tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61048566465629974762024-03-18T05:47:36.607-04:00Smithsonian Collections BlogThis Blog brings Archivists, Museum Specialists, and Librarians around the Smithsonian to write about their new collections, current works in progress or whatever catches their eye. It is our goal to bring our readers collection highlights, unveil hidden collections as they become online, and relate to current events with historical artifacts, art work and research materials from the past.
We encourage conversation, questions, and comments.
Eden Orelovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14209275926721484097noreply@blogger.comBlogger963125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-69959495021115731622022-08-30T22:36:00.002-04:002022-08-31T12:02:25.919-04:00A Fond Farewell<p>By David Haberstich</p><p><span>When I accepted the position of coordinator/editor of the Smithsonian Institution Collections Blog about two years ago, I certainly didn't think I would all too soon be presiding over its demise. But I'm afraid that's the shocking truth--the party's over. This apparently will become the last post for this blog. The Powers That Be, so to speak, have decided to pull our plug. </span><br /></p><p>To provide a bit more gravitas, I'll try to explain matters fairly, although without going into technical details that I don't fully understand. The shutdown decision was precipitated by an annoying technical problem. When I discovered that a previous post--an excellent, informative exhibition review--was not displaying or linking on the SIRIS/Collections Search Center home page, as it has for many years, I reported the malfunction and requested technical assistance. Eventually I learned that a remedy might introduce a security issue, which led to a re-evaluation of the Collections Blog and the increased cost of supporting it. It was decided to withdraw financial and technical support from this blog, partly because a number of new Smithsonian blogs have emerged in recent years as alternative platforms. For my own blogging efforts, I can make submissions to the National Museum of American History's highly successful platform, "Oh Say Can You See." Unfortunately, there are a few archival units without logical alternatives at the present time.</p><p>The Collections Blog has been lively over the years, with contributions from Smithsonian staff, especially from archival units, as well as interns, volunteers, contractors, and guests. During its lifetime, a total of 963 posts appeared! We've been flexible, featuring both extended scholarly essays, as well as brief posts spotlighting single collection items. I want to express my appreciation to contributors, both during my time as the last manager as well as those who worked with prior editors and managers. I'm especially indebted to Haley Steinhilber, who has been very active as author, editor, and promoter of the blog this year.</p><p>And, of course, we appreciate our followers and readers around the world. Thank you for your continuing support over the years!</p><p>I'm assured that our blogging efforts will be "archived" and will still be available online. I certainly plan to read a number that I missed the first time around.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-38614997404567597622022-08-30T21:22:00.002-04:002022-08-31T11:47:01.240-04:00Women Photographers in Africa: Lynn McLaren<p><a href="https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/">The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives</a> (EEPA) is pleased to share the Lynn McClaren collection as part of the Women Photographers in Africa initiative. Eluned M. Demarest – better known professionally as Lynn McLaren (1922-2008) – was an American photojournalist whose work was published in National Geographic, Time-Life, Newsweek, and the New York Times and helped global audiences visualize foreign cultures and landscapes. Her collection (EEPA 2007-009) of 648 color slides (35mm), 38 color transparencies, and 10 black-and-white prints has been digitized and will be available online later this year.</p><p>Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1922, McLaren graduated from Vassar College and the Missouri School of Photojournalism. In stark contrast with the experiences of even other working women at the time, she enjoyed a long career that permitted her to travel around the globe. Also photographing parts of <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/FSA.A2007.01?s=20&n=10&t=C&q=India&i=24">Asia</a> and Europe, her collection at the EEPA depicts Kenya and Tanzania in 1966. While the collection represents only a fraction of McLaren’s more than 50-year career, it samples several genres, compositions, and subjects that define both her artistic eye and professional portfolio. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlPx3dMEG0whNLjzL4z_fJWnGv5sUrLmUHZmz53OFu6YlNgOm18ys77g4lmW3gw_8el0azbQovMzdUhmPHWIzTaXWsxzY_k0YcuW-l-0JVPdfJGfNmNu4L5ke_kNPSsoZDl8DaeBTjrq7WhqmhjZz7sIlwXdQmxY68GjVDxui6o4J3PnsE0otl9mM7Q/s2000/EEPA_2007-009-0336.