Film Collection
Subject
Subject Source: Local sources
Scope Note: Distinguishes audiovisual material in the Library that are part of the 1987 Cataloged Film Collection created under the direction of Nina Root.
Found in 274 Collections and/or Records:
Life of the penguin
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 124
Scope and Contents
Broadcasting from the penguin section of the Bronx Zoo (i.e. New York Zoological Park), Charles Collingwood discusses penguins with William J. L. Sladen of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey Department. Dean Amadon, AMNH ornithologist, was a consultant for the program. The characteristics of penguins, the Adľie and chinstrap penguins in particular, are outlined. Sladen shows films of his field work in the South Atlantic and has sequences on Adľie penguins arriving at the breeding...
Dates:
1956
Living fossils, the crocodilians
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 94
Scope and Contents
The history of living fossils is the topic of discussion for this broadcast. Charles M. Bogert, AMNH herpetologist, discusses the habits and history of huge reptiles, such as garials, caymans and other crocodiles. The living fossils indicate that the appearance of the creatures has not changed substantially in more than 150 million years; Bogert exhibits a giant crocodile skull over six feet in length on the program. Using a live ten-foot alligator in the studio, Ross Allen, owner of the...
Dates:
1955
Locusts
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 130
Scope and Contents
John Schmidt, a Rutgers University entomologist, explains the latest discoveries in protection from locust plagues. The historical incidence of locust plagues in Egypt and China dates back as far as the Biblical Seventh Plague vented on the Egyptians. The story progresses to more recent history when Brigham Young's Mormon settlement was infested in Utah and to the twentieth century when an enormous swarm of locusts attacked Morocco. Models and microscopic views of locusts are shown in the...
Dates:
1956
Madagascar
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 207
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the AMNH Davison-Willis Madagascar Expedition, 1953. The three tribes portrayed in this film, the Mahafaly, the Antandroy, and the Vezo, live on the southern and southwestern coast of Madagascar, between Tuleau and St. Dauphin. Following views of Vezo dwellings (houses on stilts built within a fenced area), the people are seen shelling and grinding corn, breast-feeding their children, fishing, and constructing a trano lay made from a sail and mast and used to protect them from...
Dates:
1953
Margaret Mead : a portrait by a friend
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 208
Scope and Contents
French filmmaker Jean Rouch interviews AMNH anthropologist Margaret Mead. Mead speaks about her personal history, her family, her influences and mentors, and her field work in Bali, New Guinea, and Manus (also known as Great Admiralty Island). Mead and Rouch walk through the AMNH Hall of Pacific Peoples, and she discusses her theories about museum exhibits. They also visit the Dept. of Anthropology specimen storage area. Towards the conclusion of her interview, Mead considers the history of...
Dates:
1978
Masailand
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 262
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the Edgar M. Queeny-AMNH African Expedition, 1953. This film was made in Narok, approximately 100 miles west of Nairobi, Kenya. It contains extensive zoological footage, as well as a rich ethnographic portrait of the moran, the warriors of Masai society. The moran are different in appearance from other Masai in that, while Masai shave their heads, the moran braid their hair, grease it heavily and smear it with red ocher; they also wear a sheet of calico knotted over their...
Dates:
1953
Mayan Indians
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 44
Scope and Contents
In this broadcast, Gordon Frederick Ekholm, museum archaeologist, and noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright discuss Mayan archaeology and culture while in the museum's Hall of Mexico and Central America. A film depicting ruins and the descendants of the Mayans provides moving portraits of the modern culture, emphasizing the facial similarities between the modern Indians and their ancestors. The film was produced by the United Fruit Company and Willard Pictures, Inc. Models of Mayan...
Dates:
1953
Meandering in Africa
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 209
Scope and Contents
Filmed during the AMNH Akeley African Expedition to the Belgian Congo (now Zaire), 1921-1922. This film was made by Carl Akeley, museum taxidermist, inventor, naturalist, and explorer. Akeley wanted to secure gorilla specimens for the museum and undertook this expedition accompanied by several friends of his: Chicago lawyer Herbert Bradley and his wife Mary; Alice, their five-year-old daughter; Alice's nanny, Priscilla Hall; and Akeley's secretary and editor of the film, Martha Miller...
Dates:
1921-1922
Medieval moderns : the peasants of Hungary
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 210
Scope and Contents
The film begins with panoramic views of Hungarian farmlands and Magyar peasants hoeing their fields, then focuses on their dwellings, made of wattle-anddaub, with reeds used to make a thatched roof; one such dwelling has been whitewashed by its female owner. The next sequence depicts the process used in making linen cloth from flax. After the flax is crushed to separate the fiber from the woody parts, the fiber is spun onto a spindle, then put through a whorl, a spinning wheel, and finally a...
Dates:
[1924]
Men of science
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 212
Scope and Contents
This film introduces the scientists, technicians, artists, and their work at the AMNH in 1938. It was made by AMNH photographer Charles H. Coles and is narrated by Charles Russell, curator of the Department of Education. Though mostly filmed at the museum, scenes from AMNH expeditions are included to show the relationship between the work-in-the-field and at the museum. The film opens with a view of the exterior of the museum and a general introduction. William H. Barton, of the AMNH-Hayden...
Dates:
1938
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192