Two Little Knowns: A Color Exhibition and a Science Museum
DOI: 10.1063/1.881511
In a search some three years ago for an old catalog of optical instruments, I went to the science and technology division of the New York Public Library and requested a certain volume indexed under what seemed an appropriate category. What the libra 17 messenger delivered to me turned out to be a diverse collection of pamphlets on optics and laboratory instruments. The catalog I had hoped to locate was not in the collection, and the items were of no interest to me—with one exception: a seemingly misfiled eight‐page pamphlet that came as a stunning surprise. Its cover page announced a “Printer’s Proof of General Outline Plan for Exhibition on Color.” The exhibition was scheduled to begin on 1 January 1931 at the “Museums [sic] of the Peaceful Arts (A Museum of Science and Industry)” at 220 East 42nd Street in New York City. The existence of such a museum was as surprising to me as the mounting of the exhibition.
References
1. L. T. Troland, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 6, 331 (1922).https://doi.org/JOSAAH
2. OSA Committee of Colorimetry, The Science of Color, Crowell, New York (1953).
3. “B.,” Science 63, 69 (1931). https://doi.org/SCIEAS
“B.” was Fay C. Brown.4. I. H. Godlove, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 22, 434 (1932).https://doi.org/JOSAAH
5. L. M. Hurvich, Color Vision, Sinauer, Sunderland, Mass. (1981).
6. K. T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York City, Yale U.P., New Haven, Conn. (1995), pp. 786–9.
7. Federal Writers’ Project, WPA Guide to New York City, Pantheon, New York (1982). Reprint of 1939 edition.
8. V. J. Danilov, Science and Technology Centers, MIT P., Cambridge, Mass. (1982), p. 24.
More about the Authors
Leo M. Hurvich. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