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="2000" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlPx3dMEG0whNLjzL4z_fJWnGv5sUrLmUHZmz53OFu6YlNgOm18ys77g4lmW3gw_8el0azbQovMzdUhmPHWIzTaXWsxzY_k0YcuW-l-0JVPdfJGfNmNu4L5ke_kNPSsoZDl8DaeBTjrq7WhqmhjZz7sIlwXdQmxY68GjVDxui6o4J3PnsE0otl9mM7Q/w640-h434/EEPA_2007-009-0336.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><i>[Lugongo] sisal estate near Tanga, Tanzania</i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Photograph by Lynn McLaren, ca. 1966, EEPA 2007-009-0336. Lynn McLaren Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">Trade and agriculture of major crops and exports along the Swahili coast, including cotton, sisal, and mangrove poles, are represented extensively in the collection. Wide views of cotton and sisal plantations capture their vastness and suggest economic significance of the crops to the region, while expressive portraits of plantation workers locate the humanity within those vast landscapes and economies. Also included in the collection are numerous images of landscapes and animals seen in several East African "game parks," now known as conservation areas or national parks.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0ER4ylMW7wLKd_i25j0dGdCcBRZ0Q2RQy52B9UDENZ-FmMAYxu4cVOzCFAmPq_RZde3LQ_T1DreMTP5kSno76tqqsiI7QSFYiGsfG1lD2UNLWAeRbmrLPrARsKonqbfgi7KKD8yAzehUW4oU8NQOi8hL8EGcnaMTp4CShtAiV6PaFGmXrVrO18-oIw/s2000/EEPA_2007-009-0601.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1358" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0ER4ylMW7wLKd_i25j0dGdCcBRZ0Q2RQy52B9UDENZ-FmMAYxu4cVOzCFAmPq_RZde3LQ_T1DreMTP5kSno76tqqsiI7QSFYiGsfG1lD2UNLWAeRbmrLPrARsKonqbfgi7KKD8yAzehUW4oU8NQOi8hL8EGcnaMTp4CShtAiV6PaFGmXrVrO18-oIw/w434-h640/EEPA_2007-009-0601.jpg" width="434" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Carrying sisal stalks before processing, Tanzania</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Photograph by Lynn McLaren, August 1966, EEPA 2007-009-0601. Lynn McLaren Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution</i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p>An environmental portraitist, McLaren enjoyed photographing people in their natural surroundings. She was particularly drawn to compositions of people in doorways, and she often turned her lens toward domestic and women’s lives. McLaren’s point of view may noticeably depart from that of her male counterparts in subject matter, composition, and gaze. It also may depart from the points of view of African photographers, photographers of color, and non-journalistic photographers. Inherent to photographic mediums, the collection represents the photographer’s way of seeing her subjects.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6apGFSCX2DiudeP5s2HCWbLcGsMPe0RiUvw-Rb8aPhe8LXC5sWiq2FoUJUvCa6Q_UBERZTcW5JLSvmcfKkIV90dMJSthllNKRpoKgZlCoFtcV_8al9quHsVHSb6ALFAO84yOtQFZgYizACIabJ389Y0agiZZfbqqA6ngJe1ETALlMisuR9GdpKRykQ/s4075/EEPA_2007-009-0061.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4075" data-original-width="2707" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6apGFSCX2DiudeP5s2HCWbLcGsMPe0RiUvw-Rb8aPhe8LXC5sWiq2FoUJUvCa6Q_UBERZTcW5JLSvmcfKkIV90dMJSthllNKRpoKgZlCoFtcV_8al9quHsVHSb6ALFAO84yOtQFZgYizACIabJ389Y0agiZZfbqqA6ngJe1ETALlMisuR9GdpKRykQ/w426-h640/EEPA_2007-009-0061.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><i>[Arab man wearing kofia seated in front of carved door], Lamu Island, Kenya</i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Photograph by Lynn McLaren, February 1966, EEPA 2007-009-0061. Lynn McLaren Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution</i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>As an extension of the photographer’s eye, the camera lens necessarily captures the photographer’s point of view from their own cultural standpoint. The EEPA’s collections are unique among those of the larger National Museum of African Art because they primarily represent documentary and tourist photography by non-Africans, whereas the museum’s permanent collection items are generally created by Africans. This nature is important to understanding these photographic collections since critics describe photography as inherently voyeuristic and the camera as a tool of colonialism. A collective imagination of Africa and Africans as culturally homogenous at best and uncivilized at worst has been shaped by outsider photography published for the consumption of curious (if voyeuristic) outsiders, like much of McLaren’s work that reached global audiences through publications like National Geographic. </p><p>As an American woman photojournalist, her images represent a gendered, racialized, and inquiring way of viewing two African nations during an important political period. While other collections in the Women Photographers series depict the peak of colonization as far back as the 1920s, McLaren’s images capture Tanzania and Kenya’s immediate postcolonial years (1961 and 1963, respectively). Several shots of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1966 visit to Tanzania (EEPA_2007-009-0692) depict this transitional period. Although the Women Photographers arguably symbolize colonization in embodiment and medium, they also underscore how gender modifies gaze.