MetaFilter posts tagged with collection and history

The Definitive History of the Colors of Crayola

unliteral — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:17:22 -0800

This is a 40 part feature that steps through Crayola’s color history from 1903 up to ~~the current day~~ 2011.

Go to War. Do Art. (II)

zarq — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 11:22:15 -0800

The permanent collection of the (US) National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago contains more than 2,500 pieces of art by 250 artists, all of which can be seen at NVAM Collection Online. The site includes biographical material on the artists who created the work. Featured Artwork. A small selection. (Via. Images at links in this post may be nsfw, and/or disturbing to some viewers.)

Stewardess Uniform Collection

Trurl — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:51:55 -0800

In the seven years since its last^* appearance in the blue, Cliff Muskiet's Stewardess Uniform Collection has grown to more than 1,000 different uniforms from more than 400 different airlines. Strangely missing: the saris of Air India

We Have Cameras

zarq — Tue, 10 May 2011 07:50:36 -0800

Eyes of a Generation is a "virtual museum of television cameras, and the broadcast history they captured," curated by actor and radio DJ Bobby F. Ellerbee. The site has hundreds of photos of cameras and of television sets backstage. It also includes vintage articles and a neat look at how the moon backdrop on the Conan set works. Mr. Ellerbee collects vintage television cameras, some dating back to the 1940's. (YouTube link)

Iconographie ouvrages anciens

Ufez Jones — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:33:03 -0800

Iconographie ouvrages anciens is a collection of historic animal illustrations that date as far back as the 16th Century, courtesy of the library at Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon. A couple of quick highlights include: - The Illustrated book of Pigeons with Standards for Judging - Voyage de Siam (1686) - Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes - Tome I (1775) - Tome II (1776) - Tome III (1780) - Illustrated Book of Poultry (1890) and from a little more fantasy-based perspective: Monstrorum historia (1642) There are some other great collections listed as well. Site is primarily in French. Enjoy.

Bibliotheca Corviniana

Paragon — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:56:55 -0800

The library of King Matthias I of Hungary, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was "the second greatest collection of books in Europe in the Renaissance period, after that of the Vatican." Destroyed following the 15th century Turkish invasion of Hungary (despite the efforts of Matthias' vassal Vlad III the Impaler), a few surviving codices have been digitized by the National Széchényi Library and the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Bibliotheca Corviniana Digitalis contains some beautiful and damaged books and scrolls, but even the covers have a grimoirish quality to them. The site is mostly in Hungarian and uses frames - click on "Corvinák" for the index, and on the yellow circles to see the scanned codices in their entirety.

Wiring the Castle

Miko — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:09:16 -0800

Circuits are flipping on in the nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago, 31 "digerati" -- like Clay Shirky, Chris Anderson, and George Oates -- dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference "Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age". Dan Cohen of the Center for History and New Media provides a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by watching the keynotes, paging through the Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on Twitter, listen to its podcasts, watch its YouTube channel, visit the Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers, Hope diamond, Negro Leagues baseball, or coelocanth.

Historical Photographs of China

peacay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:23:32 -0800

The Sidney D Gamble Photograph Collection at Duke University consists of about 5,000 newly digitised pictures, taken predominantly in China between 1917 and 1932. Browse by subject, category or location tags. Photos taken in 1908 are to be added in the future. [via]

something for everyone

nickyskye — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:33:20 -0800

Club Little Gun, a bunch of tiny guns built into things from rings to crosses. Eat your heart out, Indiana Jones, the whip pistol. via More than 15, 000 pictures with descriptions on the main site of a Belgian collector, in both French and English.

"thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years"

MetaMonkey — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:54:17 -0800

Picture-History.com has "thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years", organised by collections and themes.

Flash, bang, wallop.

tellurian — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:52:27 -0800

Sechtl-Vosecek. A collection of photographs taken over the last 150 years are in the process of being digitized. Check out the Sokol costume ball Šibřinky or take a trip from Bechyně to Tábor. Also available is a selection concentrating on Bukhara from the Prokudin-Gorsky Collection. And much, much, more.

Here's the Beef (cake)

dobbs — Sat, 09 Oct 2004 14:22:33 -0800

The Golden Age of Iron Men - Online Physical Culture Musem

Complete scans of an odd and very large collection of muscle/fitness publications and profiles of the authors, all from the early part of the century.

See the USA in your CHEVROLET

anastasiav — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 21:19:04 -0800

The Old Car Manual Project

The Open Video Project

taz — Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:11:57 -0800

The Open Video Project offers nearly 2,000 videos from various sources and collections, including such gems as 34 reels from the 1930s and 40s in the Digital Himalaya Project, a series of classic television commercials, and, from the Library of Congress, some shorts from the early 1900s, including the popular 2 a.m. in the Subway and A Ballroom Tragedy ("Vaudeville" is a good search term for finding more like this). Also, especially for MeFi, Johnny Learns His Manners.

biographies

pooligan — Mon, 25 Aug 2003 08:53:27 -0800

A million lives. Links to thousands of biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, narratives, oral histories and more.

Playing cards from around the world

misteraitch — Tue, 10 Dec 2002 04:24:56 -0800

Playing cards from around the world. Spanish cards, Swiss cards, Finnish cards, Israeli cards and Japanese cards, for example. Just a small part of the collection at the Elliot Avedon Museum and Archive of Games at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

taz — Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:02:25 -0800

The Smithsonian offers an online sampling of its Collection of Aeronautic Sheet Music. From the introduction: "...widespread fascination with flight has inspired an enormous output of historical drawings, paintings, advertisements and illustrations for publications. Some of the most colorful illustrations are those which adorn sheet music. In the Bella Landauer collection, you can find illustrations that range from the bizarre to the commonplace, from the humorous to the mundane. But most are colorful and interesting."
The collection is divided into categories such as "Ballooning", "Biplanes", and "Flying Machines". I love this one from 1914, called "A Hundred Years From Now".

History of U.S. Armies in Uniform

RobertLoch — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 19:53:30 -0800

History of U.S. Armies in Uniform From His Majesty’s First Independent Company of American Rangers, Colonial America, 1747 to Special Operations, Tora Bora, Afghanistan, 2002. Although this site is very interesting from a historical perspective, I like it because it contains what must be the coolest Action Man collection in existence.