Television archiving is a new field involving the tasks of sorting, preserving, and filing in order to make records available to future historians. Only 5% of all television programing since 1948 exists today on tape or kinescope. Prior to 1968, not even the networks kept a comprehensive file of news shows. Although the DuMont Television Network no longer exists, many of the kinescopes from that network have been saved. Those kinescopes are now available for use by historians to examine the themes of programs and specific references in them that offer insight into the concerns, interests, attitudes, and fears of the people of the late 1940s and early 1950s. A few political programs as well as several adventure and comedy shows are part of the collection. (Portions transcribed from several programs and a television commercial are included.) (TJ)