Guide to the Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection
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Guide to the Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection NMAH.AC.1323 Vanessa Broussard Simmons, Franklin A. Robinson Jr., and Craig A. Orr. Processing and encoding funded by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. 2016 Archives Center, National Museum of American History P.O. Box 37012 Suite 1100, MRC 601 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 [email protected] http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives Table of Contents Collection Overview ........................................................................................................ 1 Administrative Information .............................................................................................. 1 Biographical / Historical.................................................................................................... 2 Arrangement..................................................................................................................... 3 Scope and Contents........................................................................................................ 3 Names and Subjects ...................................................................................................... 3 Container Listing ............................................................................................................. 4 Series 1: Background Information and Research Materials, 1915-2012, undated..................................................................................................................... 4 Series 2: Photographic Materials, 1900-2012, undated......................................... 11 Series 3: Charles T. (Ted) Grubb Papers, 1919-1999, undated........................... 362 Series 4: Scrapbooks, 1901-1950, undated......................................................... 364 Series 5: Audiovisual Materials, undated............................................................. 366 Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection NMAH.AC.1323 Collection Overview Repository: Archives Center, National Museum of American History Title: Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection Identifier: NMAH.AC.1323 Date: 1900-2012, undated Extent: 65 Cubic feet (124 boxes) Creator: Schiedt, Duncan P., 1921-2014 Language: English . Summary: Duncan Schiedt (1921-2014) was a jazz scholar, writer, photographer, film maker, researcher and pianist. He authored four books relating to jazz history. Many of his photographs and articles were featured in magazines, periodicals and documentaries. Schiedt also collected the work of other photographers on the subject of jazz. The collection primarily consists of photographs created by or collected by Mr. Schiedt. Digital Image(s): Duncan Schiedt Jazz Collection Content: Administrative Information Acquisition Information Donated to the Archives Center in 2014 by Duncan Schiedt's daughter and son, Leslie Michel and Cameron Schiedt. Related Materials Archives Center Leonard Gaskin Papers Processing Information Collection processed by Alex Jeffries, Anne Morgan Jones, Brittany Lewis, Corey Schmidt, Elizabeth Livesey, Franklin Robinson Jr., Holly Nelson, Marian Tatum Webb, Michaela L. Feltman, Nelse Greenway, Ramona Williamson, Rebekah Keel, Rebecca Kuske, and Vanessa Broussard Simmons. Preferred Citation Duncan Schiedt Jazz Collection, 1900-2012, Archives Center, National Museum of American History Page 1 of 366 Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection NMAH.AC.1323 Restrictions Collection is open for research. Conditions Governing Use Reproduction restricted due to copyright or trademark. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions. Biographical / Historical For over sixty-five years, professional photographer Duncan Preston Schiedt combined his love of jazz with his love of photography. Born in 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to Jacob and Kitty Schiedt, he later moved with his family to New York City. In the mid-1930s, he discovered the two loves of his life. Ironically, he first heard jazz or "swing music" as it was then known in a radio broadcast while attending a boys' school in England in 1936. Back in the States by 1938, he was enthralled when a friend showed him his basement darkroom and taught him how to develop film. He soon bought his own camera and began taking pictures in the Times Square movie palaces, nightclubs, and big band shows of New York. In World War II, he served as a cameraman in the Army Air Force, where he recorded atomic bomb tests in the western Pacific area, including Bikini Atoll. In 1950, Schiedt married Betty Benjamin and moved to Hollywood where he worked at the Atomic Energy Commission's film laboratory for eight months. After returning to