Artifactual 1895 Films

Malcolm X’s dentist, Abdul Salaam, was an avid 8mm film enthusiast. His collection of footage is an invaluable resource for historians and documentarians. It captures the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X through the lens of an ordinary person with an extraordinary passion.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.

How have 41 prop vehicles from the James Bond movie franchise ended up in a hangar in rural Illinois? Sounds like a question for Factual. Arti Factual.
From You Only Live Twice and Dr. No, to GoldenEye and Skyfall, learn the story of the world's most prominent collector of the vehicles from the James Bond film franchise.
You can donate to the Ian Fleming Foundation here.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.

In the 1960s, astronaut fever turned a tiny Florida beach town into a Cold War-era tourist trap.  A lounge act called the We Three Trio capitalized on this trend, earning their fifteen minutes of fame with a song about the Mercury Seven astronauts.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.

When writer Anne de Courcy placed a tape recorder in front of Antony Armstrong-Jones—formally known as Lord Snowdon—she had no idea what kind of material she’d get. But she was determined to write the first proper biography of the eccentric photographer who married Princess Margaret in 1960. By the time she was done with her book Snowdon: the Biography, she had more than 90 taped interviews with friends and family in the circle of the House of Windsor—which she put in a plastic bag and shoved into a closet for over a decade.

You can learn more about Anne de Courcy and her work here.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.

How did something as boring as maps for insurance companies become one of the highest-traffic items on the Library of Congress's website? Because these maps were accidentally telling the stories of the cities they depicted -- cities that were growing, changing, and sometimes withering away...

You can look for Sanborn maps of your town or city in digital collection of the Library of Congress here.

You can find more information about the history of the Sanborn collection at Cal State Northridge here.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.

When an amateur singer crosses paths with Thomas Edison in 1899, the resulting recordings are a glimpse into the world of  fin de siècle America.

Many thanks to the University of California, Santa Barbara Library, which has made these amazing recordings available through a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 2.5 License.

You can explore UCSB's collection of wax cylinder recordings and read about the history of recordings here. And you can donate to the upkeep of these recordings here.

For more information on this episode and more Artifactual podcast content, visit artifactualpodcast.com.

Artifactual is a content partner of Peter Hamilton’s Documentary Business newsletter and Sunny Side of the Doc.