Research


Scope and Content Note

Photographer Rudolph Raffius used the notebooks in this series to catalog and describe negatives that he provided to the Division of Visual Instruction (DVI). Each notebook entry includes a brief description of the image, location where photographed, date photographed, and negative number assigned by Raffius. The DVI used many of the negatives to produce test lantern slides, which were then assigned preliminary numbers (denoted by an "X" preceding the number). The notebook entries for these negatives are annotated with the preliminary numbers (in red ink).

The DVI subsequently classified some of the images submitted by Raffius for use in educational slide sets loaned to schools. Although these images were assigned negative and call numbers, the DVI did not annotate the notebook entries with these numbers. The images cataloged and described in the notebooks depict industrial sites, buildings and other structures, works of art, people, and outdoor scenes in European countries including Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, and Belgium.