orthopedic surgeon in Washington, D.C. and a friend of Mayan archaeologist Sylvester Morley who sparked Leadbetter’s interest in the Smithsonian Institution and anthropology. He also gave astronomy lectures for the National Park Service.  Dr. Leadbetter was born in Bangor, Maine, graduated in 1916 from Bowdoin College and attended Johns Hopkins Medical School.

From the collections of the Human Studies Film Archives, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

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In celebration of October’s Archives Month and Home Movie Day!  Part 2:  Archaeological Excavations, Starved Rock, Illinois, ca. 1949

What is a home movie? Content? Location? Film gauge? Camera? Camera person? Intended audience? In this silent b&w film footage shot by archaeologist Kenneth Orr, the location is Starved Rock State Park in Illinois which was inhabited for hundreds of years by American Indians, the site of the 17th century French Fort St. Louis and a ca. 1949 temporary camp for University of Chicago students. The content is an archaeological excavation conducted by a joint Illinois State Museum and University of Chicago team showing the dig and camp life. When the film was acquired, it was so deteriorated that it could not be wound off the film reel. Only through the valiant efforts of Cinema Arts (Pennsylvania) and Restoration House (Canada—now defunct) was the film rescued and preserved. Imagine our surprise when we viewed the film thinking the content would be Orr’s archaeological work in Burma! The intended audience is unknown but we hope that YOU the current audience enjoys this film!

From the collections of the Human Studies Film Archives, National Anthropological Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

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Part 1: Archaeological Excavations, Starved Rock, Illinois, ca. 1949

In celebration of October’s Archives Month and Home Movie Day! 

What is a home movie? Content? Location? Film gauge? Camera? Camera person? Intended audience? In this silent b&w film footage shot by archaeologist Kenneth Orr, the location is Starved Rock State Park in Illinois which was inhabited for hundreds of years by American Indians, the site of the 16th century French Fort St. Louis and a ca. 1949 temporary camp for University of Chicago students. The content is an archaeological excavation conducted by a joint Illinois State Museum and University of Chicago team showing the dig and camp life. When the film was acquired, it was so deteriorated that it could not be wound off the film reel. Only through the valiant efforts of Cinema Arts (Pennsylvania) and Restoration House (Canada—now defunct) was the film rescued and preserved. Imagine our surprise and delight when we viewed the film thinking the content would be Orr’s archaeoloigcal work in Burma! The intended audience is unknown but we hope that YOU the current audience enjoys this film!

From the collections of the Human Studies Film Archives, National Anthropological Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

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The Truffle Hound of American Poetry 

Jonathan Williams reads his 1958 poem "O, For A Muse of Fire!"

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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by      madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at      dawn looking for an angry fix. . .                 —Excerpt from “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg 

  Jonathan Williams (1929-2008), a poet most strongly identified with the Black Mountain College group and founder of Jargon Press, turned down the opportunity to publish Allen Ginsberg’s celebrated poem “Howl” with no regrets. He later rationalized, “If Jargon had published it . . . it would have sold 300 copies.”[1]

Williams was a generous publisher, known for rooting out obscure but gifted poets, hence the lofty title “truffle hound of American poetry,” bestowed on him by literary critic Hugh Kenner. A gentleman — some would say gadfly — from Highlands, North Carolina, where he lived most of his adult life, Williams was incredibly active until his death at age 79. Today, the Jargon Society at Black Mountain College is a continuation of his efforts.

Williams’s own poetry, and that of the Black Mountain College poets of the 1950s, was “visual.” The poetry, much like his personality, entailed the use of wit and was heavily influenced by painting and music.[2] 

We know that “Howl” was later published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights.  In fact, the Beat poets were a tight group of associates spanning all of North America. Ginsberg, Williams, and Ferlinghetti, as well as Gregory Corso, Robert Creeley, Kenneth Koch, Kenward Elmslie, and Michael McClure came together at the National Portrait Gallery in April 1996 for a symposium and marathon poetry reading held in conjunction with the exhibition “Rebels: Painters and Poets of the 1950s.”

This video of Williams reading his 1958 poem "O, For A Muse of Fire!" is an excerpt from that event. It’s evident that Williams lived up to his self-declaration,

“If my eyes stay open and my ears stay open, very little bores me.”[3]

The video of the entire poetry reading is held in the National Portrait Gallery’s audio-visual archive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/30williams.html?_r=0

http://www.nclhof.org/inductees/1998-2/jonathan-williams/

http://www.jargonbooks.com/jw_smith_interview.html

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Robert Laurent Home Movies

To celebrate Home Movie Day 2014, the Archives of American Art is sharing a few of the home movies from our collections.

Here’s some video from Robert Laurent, which begins with him at work in his Brooklyn studio.  What follows is video of Fairmont Park, Pennsylvania, family members in Brittany, and video taped at Gaspe and Woodstock, New York, with brief clips of Laurent’s friends Arnold Blanche, Carl Walters, Emil Ganso, Ernest Fiene, Stefan Hirsch, Rudy Dirks, and others.