</p><p>Leah Minadeo</p><p>Wayne State University, School of Information Sciences</p><p><i>Leah Minadeo is a graduate student of the MLS program at Wayne State University. During Summer 2022, Minadeo volunteered with the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives as part of their practicum, cataloging Lynn McLaren’s collection (EEPA 2007-009) and Marilyn Heldman’s collection (EEPA 2016-005) as part of the Women Photographers in Africa initiative. </i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-66320645861569419582022-07-19T21:09:00.007-04:002022-07-21T00:32:17.085-04:00The Evolution of Anthropological Research in Documenting Diversity: How Anthropologists Record Human Life <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial;">By Muna Ali and Ashley Ray </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Documenting Diversity: How Anthropologists Record Human Life </i>is an exhibit that outlines the ways in which anthropologists have utilized changing technology to record various aspects of human life. The exhibit is organized into four sections: film, photography, paper, and sound. It includes the equipment used for documentation such as rolls of film, video cameras of various ages, wax cylinders, phonographs, and multiple notebooks. The objects shown in the exhibit come from the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) and the Human Studies Film Archive (HSFA), respectively. The NAA is a product of a 1965 merger between the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology (1879-1965) and the Department of Anthropology (1883-present). The collection holds anthropological material produced by anthropologists including fieldnotes, journals, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, maps and <a href="https://library.si.edu/exhibition/documenting-diversity">more </a>[1]. The NAA contains one of the largest archival collections related to North American archaeology, ethnography, indigenous artwork, and historical photographs in the world. The HSFA, a sister repository to the NAA, was founded in 1975. The HSFA possesses an audiovisual collection that documents the history of filmmaking worldwide, as it relates to anthropology. The documents and equipment included in this exhibit are a key part of tracking the evolution of the study of anthropology through time. One might even say that the documents are a more accurate representation of the attitudes of the researchers rather than the people they are attempting to record. In the following sections, we will explore two examples in which these attitudes are apparent. </span></p><p><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Garson & Read’s Color Swatch </span></u></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Underneath the exhibit’s “Documenting on Paper” section, a sample color swatch is displayed prominently across two pages from the 1899 work <i>Notes and Queries on Anthropology</i> by John George Garson (1854-1932) and Charles Hercules Read (1857-1929) [2, 3]. The exhibit designates the color swatch as “a practice borrowed from geology to describe skin, hair, and eye colors” [2]. Similar to the techniques used to classify geological typology, soil compositions, or categorical distinctions based on shared general characteristics, late 19th century anthropologists erroneously figured a scientific typology of humanity could similarly be created, based on variation in color. Both Garson and Read were affiliated with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, with Read being appointed as the RAI’s President in both 1899 and 1917 [3]. Given anthropology’s complicated history with ascribing meaning to differences in human physical characteristics in the late 19th century (and prior), it’s certainly no surprise that anthropologists who replicated such rhetoric found themselves in positions of intellectual authority.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoaOebKoUlv79k1JLAM-uv42cZQKKKSZ2jZaVdhBldNoA1m46zfaZJUx8jLbZDZqQznEtbeAhTl6uCyfO2CvTI6K2V5Ng2CyfCzPS2QFZpM9T2g2mFnnFjlDb5tsWO4UHUsnQ27hqpA_6clYGiWr9uEtZt8i6NdyoxFlkPN92hTnMwKeDjjHnOKz0Gbw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img alt="" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="344" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoaOebKoUlv79k1JLAM-uv42cZQKKKSZ2jZaVdhBldNoA1m46zfaZJUx8jLbZDZqQznEtbeAhTl6uCyfO2CvTI6K2V5Ng2CyfCzPS2QFZpM9T2g2mFnnFjlDb5tsWO4UHUsnQ27hqpA_6clYGiWr9uEtZt8i6NdyoxFlkPN92hTnMwKeDjjHnOKz0Gbw=w542-h640" width="542" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><span class="TextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-contrast="none" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-ccp-parastyle="caption" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Garson & Read’s color swatch, as depicted in </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-contrast="none" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-ccp-parastyle="caption" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Notes and Queries on Anthropology</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-contrast="none" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-ccp-parastyle="caption" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">,
