Burton Holmes Materials in Research Collections

For someone who changed the world, his legacy in archives is spotty and incomplete. Here is what we know about holdings in various places.

The Human Studies Film Archives at the Smithsonian Institution is a good place to start looking for information about Holmes and his work. On the web we can see that in 2003 Stasia Millett donated to their archive a "Film collection of professionally produced ethnographic and natural history titles marketed for home consumption in the twenties and thirties by companies such as Kodak Cinegraph, Burton Holmes Travel Film-Reels and Pathegrams." They are described more fully as a collection originally put together by her father and featuring "Burton Holmes Film-Reels of Travel" including Canton China, Making Manila Cigars, From Cocoon to Kimono, Tonga Isles, and several titles marketed for the Century of Progress Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair 1933-34).

UCLA holds the glass slide collection created by Holmes in his years as a photographer and lecturer. There may have been as many as 20,000 slides, kept as one of the special collections of the Department of Art. This is described more fully in the discussion on hand-painted slides.

The Library of Congress has some Holmes films from various dates; first we list two from their online catalog:

A CENTURY OF PROGRESS EXPOSITION: AROUND THE FAIR WITH BURTON HOLMES [NO. 2]
Herford T. Cowling Film Collection
     Burton Holmes Films, 1933
     Photographer: Herford Tynes Cowling
     1 reel, 390 ft., 16mm, ref. print       FLA 226
A tour of the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago in 1933-1934. Includes scenes of the various modes of transportation at the fair, various halls, activities, and villages, including Indian villages.

A CENTURY OF PROGRESS EXPOSITION: INDIAN VILLAGE
Herford T. Cowling Film Collection
     Burton Holmes Films, 1933
     1 reel, 114 ft., 16mm, ref. print       FLA 236
Shows scenes at Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition of Navajo Indians from New Mexico, Hopi Indians from Arizona, Sioux Indians from North Dakota, and Winnebago Indians from Wisconsin in replicas of their native surroundings, dressed in traditional costumes, performing dances unique to their tribes, and working with tribal crafts.

Also at the LoC some additional films, identified and described in 1990 by Fatimah Rony; see her 1996 book "The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle" (Duke, 1996):

BEAUTIFUL BERMUDA
Herford T. Cowling Film Collection
     Burton Holmes Lectures, Inc., 1921
     8 minutes, silent, 16mm, b/w; Paramount-Burton Holmes   FLA 225
Edited and titled by Burton Holmes; Photographer: Herford T. Cowling

A CENTURY OF PROGRESS: DARKEST AFRICA
Herford T. Cowling Film Collection
     Burton Holmes Films in Association with Herford T. Cowling, 1933
     5 minutes, silent, 16mm, b/w;        FLA 229
Views of Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition's Aftican shows, including dances of Uganda and Nigeria, and firewalkers of Angola

AN INDIAN DURBAR
     Burton Holmes Lectures, Inc. 1926
     1200 feet, silent, 16mm, b/w;        FLA 253-255
Scenes of coronation of Majaraja Haris Singh of Kashmir; parades, and other pomp and circumstance. Issued without subtitles for lecture use. A shorter sound version is in the Herford T. Cowling Film Collection

THE MELTING POT OF THE PACIFIC
AFI Collection Thomas Souper
     Burton Holmes for the U.S. Shipping Board. 1923 [date on film can]
     one reel, 921 feet     FEB 7817
Shows different kinds of Hawaiians and compares this "melting pot" with the volcanoes of Hawaii

SIGHTS OF SUVA
AFI/McPherson Collection
     Paramount-Burton Holmes Travel Pictures. 1918
     one reel, 919 feet, silent, 35mm, b/w, reference print     FEB 7817
Chatty travelogue about the capital of Fiji being made up of ex-cannibals, British, and East Indians; shows market scenes, loading cargo, street scenes etc. Lots of joking on cannibalism.

Ms Rony comments: "Not a complete list."

The Burton Holmes' film "Seeing London" is online at the Internet Archive. You can watch it via streaming media if you have a fast connection, or download it to your computer. (Warning! it is very large.) Running time, 13 minutes.

The Johnson-Shaw Stereoscopic Museum in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Holmes wrote descriptions for numerous stereoscopic slide sets for Keystone, concentrating on travel destinations and remote locations. Was this a precursor of BHI's interest in Holography?

The Keystone-Mast stereographic collection at the University of California, Riverside. Click on "Permanent Collections" and then select this one. Of course, there are others you may want to take a llok at.

Update history: This page created 10 May 2004. Revised 27 November 2006.