"America Through the CBS Eye" may not be the best title for the new exhibit at Seattle's Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI). The luminous black-and-white photos — brushed by the moonglow of another era — are mostly shots of celebrities instead of ordinary people.

But if we consider how the media commandeered our self-perception in the 20th century, maybe CBS has it right after all.

The more than 100 images that begin with Bing Crosby and end around "All in the Family" are memory markers that trigger intense personal recollection while charting a national fascination with the famous that has yet to crest.

That combination encouraged MOHAI executive director Leonard Garfield to be Northwest host for the traveling exhibit. "We experience the media in our home lives, but it's also the shared way in which we understand our history," he said. "We thought it was perfect for the intimacy of the holiday season."

The exhibit, which opens Saturday at MOHAI and runs until Jan. 16, does not qualify as art or as gritty photojournalism. Yet it's quite distinctive. The chronologically hung pictures are from a time when stars were promoted with the best resources available from a studio or network, especially photography. One need only look at today's generic, uninspired material to appreciate these predecessors.

So here is aviator Amelia Earhardt circa 1932, looking uncharacteristically soignée in evening gown and fur stole; Groucho Marx stretched full-length on a white bear-skin rug (albeit with clothes on) in 1943; and Bogey and Bacall gazing smitten at each other during a 1946 performance of "To Have and Have Not" for "Lux Radio Theater."

The results are by no means uniform, however; a rough meritocracy emerges among the exalted. Some are glamorous no matter what, like a jaunty Howard Hughes striding through a mob of reporters after his round-the-world flight.

Others look uncomfortable despite their cozy surroundings. Laurence Olivier grips the microphone as if it were a lifesaver during a 1939 studio reading of "Goodbye Mr. Chips."

In other words, there's a surprising amount of emotional mobility in these staged images. And with good reason: The collection was curated by CBS director of photo operations John Filo, who used a journalist's eye to spot selections from the 30 million pictures in an archive that stretches back 75 years.

Filo is a distinguished editor and former photographer — his photo of the young woman grieving over a slain student at Kent State won a Pulitzer — and his sly sensibility helps pierce the stardust.

A stellar example is that of a young Candice Bergen sitting in an old jalopy with dummy Charlie McCarthy inexorably wedged between her and her father, Edgar Bergen. (No wonder her autobiography was called "Knock Wood.")

While "America Through the CBS Eye" gives greater weight to the cavalcade of talent at CBS Radio and CBS Television, the heavyweights of history aren't altogether ignored. Adm. Richard Byrd, Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy and Muhammed Ali get their due alongside Lucy and Desi, Martin and Lewis, Jackie Gleason and lots of Frank Sinatra.

Sometimes, the two worlds collide. There's a fascinating publicity still of Lassie patrolling a Nike missile site at the height of the Cold War, presumably with the promise of barking all the way to the White House should Ike need to be awakened from his nap.

While the exhibit neatly accomplishes its task in under an hour of viewing time, a few enhancements might have made the experience more memorable to visitors here.

Some subjects have local ties — Crosby, Edward R. Murrow and former Boeing worker Clint Eastwood — and it would have been fun to read about that, especially since MOHAI has deputy director Feliks Banel, one of the area's great authorities on Northwest pop-culture history.

And while CBS' selection had to stop somewhere, the concluding period of the 1970s seems underrepresented. In the judgment of time and millions of viewers, surely "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "M*A*S*H" deserved the wall space given to Sonny and Cher and the Jackson Five.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com