Smithsonian Libraries & Archives.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW254065412 BCX8" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335551550":2,"335551620":2,"335559739":200,"335559740":360}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Critiques of Garson and Read’s color swatch were generally limited to its inability to provide universal descriptors. In the September 1913 edition of a journal titled <i>Folklore</i>, reviewer John H. Weeks even provided suggestions on how to improve the color swatch through “standardise[d]” colors, as “scarcely two men will call an intermediate shade by the same name” [5]. Despite institutionally affiliated anthropologists such as Garson and Read perceiving the color swatch as an intellectual innovation, this exhibit vehemently rejects such attempts to seek meaning in physical differences, declaring “such techniques falsely assumed skin color as a meaningful marker of difference” [7]. The color swatch’s inclusion within the exhibit addresses troubling legacies in anthropology in a compelling manner: the exhibit distances our contemporary understanding of anthropology from harmful conclusions drawn during anthropology of the past, while simultaneously acknowledging that such conclusions are inextricably linked to the field. </span><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCXW2204919 BCX8" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: underline; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW2204919 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">“No. 7 Song with Lacrosse Game” from </span></span><span class="TextRun Underlined SCXW2204919 BCX8" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: underline; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW2204919 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Menominee Music</span></span><span class="TextRun Underlined SCXW2204919 BCX8" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: underline; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW2204919 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;"> by Frances Densmore</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW2204919 BCX8" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559740":360}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br /><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In the “Documenting Sound” section, visitors will find a manuscript with marbled edges. The book is opened to a page of sheet music at the top, labeled “No. 7 Song with Lacrosse Game,” followed by an analysis of the notation. The description for this document states that this is a manuscript of “analyses and translations” of songs recorded and translated by ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore (1867-1957). The manuscript, <i>Menominee Music</i>, was published in collaboration with the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution in 1932. This book is one of many published by Densmore throughout her career of studying and advocating for the preservation of Native American music [6]. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYAvad4AuH_U7U2BYiYpPON8yh4U1mkPzjA91hrqeJq4DyyXyKoYjVX73rPzOYHAzojqUIhOv_YP1McBI0W73I_Ccud-PoPqg3cnVn8-RbF9Kzbo0YtMsdFvsKAS7AJp6oEgvT4vBFI48d8tXf-qG7J5KOPGEOyWYhnstalLcnwg9rxgvgHMEd_ds5yA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="465" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYAvad4AuH_U7U2BYiYpPON8yh4U1mkPzjA91hrqeJq4DyyXyKoYjVX73rPzOYHAzojqUIhOv_YP1McBI0W73I_Ccud-PoPqg3cnVn8-RbF9Kzbo0YtMsdFvsKAS7AJp6oEgvT4vBFI48d8tXf-qG7J5KOPGEOyWYhnstalLcnwg9rxgvgHMEd_ds5yA=w400-h378" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">“No. 7 Song with Lacrosse Game” from <span color="windowtext" lang="EN" style="text-align: center;">Menominee Music</span><span color="windowtext" lang="EN" style="text-align: center;"> by Frances Densmore, 1932.<br />Smithsonian Libraries & Archives</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There are many examples of non-Western forms of music that do not have a system for written notation. Instead, these songs are passed down orally, generation by generation, with each adding slight changes to a particular piece [7]. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">From a musicological standpoint, there is the question of whether it is even possible to accurately notate Non-Western forms of music using classical Western notation. And perhaps whether one even should. Western musical notation is limited in what it can and cannot represent. It was designed with western instruments in mind and thus lacks the ability to fully accommodate the nuances of other instruments. On top of that, Western music relies largely on major and minor scales while non-Western music utilizes more diatonic and chromatic scales, differs greatly between the two groups [8]. As one composer aptly describes, “The Western system of notation is governed by rigid elementary mathematics inherited from the ancient past,” meaning that the Western system of notation is only ever able to create an imperfect outline, and the nuances of pitch and rhythm must be added in by the performer. Imposing the limiting Western system of notation on other forms of music creates a document that cannot fully capture the intricacies of the original piece [9]. