Donations to the Archives
The WGBH Archives acquires materials that help document the history of the Foundation. As such, the Archives is very interested in acquiring any paper, film, video, or audio materials alums may have relating to their work at WGBH. Contact Keith Luf if you would like to learn more.
Here are a few items of note that have been donated to the WGBH Archives this year by WGBH Alums.
Larry Creshkoff papers
Larry Creshkoff’s staff card came to us among Larry’s personal papers that his daughters donated to the Archives. Faced with the unwanted prospect of disposing of Larry’s (and portions of Nancy Creshkoff’s) papers and audio recordings, the daughters contacted me and we arranged for them to donate the material to the Archives. We are thrilled to have it and look forward to ensuring it has a good home here in the WGBH Archival Collection.
The papers are fascinating as they document his professional career from his days at Harvard, onto LICBC and WGBH, to his time after he left WGBH in 1957. Also of note were over 100 audiotape recordings of Nancy’s early work on Children’s Circle from 1951 and 1952.
Fundraiser to help WGBH rebuild
The fundraising poster is something we took out of storage and put on display here in the Archives department recently.
It came to us from Suzanne Morse back in 1996, and as you can see from the caption documents just one of the many small, but wonderful efforts that went into helping get WGBH back on its feet following the October 1961 fire.
This poster was made by me in October ’61 for the girls at Nashoba Country Day School in Concord, MA, who are pictured in their gym uniforms. A large jar was placed beside it & the students soon filled it with coins. Their contribution was sent to WGBH in 12/61 (I think).
I thought you might enjoy having this bit of memorabilia for your archives — in celebration of your fortieth anniversary! Congratulations!!
Suzanne R. Morse (Mrs. Thomas R. Morse, Jr.) 3/96
Innovative casting process from Science Reporter
The horses were given to us recently by Ted Steinke (Class of 1956-57). Ted recounts that the horses were the result of an episode of Science Reporter he directed circa 1958-1960.
The program involved the studies of an MIT professor whose work involved a method of rapidly casting metals by utilizing a Styrofoam model. A figure would be carved out of Styrofoam, packed in sand, and molten metal would be poured onto the model, taking the shape of the pre-carved figure. The goal was to devise a way of speeding up the more common “lost wax” process of casting.
The darker horse, made of bronze, is an example the professor created in his lab, while the lighter horse, made of aluminum, was made live on the air during Science Reporter. You’ll note that the aluminum example only has three legs (the missing fourth can be seen as part of the base), this was due to the fact that the sculpture was not given enough time to properly set and dry.
In each of these cases I cannot stress enough the importance the WGBH Archives places in acquiring materials that help to document the history of the Foundation. Contact me if you would like to donate any paper, film, video, or audio materials you may have relating to your work at WGBH.