American Museum of Natural History
Organization
Found in 134 Collections and/or Records:
Darwin's voyage
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 97
Scope and Contents
Edwin Harris Colbert, AMNH curator of fossil reptiles and amphibians, is interviewed for this broadcast concerning Charles Darwin's five year voyage around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin's revolutionary theories on evolution and survival of the fittest were largely formulated during this voyage. Only 22 years old at the time, Darwin was the naturalist commissioned to make geographic and navigational surveys for the British Navy. His theories on the process of adaptation and natural...
Dates:
1955
Deafness
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 136
Scope and Contents
Charles Collingwood explores the world of deafness in this program. In conjunction with a trained audiologist from the New York Lexington School for the Deaf, an electrical set-up enables Collingwood's voice to be filtered out and demonstrates the tones that are lost when deafness begins. The "sounds of deafness" are carefully simulated in this program, which enables the viewers to understand the difficulties that occur when one cannot hear or speak well. Thursday's Children, an Academy...
Dates:
1956
Djuka
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 39
Scope and Contents
Located in the bush country of Dutch Guiana (now Surinam), the Djuka civilization and its history are examined in this broadcast. Originally African slaves, the Djuka people defeated their Dutch masters in an open rebellion in the early part of the eighteenth century. Charles Collingwood, the host of the program, discusses the art and history of the Djuka civilization with Morton Kahn, professor of public health at Cornell University's Medical School, and leader of the AMNH's expedition into...
Dates:
1953
Egypt ; Fish genetics ; Geology of the far north
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 103
Scope and Contents
SEGMENT 1: Egypt. In a remote broadcast from the Brooklyn Museum, the first segment attempts to reconstruct life in Egypt during the time of the Pharoahs, as seen through Egyptian art. John Cooney, curator of egyptology at the Brooklyn Museum, narrates. Film sequences of ruins, pyramids, the Nile, wells, and Thebes were produced by Ancient World Film Series and the Archaeological Institute of America with Ray Gardner. SEGMENT 2: Fish Genetics. The second segment is concerned with fish...
Dates:
1955
Elastic time
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 58
Scope and Contents
Richard H. Pough, chairman of the Department of Conservation and General Ecology at the AMNH, demonstrates new photographic techniques. Man has increased his knowledge through time-lapse photographic and stroboscopic (high-speed) techniques. A year in the life of a field of grain, from seed to maturity, is filmed using time-lapse photography. Charles M. Bogert, museum herpetologist, produced slow-motion films of a rattlesnake's strike. Other footage includes a drone fly, a frog leaping, the...
Dates:
1954
Embryology
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 57
Scope and Contents
Evelyn Shaw, of the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History, introduces the program which opens with film clips of chicks, monkeys, kinkajous, and cocker spaniels and discussions of their beginnings. Charts of human growth in the womb are shown. The development of frog, trout, fish, and chicken embryos is seen through time-lapse photographs. The films were provided by United World Films.
Dates:
1954
Essence of life
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 99
Scope and Contents
William D. Clarke, AMNH curator of invertebrates, reviews the nature and range of life on earth, illustrating how all normal forms of life have five basic properties: responsiveness, the ability to reproduce, growth, metabolism, and movement. A live performance by UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) demonstrates that despite its amazing capabilities, far superior to human clerks, its giant brain falls short of qualifying it as life. A powerful electron microscope is used to show that the...
Dates:
1955
Evolution of the horse
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 135
Scope and Contents
This broadcast from the Aqueduct Racetrack features horse trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, trainer of the thoroughbred Nashua. The discussion focuses on the characteristics of a fine horse and on the evolution of the horse. Edwin Harris Colbert, curator of paleontology at the AMNH, is also a guest on this program. He traces the modern horse's evolution back 60 million years to the tiny Eophippus. Films are shown of horses in the Wheatley and Greentree Stables. A new colt being born and the...
Dates:
1956
Explorations for science in South America
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 104
Scope and Contents
Ross Allen, owner of the Ross Allen Reptile Farm in Silver Springs, Florida, discusses the role of adventurers and explorers in the cause of science. Allen collects and supplies animals to schools, zoos, and museums. Allen exhibits two deadly reptiles he captured and brought from Brazil, including a fer-delance, a large, extremely venomous pit viper. The poison apparatus of the snakes and a demonstration of "milking" them for venom informs the viewers about potential anti-venoms. The Count...
Dates:
1955
Family of man
Collection
Identifier: Film Collection no. 113
Scope and Contents
This broadcast on the "Family of Man" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art was originally shown on June 19, 1955. The show won an award at the Venice Film Festival and was exhibited at the Edinburgh Film Festival. It is repeated here in its entirety.
Dates:
1955
American Museum of Natural History
Museum Archives at the Gottesman Research Library
200 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024-5192