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In summary, though the document has its flaws, that does not mean it is without value. On the contrary, it is more constructive to view this document as a type of translation which is inherently transformative and results in an end-product that cannot be identical to the source material. Documents such as this are valuable in that they offer a glimpse at what music was like at a specific point in time. In addition to that, present-day members of the Menominee Tribe could potentially use this manuscript to recover songs that may have been lost, suppressed, or erased from public consciousness and, more importantly, the community itself. It is the reader’s responsibility to read critically and remember that culture, and music, are dynamic and ever-changing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Densmore was able to mitigate weaknesses in her work of the types explored in this section through inclusion of audio recordings in her research. Densmore’s use of both aural and written mediums is an apt example of the ways anthropologists have adapted to emerging technologies so that methodologies are improving as well as the capacity to accurately record human life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><u>Anthropology as an Advancing Field</u> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The thematic structure of the exhibit based on medium—along with its more general focus on technological advancements aiding anthropological fieldwork—presents anthropology to the general public as a constantly transforming field. The selection of objects within the exhibit is particularly effective in conveying this: for instance, in the “Documenting on Film” section, the description for Object 11, a diagram on synchronized sound from 1955, is placed strategically next to object 12, a 1995 Sony camera [4]. Visitors are able to easily envision advancements in recording tools used for fieldwork merely through the two descriptions’ adjacent positions. What’s particularly interesting about the position of these two descriptions is that objects 11 and 12 were used by the same individual, anthropologist John Marshall, exactly forty years apart. This choice allows for the exhibit to portray individual anthropologists and anthropology more broadly as advancing in the wake of major shifts in technology.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1aTpDgBBt_RDFeT5-YaXpdWT7JXxwjvg1fC7fyUjoUwQjO_V3ZL9vq7TZLQJ03oWnO9upq1AWO0uviisi3FSWLpRwRIURP-hLJUEvJVocYBgwuEN7xogake9JsaoIjLQ8nLP-sxfHrCiUkzWuZ3heDh_URapn-7IkVjDIU699xUnSZVLVievBkRs0BQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="320" height="485" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi1aTpDgBBt_RDFeT5-YaXpdWT7JXxwjvg1fC7fyUjoUwQjO_V3ZL9vq7TZLQJ03oWnO9upq1AWO0uviisi3FSWLpRwRIURP-hLJUEvJVocYBgwuEN7xogake9JsaoIjLQ8nLP-sxfHrCiUkzWuZ3heDh_URapn-7IkVjDIU699xUnSZVLVievBkRs0BQ=w640-h485" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="TextRun SCXW178784641 BCX8" data-contrast="none" lang="EN" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-variant-ligatures: none; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;" xml:lang="EN"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW178784641 BCX8" data-ccp-parastyle="caption" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; font-size: x-small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Photo of Exhibit Description, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW178784641 BCX8" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335551550":2,"335551620":2,"335559739":200,"335559740":360}" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; color: #1f497d; font-style: italic; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 48px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, the exhibit addresses anthropological discoveries in four mediums: photography, paper, sound, and film. Additionally, on the left side of the hallway, photography, paper, and sound are in one display case, while on the right side, an entire display case is solely dedicated to anthropological film. Given the heightened importance of ethnographic film in anthropological fieldwork, the exhibit’s choice to have film presented separately from the other mediums is certainly advantageous. The choice to separate film from the other anthropological mediums is also indicative of the two repositories mentioned in the exhibit: the National Anthropological Archives and the Human Studies Film Archives. Although the two repositories are closely related to one another, they operate separately. Visitors can envision the physical constraints in having the exhibit spread across two sides of a wide hallway in the context of the separate nature of the two repositories, ultimately complicating the expression of these four