civilian life, he worked as a photographer in advertising in New York before moving in 1951 to Pittsboro, Indiana, where his parents had relocated. He had two children, Cameron and Leslie. Thereafter, his interests in jazz and photography merged and became more than a hobby, as he transformed himself into one of the country's leading jazz historians and photographers. He traveled the country to photograph performers in movie houses, night clubs, big-band shows, jazz festivals, and other venues. Schiedt always shot in black and white, since to him that was the essence of jazz. As he wrote in the introduction to his book, Jazz in Black and White: The Photographs of Duncan Schiedt, "Jazz is a black and white music. Its range, from blinding brilliance to deepest shadings, seems to demand the drama that black and white can so easily provide. Consequently, when I take a photograph of a jazz subject, I see it in those terms." He processed all his own film in his own darkroom so that any picture bearing his name was totally his own work. His photographs have been exhibited in numerous galleries, including the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, the Chicago Public Library, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Pensacola Art Museum. While shooting, Schiedt also interviewed his subjects, and those interviews added to his ever- growing scholarship in the field. He was the author of three books, The Jazz State of Indiana, Twelve Lives in Jazz,and Jazz in Black and White: The Photographs of Duncan Schiedt, and co-author of Ain't Misbehavin': The Story of Fats Waller. His photographs and articles have been published in the leading jazz periodicals and magazines. Over the years, he also amassed a first-rate collection of historical photographs of jazz musicians. Both his historical photographs and his original work were featured extensively in Ken Burns' Public Broadcasting Station series "Jazz." Duncan Schiedt died on March 12, 2014. Page 2 of 366 Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection NMAH.AC.1323 Scope and Contents The collection consists of Schiedt's own photographs of jazz performers, photographs of jazz performers taken by other photographers, research notes, films, and recordings of jazz. Arrangement Collection is arranged into five series. Series 1: Background Information and Research Materials, 1915-2012, undated Series 2: Photographic Materials, 1900-2012, undated Subseries 2.1: Historical Photographs and Negatives, 1915-2012 Subseries 2.2: Artist Files Photographs, 1900-2000, undated Subseries 2.3: Subject Files Photographs, 1916-2002, undated Subseries 2.4: Roscoe Allen Photographic Prints, undated Subseries 2.5: Individual Instrumentalists Photographic Prints and Negatives, 1938-1990, undated Subseries 2.6: John Minor Negatives, undated Subseries 2.7: Indianapolis Theater Photographic Prints and Negatives, 1935-1956, undated Subseries 2.8: Theater and Vaudeville Negatives, 1910-1948, undated Subseries 2.9: Glass Plate Negatives and Copy Prints, undated Subseries 2.10: Publicity and Festival Negatives, 1930-1962, undated Series 3: Charles T (Ted) Grubb Papers, 1919-1999, undated Series 4: Scrapbooks, 1901-1950, undated Series 5: Audiovisual Materials, undated Names and Subject Terms This collection is indexed in the online catalog of the Smithsonian Institution under the following terms: Subjects: Jazz Music Musicians Page 3 of 366 Series 1: Background Information and Research Materials Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection NMAH.AC.1323 Container Listing Series 1: Background Information and Research Materials, 1915-2012, undated Materials include research notes and other information documenting Schiedt's collecting activities. An index to the Jazz Archive of Duncan Schiedt is a very useful tool for understanding how Schiedt maintained his collection and it provides the most comprehensive information about individual photographs and negatives. There is correspondence with other collectors, including Franklin S. Driggs relating to the trading of photographic materials. Schiedt conducted telephone interviews, and his notes and transcripts from these conversations arecan be found among these materials. There are newspaper articles and obituaries primarily relating to jazz musicians. In addition to collecting Schiedt also wrote about jazz and his undated manuscript "'Ain't Behavin': A Biography of Thomas "Fats" Waller Famed Jazzman 1904-1943" is found among these materials. Lastly, there are orders for photographs, an address book and advertising and promotional materials for jazz events. The materials are arranged in chronological order. Box 1, Folder 1 Moss Family Band (Earle M. Moss), 1915-1921 Box 1, Folder 2 Early interviews, 1925-1977 Box 1, Folder 3 Notes from Downbeat, 1938-1940 Box 1, Folder 3 Notes from News, 1927 Box 1, Folder 4 All Girl Bands, interviews (transcripts),