Beneath the surface of the Upper New York Bay might rest DuMont’s legacy, forgotten by most but not entirely lost. But while its kinescopes may have submitted to a watery grave, the efforts of open-access archives like the Internet Archive—storing the personal collections of those who saw value in preserving their histories—offer glimmers of hope. Perhaps, like my cherished collection of VHS tapes, some forgotten episode, script, or production material is still out there, waiting to be discovered, languishing in an old filing cabinet, on a neglected shelf, or in a dusty attic. Or maybe we’ll unearth some other unknown broadcast treasure in the search. With the ongoing work of archivists, collectors, and historians, maybe we can work to piece together the remnants of America’s vanishing early television history and provide to future generations. I want to believe.
About the
Taylor Cole Miller is an Assistant special database of Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and a media history content creator under the handle tvdoc. His research focuses on television histories, syndication, and queer media studies and can be found in journals like Camera Obscura and Television and New Media as well as numerous anthologies and popular press outlets. He is co-editor of the forthcoming collection The Golden Girls: Essays from the Lanai from Rutgers University Press.
This weekend, at the Kennedy Center Honors, recognizing their impact on music and culture. You can join in the celebration by listening to one of the 17,000 Grateful Dead concert recordings preserved at the Internet Archive.
The Grateful Dead Collection, part of the Live Music Archive, features more than 17,000 concert recordings spanning decades of the band’s live shows. The collection is a result of the Grateful Dead’s longstanding collaboration with their fans and the taper community, supporting non-commercial recording and sharing of music taped at their shows, creating an unparalleled archive of live music.
