The Animation World in the Library of
Congress
by Patrick Loughney, Ph.D.
The Library of Congress began collecting motion pictures
at the end of the 19th century as part of the copyright registration process.
(The U.S. Copyright Office is part of the Library of Congress.) The first
copyrighted "movie" was a series of Edison Kinetoscopic Records
registered on October 6, 1893 by a key assistant to Thomas Edison named
W.K.L. Dickson. Dickson was the primary inventor of the first practical
motion picture camera, the Edison Kinetograph, and the first peephole viewing
machine, the Edison Kinetoscope. From that date to the present, the Library
has collected descriptive documentation and other materials relating to
virtually every movie copyrighted in the United States, including animated
theatrical and independent short subjects, feature films and TV broadcasts.
The earliest animated film in the Library of Congress is the stop-motion
The Enchanted Drawing (Edison, 1900), featuring the work of movie
pioneer J. Stuart Blackton, who later went on to co-found the Vitagraph
Company of America.
The earliest animated film in the Library
of Congress is the stop-motion The
Enchanted Drawing (Edison, 1900),
featuring the work of movie pioneer
J. Stuart Blackton. 
Audio-Visual Materials Come of Age
During the first half of the 20th century
the Library of Congress was largely content with collecting documentation
about motion pictures in place of the actual films. That changed,
however, in May 1942, when Archibald MacLeish (Librarian of Congress from
1939 to 1942) founded a division to collect and preserve motion pictures,
in addition to providing filmographic information for researchers. MacLeish
saw that movies, radio broadcasts and recordings in all formats, constituted
essential records of American history. He believed it was appropriate for
audio-visual materials of all kinds to be accorded an equal place in the
nation's Library--alongside books, newspapers, photographs, maps and other
traditional forms of library materials--so they could be studied by future
generations for information about contemporary history and culture.
Today, the Library of Congress is the nation's largest publicly funded
motion picture research and preservation center. Through the activities
of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound division and its
Motion Picture Conservation Center, the Library carries out its mandate
to collect, preserve and make available for research the largest collection
of American produced motion pictures in the world. Broadly described, the
Library's motion picture collection has grown continuously since 1893 and
now amounts to over 250,000 film prints (35mm and 16mm) and more than 300,000
television broadcasts in film and video formats. In scope, these materials
encompass the entire history of American film production and a considerable
selection of foreign films over the past one hundred years.
Preservation is Key
As one might imagine in a collection of this scope and size, the number
of silent and sound era animated films in the Library of Congress is unsurpassed,
largely because of its efforts to recover and conserve what remains of
America's motion picture heritage. Over half of all movies made in America
between 1893 and 1951 have been lost through deterioration and neglect.
Animated films of the silent era have suffered in particular. However,
due to the Library's preservation efforts over the past thirty years, a
considerable number have been preserved in their original 35mm format and
are listed in the 1995 finding aid Silent Animated Films at the
Library of Congress, an eighty page guide to silent "cartoons"
now available for on-site viewing to qualified researchers. The guide includes
many examples of both classic and long-forgotten animated works, such as
Aesop's Fables, Alice Comedies, Felix the Cat, Goldwyn-Bray
Pictographs, Hearst-Vitagraph News Pictorials, Katzenjammer Kids,
Mutt and Jeff, Tony Sarg's Almanac and the timeless Out
of the Inkwell series. (In 1995 the Library issued a six-part series
of videos presenting rare films preserved in its collection, including
one with selections devoted to the Origins of Animation, 1900-1921.
Sound era animation is strongly represented in the Library's collection
of original 35mm camera negatives by many Warner Bros.' animated shorts
produced during the 1930s and `40s, and by the projection prints and/or
research copies of a majority of the theatrical animated features and short
subjects distributed in America since WWII. Television broadcasts have
been collected by the Library since the 1950s and the series for which
selected programs are available range from Beany and Cecil, Deputy
Dawg, I Am the Greatest--The Adventures of Muhammad Ali, Walt
Disney Presents, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, to
Winky Dink and You.
Sheltering History
Today, the goal of the M/B/RS division remains the same as when it
was defined by MacLeish at mid-century: to maintain an on-going collection
of motion picture, broadcast and recorded sound materials that broadly
document the history and creativity of the American people. In 1989 the
U.S. Congress established the Library of Congress National Film Preservation
Board to promote awareness of the need to preserve America's film history.
To help accomplish that mission, Congress also created the Library's National
Film Registry, requiring that the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington,
select twenty-five American films per year to be singled out for their
historical, aesthetic and cultural importance. Two hundred and twenty five
films have been added to the Registry to date and the animated films already
chosen include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Winsor McCay's
Gertie the Dinosaur, Fantasia (1940), Magical Maestro
(1952) and Chuck Jones' What's Opera, Doc?
The Library of Congress is
located
on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Thus, the Library's mission to collect motion
picture and recorded sound materials continues. Thousands of new items
come into our collection every month, including animated films and videos
from around the world. And, as our dedicated staff has for more than one
hundred years, they will be cataloged and preserved for posterity, for
both the present generation of researchers and those not yet born.
Viewing Information
The Library of Congress is located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
The motion picture collections are available through the Film and Television
Reading Room, located in the James Madison building (LM-338) at 101 Independence
Avenue, SE, Washington, D.C. 20540. Public hours are from 8:30 a.m. to
5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Film and television programs are available
for viewing on the premises and only to those working on a project leading
to a formal publication. For Internet information on the motion picture
collections and other resources of the Library of Congress, please see
http:/lcweb.loc.gov or www.loc.gov
Patrick Loughney is head of the Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture,
Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division of The Library of Congress.
Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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