Footage also contains Charlie Chaplin and Felix the Cat excerpts and scenes from a cocktail party in Ogunquit, Maine (given by Ker Fravaal) with Ogunquit artists and cartoonists.

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Cornelia Chapin Home Movies

Here is video from the Cornelia Chapin Papers, where you can see how life imitates and inspires art.  In addition to clips of travel and work from the studio and home, there are several scenes of cats, dogs, horses, cranes, and racing camels, oh my!

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The Archives of American Art is sharing some of the home movies from its collections to celebrate Home Movie Day, October 18, 2014. Stay tuned for more to come as the date approaches. Katherine Lane Weems was a sculptor who lived in Boston, Mass. and specialized in animal sculpture. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston under Charles Grafly, Anna Hyatt-Huntington, George Demetrios, and Brenda Putnam. She married F. Carrington Weems in 1947. She was named after her aunt, watercolor painter Katherine Ward Lane, who died in 1893.  The first reels of this footage were shot in Weems' studio, where we see the final fabrication of two massive Rhinoceros sculptures commissioned by Harvard University. The final reel, in color, documents the transport and installation of the sculpture outside the Biology Labs at Harvard. From the Katherine Lane Weems papers (1865-1989) at the Archives of American Art. Transferred from four 16mm film reels to VHS video, from which this digital copy was made.

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For Earth Day 2014, the Archives of American Art shares a film from 1985 documenting the installation of the Four Corners Project created by Michigan artist David Barr. Barr travels the world with a camera crew quite literally to install "the four corners of the earth," in the form of a conceptual, life-sized tetrahedron with corners protruding in Easter Island, South Africa, New Guinea, and Greenland.

Read more about the artist's work and ideas in an oral history, conducted by Linda Abramsky, one of the filmmakers.

In celebration: the four corners project, 1985 / David John Barr and Archives of American Art. 16 mm : 1 film reel : sd., col. ; 16 mm. Miscellaneous sound, film, and video recordings collection. Archives of American Art.

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Anne Waldman and Ted Berrigan perform their collaborative poem "Memorial Day" as part of a reading series at 98 Greene Street Loft curated by the poet Ted Greenwald around 1973.

The video was shot by Sandy Hirsch on the only portable video format that existed at the time, 1/2 inch open reel video, often referred to as Portapak. Like any video shot in this format from the late 1960s to early 1970s, it is now a very fragile historical document. Digital preservation of this video allowed us to view it and share it with the public after decades of inaccessibility. 

The Archives thanks the Berrigan estate, Waldman, and Hirsch for their generous permission to share the video. Happy Poetry Month!

From the Holly Solomon Gallery Records at the Archives of American Art.

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Jam Handy produced this early promotional film for the Archives of American Art in Detroit, MI, where the archives was born. A real charmer! Still, I think maybe the Archives' new promotional video (see our last post) illustrates the work we do with a touch more pizazz. 

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Excited to see this beautiful new animated video, a fanciful take on what it's like to do research at the Archives of American Art. It's a real switch in tone from a promotional film called "For the Record," produced for the Archives by the Jam Handy organization around 1960.

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Smithsonian Institution Archives

Accession 05-143 - Smithsonian Institution, Motion Pictures, c. 1927-1950

This video is Reel 3 of 3 of a silent, black-and-white 35mm film titled "The City of Washington, 1929." It was originally produced by the United States Treasury Department. This third and final reel continues with the history of the creation of the City of Washington and the Plan of 1928. Buildings highlighted include the Interior Department, the Navy and Munitions Buildings, the Supreme Court, the Memorial Bridge, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Justice, Department of Labor, and the Government's Archives (now the National Archives and Records Administration).

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Smithsonian Institution Archives

Accession 05-143 - Smithsonian Institution, Motion Pictures, c. 1927-1950

This video is Reel 2 of 3 of a silent, black-and-white 35mm film titled "The City of Washington, 1929." It was originally produced by the United States Treasury Department. This second reel continues with the history of the creation of the City of Washington, and provides information about the McMillan Plan of 1901. Buildings highlighted include the Department of Agriculture, the Library of Congress, Union Station, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the American Red Cross, the National Academy of Sciences, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, the United States National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History), and the Freer Gallery of Art.

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Smithsonian Institution Archives

Accession 05-143 - Smithsonian Institution, Motion Pictures, c. 1927-1950

This video is Reel 1 of 3 of a silent, black-and-white 35mm film titled "The City of Washington, 1929." It was originally produced by the United States Treasury Department. The film starts off with a history of how the City of Washington came to exist in its current location, and the original design of L'Enfant's plan. It then goes on to provide a timeline for the completion of the White House, the Capitol Building, the Treasury Department building, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Institution Building, and several other prominent buildings around the city.