Infrastructure! In 1930s Tokyo!

From the Visualizing Cultures Department at MIT:

The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto largely inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be).

Among other amazing imagery, the site has 100 woodblock prints by Koizumi Kishio depicting Tokyo's transition to modernity:

“100 Views of Great Tokyo in the Shōwa Era,” a series of woodblock prints produced between 1928 and 1940 by Koizumi Kishio, explore the rebirth of Tokyo in the years following the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. Koizumi’s prints depict the transformation of an important Asian city as it embraced modernity, maintained traditions, and became the site of ultimately disastrous political policies. In addition, Koizumi was a member of a new, modern printmaking movement in Japan known as sōsaku-hanga or “creative printmaking.”

Archive of Images from the Late 19th Century Jesup Expedition to the Northern Pacific

From the American Museum of Natural History, Photographs from the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902):

The Jesup North Pacific Expedition led by Franz Boas, the first landmark research project of the Division of Anthropology, turned out to be one of the most scientifically important anthropological investigations ever mounted. Conceived and directed by Franz Boas, the expedition was financed by Museum president Morris K. Jesup. The Expedition was concerned with the extent and nature of contact between the tribes of the Northwest Coast and Siberia with an eye to solving the problem of the origin of the first populations to inhabit the New World.

Under the auspices of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, described as the "foremost expedition in the history of American anthropology" (Freed and Freed 1988: 7), Berthold Laufer, Waldemar Jochelson, and Waldemar Bogoras conducted ethnographic research and made collections in the Siberia, Manchuria, and on Sakhalin Island. Laufer worked among the Nivkhi (Gilyak), Evenk, and Ainu on Sakhalin Island and the Nanai (Golde) of the Amur River. Bogoras studied the Chukchi and Yupik (Siberian Eskimo), and Jochelson the Koryak, Yukaghir, and Sakha (Yakut).

[Above is a photograph of Russian exiles in Siberia; Below is an original map created by Franz Boas depicting the areas covered by the Jesup expedition.]

Archive of Early 20th Century Photos from the Congo

From the American Museum of Natural History, Photographs from Lang-Chapin Congo Expedition (1909-1915):

Between 1909 and 1915 Mammalogist Herbert Lang (1879-1957) with assistant James P. Chapin (1889-1964) led the Congo Expedition. The two scientists collected and documented zoological, botanical, and anthropological collections and produced painted and photographic images of the natural and human environment.

The anthropological aims of the expedition initially focused on three matters:
- finding out about the Pygmies, at the time still regarded as one of Africa's greatest curiosities;
- gathering information about the physical types of various peoples;
- collecting ethnographic materials illustrative of all aspects of culture.

For Lang, ethnographic objects were clues to deciphering the culture code. A description of a knife would lead to a discussion of how fields were cleared, the division of labor, or the ceremonial uses of knives. A photograph of a chief or a ritual specialist would lead to an interview with the person and a brief description of that person's life history.

To see the entire collection, just leave the search option blank and click 'search'. [via Boing Boing, via Clayton Cubitt]

Some Words from Some Sponsors

Duke University has a project that collects vintage TV commercials and posts them online, called AdViews:

AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s. These commercials were created or collected by the ad agency Benton & Bowles or its successor, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B). Founded in 1929, Benton & Bowles was a New York advertising agency that merged with D'Arcy Masius McManus in 1985 to form DMB&B. Major clients included are Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Schick, Vicks, and Post, among others. Commercials will be added in phased batches over several months in 2009. The commercials are a part of the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Archives found at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

This archive also does something I've never seen before. You watch all of the videos through iTunes, and you can download them all for free, too. Pretty slick.

Oh, and note this:

The television commercials in the AdViews collection have been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Content from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission.

Detroit: City of the Future, cont'd again and again

Another word on Detroit. I've been working on a film that involves lots and lots of archival film footage, and I came across this in my wanderings. It was made in the early 60's as a pitch to host the Summer Olympics in Detroit. One could argue about what a disaster it would have been to have the Olympics a year after the riots, but remember that Mexico City was no picnic, either.



I am curious as to whether the city officials and filmmakers were being hopeful or naive when making this film. Regardless, Jamison Handy's filmmaking skills in general are undeniable; its a bit lamentable that his efforet went almost entirely into producing industrial films. Handy on Handy:




And speaking of archives, where would we be without archive.org and Prelinger?

These are your pictures. You should be able to see them.

[Masks worn during experiments with Plague. Philippines, probably around 1912]

Mike Rhode, the head archivist at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. is beginning to make a huge archive of military medical imagery available online (through flickr). The archive consists of over 500,000 images (that have thus far been scanned) of medical images from the Civil War to Vietnam. They are slowly but surely getting them online for the rest of us, on their own time [from Wired]:

The organization that runs the NMHM — the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, funded by the Department of Defense — hasn't signed off on Rhode's plan to bring medical history photos to the people.

"The Army does not appreciate people using Army resources for sites that they don't consider to be related to your job," Rhode said. Flickr, like many social media sites, is blocked by the Army.

Still, Rhode is continuing to push to get the photos, a precious resource, into the light of the internet.

"We have pictures from all types of military conflicts and all different types of medicine and issues in medicine," Rhode said. "We love the stuff that we're able to play with and want to bring it to everyone else in the world."

The Library of Congress also has vast archives (though again, only a fraction of their materials are online) and has started placing things on flickr as well. [Though you can find even more in the archives on their own site]

[Christy Mathewson, warming up before pitching in the World Series, 1911]