Series I: Furniture Research Files

This collection has two series.

Series I: Furniture Research Files contain research material related to different styles of furniture. The files are mostly secondary source material including photographs, new clippings, and articles. Bishop collected these files as a resource for his many published books about furniture, including How to Know American Antique Furniture (1973), and Centuries and Styles of the American Chair, 1640-1970 (1972). The styles of furniture included in this collection are: General subject files; Art deco; Art nouveau; Chippendale; Colonial; Colonial revival; Country; Cromwellian; Empire; Federal; Mission; Modern; Prairie school; Queen Anne; Scrollwork; Southwestern; Victorian; Wiener Werkstatte; and William and Mary.The files originally constituted a large subset of the subject files that Bishop created before and during his tenure at the American Folk Art Museum. Because of Bishop's particular subject expertise in furniture, these files were separated into a distinct group.

Series II: Slide Collection contain 35mm slides that Bishop used for teaching at the Folk Art Institute. The slides were originally stored in binders by subject and were accompanied by a separate catalog, which is also in this collection. Subjects include: paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, furniture room interiors, textiles, and sculpture. Bishop also kept multiple binders of slides of "miscellaneous" subjects.