New York State Education Department Division of Visual Instruction Negatives and Positive Transparencies of Instructional…

Organized into four subseries: I. Classified Negatives; II. Unclassified Negatives; III. Positive Transparencies ("Source Material"); and IV. Unnumbered Negatives.

This series consists mostly of glass plate negatives and positive transparencies plus a few film negatives, which were collected and reviewed for the possible production of educational lantern slides to be included in a loan collection circulated to schools and teachers colleges. The negatives depict a variety of scenes, people and objects illustrating subjects such as U.S. and world geography, U.S. and world history, literature and fine arts, natural science, trades and industries, education, and schools (See Series A3045, Instructional lantern slides, for a further description of images). The series is organized into the following subseries:

Subseries I, Classified Negatives: Consists of all images that were judged suitable for the production of educational lantern slides and therefore were classified according to subject matter. Classified negatives were assigned a call number based on their subject classification. Each classified negative was accessioned and entered into an accession register (see Series A3133, Registers of accessioned and classified negatives), and assigned a negative number according to the order in which it was entered in the register. Each negative number has a letter prefix that identifies the size of the negative: "A" = 6 1/2" x 8 1/2", "B" = 5" x 7", "C" = 4" x 5", "D" = 11" x 14" and no alphabetic prefix = 8" x 10". A card for each classified negative appears in Series A3132, Subject card indexes to instructional photographic images. Many of the negatives originally classified and used for the production of lantern slides were later withdrawn from use and destroyed. Negative jackets provide the following information: negative number; call number; preliminary number; title; location; maker; date made; date acquired; source; published lists and studies for which the image was used or rejected; and record of the number and dates of slides made (on back of jacket).

Subseries II, Unclassified Negatives: Consists of images that were never selected for use in producing educational lantern slides, except to make initial test slides. These negatives received a preliminary number (preceded by "X"). Many of them are listed on the very general subject cards at the end of Series A3132. Some unclassified negatives were evidently rejected for all uses and destroyed, although the test slides made from them (see Series A3045) were retained. The jackets to those negatives provide the same information as those in the subseries of classified negatives except that they omit the negative number, call number, and record of lists and studies for which the image was used or rejected.

Subseries III, Positive Transparencies ("Source Material"): Consists of positive images on glass plates, apparently acquired from the photographers or institutions owning the original negatives. These positive transparencies were used to produce the negative described in the Unclassified Negatives subseries. Some of the negatives thus produced remained unclassified, while others were classified and used to produce lantern slides. The jackets for these transparencies give the same information as the jackets for unclassified negatives.

Subseries IV, Unnumbered Negatives: Consists of images that fall into three categories, none of which were given preliminary numbers. The three categories are: Negatives of Rand-McNally maps; Unlabeled glass plate negatives, mostly scenic vistas; and Portraits of delegates to the 1915 Constitutional Convention labeled and arranged by name. There is no list, index, or catalog of these images. The jacket for all three categories of negatives gives unidentified numbers, probably the makers' image numbers.

High resolution images of selected original documents in this series are available in State Archives Digital Collections.

A3045 Instructional lantern slides contains related records.

A3132 Subject card indexes to instructional photographic images contains related records.

A3135 Published study guides and lists of educational lantern slides contains related records.

A3133 Registers of accessioned and classified negatives contains related records.

A4199 Special lantern slide sets [ca. 1880-1934] contains related records.

Index to lantern slides is available at the New York State Archives.

All negatives in this series were acquired after the 1911 State Capitol fire destroyed all negatives previously collected. Some of these negatives, however, were made from lantern slides that did survive the fire. Other negatives or positive transparencies were purchased from photographers or institutions having original negatives.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.