Collections - Louis Armstrong House Museum

The Louis Armstrong Collection

The Louis Armstrong Collection is Louis and Lucille’s vast personal collection of 1,600 recordings, 650 home recorded reel-to-reel tapes in hand-decorated boxes, 86 scrapbooks, 5,000 photographs, 270 sets of band parts, 12 linear feet of papers, letters and manuscripts, five trumpets, 14 mouthpieces, 120 awards and plaques, and much more.

The Satchmo Collection

The Satchmo Collection is a steadily growing collection of Armstrong-related materials donated to the Museum by Armstrong friends, fans and collectors. Highlights include a 1934 Selmer trumpet and mouthpiece given to Louis by King George V of England, a cornet case autographed by Louis and donated by trumpet player Randy Sandke, and two scrapbooks compiled by longtime Armstrong bassist Arvell Shaw.

Institutional History Collection

This is our institutional collection, charting the history of the Armstrong House and the Armstrong Archives since 1986. Videos of musical performances in the Museum’s garden, photographs of VIP visitors, photographs of past exhibitions, television news stories, newspaper and magazine coverage, awards—it’s a continually growing history of the Louis Armstrong House Museum and its work to preserve Armstrong’s legacy.

The Jack Bradley Collection

The Jack Bradley Collection is the world’s foremost private collection of Armstrong memorabilia, and was acquired thanks to a grant from the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. Compiled over many decades by Jack Bradley, Armstrong’s friend and photographer, the collection contains almost every commercially released Armstrong recording and thousands of photographs, as well as films, periodicals, personal items, letters, and much more.

The Corona Collection

Launched in 2024, The Corona Collection is an effort to gather oral histories of people who lived in the Corona and East Elmhurst neighborhoods who have first-person accounts of Louis and Lucille Armstrong during the time they lived on 107th Street. Where possible, we may also interview descendants and others who can share second-hand accounts that have been passed down. The Armstrongs were involved in the daily life of their community. We seek to continue that tradition. LAHM is committed to engaging with our neighbors, establishing a sense of connectedness, of pride, and of a shared ownership of a shared legacy.

The Phoebe Jacobs Collection

The Phoebe Jacobs Collection contains ten cubic feet of personal papers, correspondence, photographs and ephemera related to Ms. Jacobs’ work with Lucille Armstrong in the 1970s and 1980s, and to her role as Executive Vice President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation after Lucille’s death in 1983.

The Louis Armstrong House Collection

The Louis Armstrong House Collection contains all the furniture, appliances, paintings, decorations, and other objets d’arts left in the House after Louis and Lucille’s deaths.

The Gosta Hagglof Collection

The Gosta Hagglof Collection represents one of the biggest European collections of Louis Armstrong materials. Hagglof was a banker by day and a tireless promoter of Armstrong’s legacy in his spare time, collecting rare recordings, producing tribute concerts, giving lectures and starting his own CD label, Ambassador Records. Hagglof passed away in 2009 and in his will, bequeathed his entire Armstrong collection to the Louis Armstrong House Museum. The collection is strong on unissued recordings of Armstrong concerts and broadcasts and contains near comprehensive coverage of Armstrong’s multiple Scandinavian tours.

The Robert G. Hilbert Collection

The Robert G. Hilbert Collection contains books about and commercial recordings by Louis Armstrong. Hilbert was the longtime President of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors. He spent 22 years as Audio-Visual Director at Miami-Dade Community College, managing to start the Jazz Collectors Society of South Florida while living in Florida. As the President of Pumpkin Productions, he issued many rare jazz treasures, including some by Louis Armstrong. A prolific writer, Hilbert wrote many books, including the critically-acclaimed biography, Pee Wee Russell: The Life of a Jazzman. He died in 1993 at the age of 54. Ten years later, his daughter, Miriam Hilbert, donated his Louis Armstrong record and book collection to the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

The Ernie Anderson Collection

The Ernie Anderson Collection was acquired by the Louis Armstrong House Museum through a purchase from Anderson’s daughter, Allie Barnicoat, in 2012. Anderson is perhaps best known for producing seminal Armstrong concerts at Town Hall and Symphony Hall in 1947 but he spent much of the late 1940s and 1950s as Armstrong’s overseas publicity representative. This photo-heavy collection contains dozens of images of Armstrong and His All Stars in Europe and Africa, most of which were not previously held by the Museum.

Winfried Maier Collection

Winfried Maier is a German fan who first met Louis in Berlin in 1959 and became his friend, exchanging correspondence with the trumpeter and spending time with him during his future trips to German. Maier spent the following decades collecting materials related to all of Armstrong’s German tours from 1952-1965 and donated his entire collection on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2015.

Jay Andersen Collection

Jay Andersen first met Louis Armstrong in the early 1960s and soon became close with Jack Bradley, who became a father-like figure to him. Andersen donated several hundred Louis Armstrong sound recordings and books shortly before his passing in 2015.