Field Book Lantern Slides

This set consists of images Jenny Mathias, graduate student at Pratt Institute’s School of Library and Information Science, curated during her internship with the Field Book Project, a joint project of the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution Archives. The images are culled from two sets of glass lantern slides used by researchers to present their work to colleagues and to the general public. Some lantern slides have been hand colored.

The first 4 lantern slides document the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition collection of 1909 (SIA Acc. 06-093). They depict various scenes and persons related to the expedition including wildlife specimens; porters carrying luggage; and a portrait of a Maasai man. The expedition traveled to Nairobi, the vicinity of Mt. Kenya, and up the Nile to Khartoum.

The remaining images are from the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology records, circa 1947-1974 and undated (RU 424). The lanterns slides are believed to be from around 1900-1935. They depict the excavation, preparation, installation and display of vertebrate animal specimens including both dinosaur and mammal skeletons. They include images from expeditions by Erwin Hinckley Barbour, J.L. Wortman and James W. Gidley and others.

To learn more about the Smithsonian and visual archives, visit THE BIGGER PICTURE.