Catalog: Moving Image and Audio Collection

Several million feet of motion picture film, 3,000 oral histories, and hundreds of additional video and audio recordings.

The Collection

The Rhode Island Historical Society’s Moving Image and Audio collection (MIAC) contains several million feet of motion picture film and thousands of additional audio and video recordings documenting life in Rhode Island from 1900 to today.

The majority of the moving image material is comprised of local television news films from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, with the most extensive collections being WJAR-TV (Ch. 10), WPRI-TV (Ch. 12), and WSBE-TV (Ch. 36/Rhode Island PBS).

Other MIAC materials include early silent narrative films, home movies, newsreels, promotional films, local commercials, documentaries, educational films, and audio recordings.

MIAC also features more than 3,000 oral histories on reel-to-reel and cassette tape, covering topics including Rhode Island folklore, Rhode Island working women, Woonsocket labor activities, Rhode Island’s islands, and Temple Beth-El – Providence.

To view a selection of our digitized material, please visit the RIHS’s YouTube page and consider subscribing.

Requests

As large portions of these collections are not yet available in our online catalog, it is recommended that those seeking material arrange for a consultation with the RIHS MIAC Archivist to discuss research tips, turnaround times, and any potential fees a request may incur.

Those seeking to use materials in publically-distributed projects such as documentaries, art exhibits, podcasts, and public performances should also contact the RIHS MIAC Archivist to discuss rights and use fees.

Please email miac@rihs.org or call 273-8107 ext.420.

For general inquiries, please email reference@rihs.org.

Research Suggestions & Notes

  • Most items are cataloged with the titles news producers provided for segments at the time of their creation (which may have been shorthand). When searching, we suggest keeping your terms broad.
  • You can use an asterisk to find multiple words with the same root – e.g. “brew*” will also search “brewery,” “brewer,” and “brewers.”
  • Please note that the WPRI collection is not available in our online catalog and is only searchable by date, meaning that events can often be found but not topics.
  • We do not have any material from WPRI or WJAR covering 1982 to the present.

 

 

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