Television
Television collections at the Smithsonian Institution span near-all museums and research centers, attesting to the medium's profound impact on American and global society. From Nam June Paik's iconic and unmistakable cathode ray tube sculptures and installations (like 1995's "Megatron/Matrix" held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)), to artefactual props from iconic TV programs (like The Muppets, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Star Trek), to the vast moving image collections of shows like the landmark arts and culture series Black Journal and early kinescope records of broadcasts from the DuMont network, the Smithsonian is tuned into TV!
To celebrate the United Nations' "World Television Day" on November 21st, here are some of our favorite online TV-related collections as selected by staff of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative.
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David Sarnoff (1891-1971) as Seen by TV Viewers at the 1939 World's Fair
- Date
- 1939
- 4/20/1939
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Sony "Watchman" portable television
- date made
- 1986
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Photograph of Ilene Segalove
- Date
- circa 1984
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El Chapulin Colorado Lunch Box
- Date made
- 1979
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Black Journal: 26; Alice Coltrane
- Date
- 1970
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Apollo 11 TV Broadcast July 22, 1969
- Uploaded
- 2009-07-16T10:00:41.000Z
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Television Get Well Card
- Date
- ca. 1950
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Julia Lunch Box
- Date made
- 1969
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Sesame Street Sign
- date made
- 1979
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data source
- National Museum of American History 42
- National Museum of African American History and Culture 18
- National Portrait Gallery 6
- Smithsonian American Art Museum 6
- National Air and Space Museum 5
- Archives of American Art 4
- Smithsonian Institution Archives 4
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum 3
- Smithsonian Archives - History Div 2
- Smithsonian Channel 2
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- online visual material
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collection set
- National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection 18
- Culture and the Arts: Entertainment 14
- National Museum of American History 11
- Photography 10
- Popular Entertainment 10
- Work and Industry: Photographic History 9
- Black Journal 8
- Pearl Bowser Collection 8
- Time-based Media - Moving Images 8
- Currently not on view 6
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