mediums as a coherent whole. Regardless of its physical limitations, the exhibit is successful in highlighting changing attitudes and technologies throughout anthropology’s history. </span><p></p><p><u style="text-indent: 48px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Acknowledgements</span></u></p><p><span style="text-indent: 48px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Documenting Diversity</i> was co-curated by <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/diana-marsh">Diana Marsh</a>, a former NMNH postdoctoral fellow who partook in a three-year long NSF-funded project on NAA collections, and <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/joshua-bell">Joshua A. Bell</a>, who serves as NMNH’s Curator of Globalization, Director of the Recovering Voices Program and Acting Director of the National Anthropological Archives. The exhibit was made possible by close collaboration between the NAA, HSFA, Smithsonian Libraries, and Smithsonian Exhibits.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 48px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">By Muna Ali and Ashley Ray</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Natural History Research Experiences (NHRE) Interns</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.si.edu/siasc/naa">National Anthropological Archives</a>, National Museum of Natural History </span></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sources:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[1] “Documenting Diversity,” Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, accessed June 20, 2022, <a href="https://library.si.edu/exhibition/documenting-diversity">https://library.si.edu/exhibition/documenting-diversity</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[2] Erdöl, Das " “Dr. J. G. Garson.” <i>Nature </i>129 (1932): 931. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/129931a0">https://doi.org/10.1038/129931a0 </a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[3] Balfour, Henry. “Sir Charles Hercules Read, July 6, 1857-February 11, 1929,” <i>Obituaries</i>. Accessed June 2, 2022. <a href="https://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/charles-hercules-read">https://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/charles-hercules-read </a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[4] Bell, Josh and Marsh, Diana. Documenting Diversity: How Anthropologists Record Human Life. Washington: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2020. <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/documenting-diversity-how-anthropologists-record-human-life">https://naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/documenting-diversity-how-anthropologists-record-human-life </a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[5] Weeks, John H. Folklore 24, no. 3 (1913): 392–97. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255441">http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255441</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[6] “Frances Densmore (1867-1957).” Smithsonian Institution Archives. 2005. <a href="https://siarchives.si.edu/research/sciservwomendensmore.html">https://siarchives.si.edu/research/sciservwomendensmore.html </a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[7] Pasler, Jann. “Sonic Anthropology in 1900: The Challenge of Transcribing Non-Western Music and Language.” Twentieth-Century Music 11, no. 1 (2014): 7–36. doi:10.1017/S1478572213000157. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[8] Robertson-Wilson, Marian. “The Challenges of Notating Music in General and Coptic Music in Particular: Observations of a Professional Cellist, Composer, and Linguist.” Library of Congress Web. <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156229/">https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200156229/</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">[9] Zon, Bennett. “Music in the Literature of Anthropology from the 1780s to the 1860s.” In Representing Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, NED-New edition., 48–68. Boydell & Brewer, 2007. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brrwv.9">http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brrwv.9</a>.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-13534920769691484722022-05-21T17:06:00.002-04:002022-05-26T00:13:54.086-04:00One Picture is Worth A Thousand Stories<p>By Adam Gray, May 2022</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4OXrZNEV_fFdN56Vv7TasvBJTr5TPmM6Ibqirw-8_iqHrxw1bGo07F2Bgw5kz9-uP-a5warFc2KYAa_oaHbxXlf8jajaMHapEQC5D_tYaeewMf9xrYHOWH6ZA24gESw9Y8fZq5Bi5q63te5nmh_e2DuSmNVeuhbizEBN9tm4t3Kczv85cbxvniQWOLA/s624/Picture4.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="624" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4OXrZNEV_fFdN56Vv7TasvBJTr5TPmM6Ibqirw-8_iqHrxw1bGo07F2Bgw5kz9-uP-a5warFc2KYAa_oaHbxXlf8jajaMHapEQC5D_tYaeewMf9xrYHOWH6ZA24gESw9Y8fZq5Bi5q63te5nmh_e2DuSmNVeuhbizEBN9tm4t3Kczv85cbxvniQWOLA/w640-h435/Picture4.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Rehearsal of the toka dance in Yoohnanan on the island of Tanna, September 1974. Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), <a href="https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=HSFA.1975.01_ref1032">Tanna Island slides, Slide roll #56</a>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>In the 1960s and 1970s, Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides) was on the brink of independence from French and British colonial governance. The culturally and linguistically diverse archipelago in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, with over 100 languages spoken across multiple islands, had been governed as the New Hebrides under a joint French and British “Condominium” administration since 1906. Ni-Vanuatu political resistance, which incorporated expressions of traditional culture into the movement for independence, would go on to achieve independence for the nation in 1980, establishing the Republic of Vanuatu.</p><p>The Human Studies Film Archives, part of the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) at the National Museum of Natural History, recently digitized <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/HSFA.1975.01">a group of 29,000 photographs</a> taken by photographer and author Kal Muller in the midst of these transformations in Vanuatu society. (1)</p><p>The making of the photographs also took place against the backdrop of changes in the tools and methods of anthropology. In the mid-twentieth century, a new generation of relatively portable and inexpensive film and audio equipment, such as the Nagra III tape recorder and Arriflex film cameras, offered anthropologists new opportunities to incorporate photography and film into their research. The establishment of institutions such as the Film Study Center at Harvard University (1957) and the National Anthropological Film Center (1975) at the Smithsonian contributed to the development of “visual anthropology,” an academic discipline that incorporates the production and analysis of images, as well as the study of how people use and produce images, into studies of cultural phenomena.</p><p>Muller’s photographs are part of the Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), which also contains 15 hours of uncut film footage, over 50 sound recordings, and a small amount of correspondence. (These portions of the collection are not digitized.) The collection will be of interest to Ni-Vanuatu communities interested in their history, traditions, and local knowledge, and will prompt discussions about the history and theory of visual anthropology.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRkPz5Upkjv4uU3oXritpj7BYLMV3F9PJ7Nfns8UBH3lZZ4L6dsuhAK0WFRpeyEole3VLs_yT8UoTFur-oqtadD81_EWMPVEwaFSlsGPTrqAFvn4RTXTmIEAkk4OxeBWdMaWY4gkoYTl8xdf9Cp2b_eHtrnURn9J5YvabtYMFNw0jDrtBakD7llmh-Hg/s624/Picture3.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="624" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRkPz5Upkjv4uU3oXritpj7BYLMV3F9PJ7Nfns8UBH3lZZ4L6dsuhAK0WFRpeyEole3VLs_yT8UoTFur-oqtadD81_EWMPVEwaFSlsGPTrqAFvn4RTXTmIEAkk4OxeBWdMaWY4gkoYTl8xdf9Cp2b_eHtrnURn9J5YvabtYMFNw0jDrtBakD7llmh-Hg/w640-h438/Picture3.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">A group of women and girls, possibly in Lendombwey village, island of Malekula, in December 1968. The photograph appears to show the production of one of the sound recordings in the collection. Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), <a href="https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=HSFA.1975.01_ref213">Vanuatu slides, Slide roll #147</a>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Kalman “Kal” Muller, a photographer and author with an interest in anthropology, spent several years during the late 1960s and early 1970s living with and photographing communities on several islands of what is now the Republic of Vanuatu. Though he did not have the formal training of an academic anthropologist, Muller’s skill as a photographer, along with ties he developed with local communities, brought him into contact with some of the people and institutions that played key roles in promoting the use of film in ethnographic research: Muller collaborated with American anthropologist and filmmaker Robert Gardner (1925 – 2014) and the Harvard Film Study Center to film the naghol (in Bislama; land dive, in English) carried out by the Bunlap community on Pentecost Island, resulting in the film Land-Divers of Melanesia (1972). He also received support from the National Anthropological Film Center. The Film Center, which in 1981 was relocated within the National Museum of Natural History and renamed the Human Studies Film Archives, acquired Muller’s photographs and films shortly after they were made. (2) In 2019, the Archives acquired an additional group of Muller’s photographs from the Harvard Peabody Museum, now incorporated with the previous acquisition.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmY30K_4KU59vUlkn85LyhddTuRzRkPnGAUwNz0yI3-zExcngwlMLj89uqWWx049eer0jBrO944gCnYe7Myh9cfte-woEeZUpbTyEFKyKtadsJXXV61Edy4e0mH6CC7k36QrVdqrmVp5bilYPzvozoIyYigChZO4iqACSeQRomLppwfWBZUcSeW4Uzw/s624/Picture2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="624" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmY30K_4KU59vUlkn85LyhddTuRzRkPnGAUwNz0yI3-zExcngwlMLj89uqWWx049eer0jBrO944gCnYe7Myh9cfte-woEeZUpbTyEFKyKtadsJXXV61Edy4e0mH6CC7k36QrVdqrmVp5bilYPzvozoIyYigChZO4iqACSeQRomLppwfWBZUcSeW4Uzw/w640-h434/Picture2.