Received from the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, Series I. consists of materials both relevant and tangential to the larger ISCC manuscripts collection. The Cooper-Hewitt materials consist of miscellaneous films, prints and slides relating to design, art and architecture. Included in this material is correspondence related to several English Romantic paintings in an unidentified family’s collection. Additionally, there are a number of prints and negatives related to natural history, Japanese art, urban design and mineralogy.

In Series II. are items related to Dorothy Nickerson’s contributions to the development of standardized systems for identifying and evaluating color. The bulk of this series consists of materials related to A. H. Munsell’s painting and color system collected by Dorothy Nickerson. In the collection are materials relating to images of Munsell’s paintings given by members of the painter’s family to Dorothy Nickerson: approximately three dozen prints, 6 color slides, and photocopies of articles and materials related to Munsell’s work (Including a detailed inventory prepared by Joy Turner Luke of the ISCC and correspondence regarding Munsell’s portrait of Helen Keller.) Paintings include seascapes, a portrait of Helen Keller, and Munsell’s The Ascension of Elijah, winner of Second Prize at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, c.1885; The collection also includes a photograph of Munsell’s Boston studio. The collection contains many slides used to illustrate Dorothy Nickerson’s article on the history of the Munsell Color System, published in the journal Color Engineering, Vol.7, No.5 and reprinted as the third in a series of articles for the journal Color Research and Application, Vol. 1, No. 3., 1968, 1975. There are approximately 70 slides of charts and diagrams illustrating the Munsell system and mounted slides of Munsell charts and models, undated.