He recorded actual artifacts and structures in meticulously crafted genre compositions recalling life in pre-Civil War America. In developing an art collection that exists within a larger context of historical artifacts, considerations of provenance and information regarding subject and artist figure as importantly in the process of acquisition as do questions of connoisseurship. Since the nineteenth century, the collection has grown through donation, purchase, and transfer from other state agencies. This Braille typewriter was manufactured by the American Printing House for the Blind and was transferred to the collection from the New York State School for the Blind, in Batavia. The State Museum's communications collections represent various means for recording and transmitting information.
Communications devices range from pencils and pens to computers.
The most spectacular of the latter category may be the 2,400 cubic foot Univac Mark III used by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance to process sales tax returns beginning in the mid-1960's. Model GM-295 manufactured c. 1938 by the General Electric Company at Schenectady. This was one of the earliest production sets. Viewers watched the image reflected into the mirror mounted underneath the hinged lid. Gift of the Smithsonian Institution.