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Cinematographer (possibly Muller) films a group of men, possibly in Lendombwey village, island of Malekula, in January 1969. In correspondence from December 1968, Muller states that he was in Lendombwey village, island of Malekula, filming men in a grade-taking ceremony, and this image may relate to those events. Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), <a href="https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=HSFA.1975.01_ref247">Vanuatu slides, Slide roll #180.</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>In the years since Muller made these photographs, anthropologists--as well as archives and museums that hold knowledge created by and about indigenous communities--have re-examined the assumptions, concepts, and power dynamics intertwined with the production of anthropological images. Photographs don’t just provide evidence of cultural phenomena; they provide a means of exploring questions of memory, history, and interpretation. Like other materials found in archives, they can be valuable resources for cultural sustainability and community-based research activities. One photograph can be used to tell a thousand stories. </p><p>The photographs Muller created during his time in Vanuatu, alongside the films, sound recordings, correspondence, and other documents in this collection, form a complex and voluminous group of images that hold complex layers of information and value. As in other archival collections, the different components speak to each other: correspondence between Muller and E. Richard Sorenson, the inaugural director of the National Anthropological Film Center, points to the interplay between individuals, institutions, and local communities which resulted in the production of the films and photographs; the films contain footage that would be edited into Land-Divers of Melanesia; the photographs show expressions of Ni-Vanuatu heritage, images of western filmmakers and anthropologists shooting film and recording sound, as well as urban and festival scenes in Vanuatu shortly before independence, making them records of the diversity of Ni-Vanuatu culture and of anthropologists’ attempts to represent that diversity.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHqIImBWI6UeTELt8AbbWn23n3fmIxR1ydOmIRtOMgQS4gO1WK6GVKej0m64qKYLwNgLLbpYpuQ6KYLQx0hl0Xtw_QDCVJvS71RX2jANFT0NyUp2eJoCeiRapX9TDarecingaNcFiNqjCq5R8gmjjtI3PZvpX4ufZpf5MQDub64MRupg1TbUpAacUfw/s624/Picture1%20-%20Copy.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="624" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHqIImBWI6UeTELt8AbbWn23n3fmIxR1ydOmIRtOMgQS4gO1WK6GVKej0m64qKYLwNgLLbpYpuQ6KYLQx0hl0Xtw_QDCVJvS71RX2jANFT0NyUp2eJoCeiRapX9TDarecingaNcFiNqjCq5R8gmjjtI3PZvpX4ufZpf5MQDub64MRupg1TbUpAacUfw/w640-h436/Picture1%20-%20Copy.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Men construct a tower for the naghol (land dive), likely in Bunlap, South Pentecost, Pentecost Island, October 1968. Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), Vanuatu slides, <a href="https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=HSFA.1975.01_ref152">Slide roll #15.</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Before putting the digitized photographs online, the NAA reviewed them to identify culturally sensitive content in order to prevent such images from being made public. As it does with all of its collections, the NAA extends an open-invitation to individuals and communities represented in the NAA to engage in collaborative efforts to improve how it describes and stewards those materials. The NAA looks forward to the conversations that the digitization of these images will enable.</p><p>The finding aid for the Kal Muller films and photographs of Vanuatu (New Hebrides), along with the digitized photographs can be found <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/HSFA.1975.01">here</a>. To learn how you can access parts of the collection that have not been digitized, get in touch with an archivist at <a href="mailto:hsfa@si.edu">hsfa@si.edu</a>.</p><p><u>Notes:</u></p><p>(1) As Muller himself can be seen in some of the images, apparently at least one other person took some of the photographs; unfortunately, the NAA has not been able to identify the additional photographer(s).</p><p>(2) Muller also worked with the Film Center in an effort to produce films and photographs of religious ceremonies practiced by the Huichol of San Andres Coamiata, Jalisco, Mexico. The resulting materials are also held by the Human Studies Film Archives. Former Smithsonian Department of Anthropology Graduate Fellow José Carlos Pons Ballesteros has written an informative series of blog posts about his research with that collection here.</p><p><u>Sources Consulted:</u></p><p>“About.” The Film Study Center at Harvard University, Accessed April 26, 2022. https://filmstudycenter.fas.harvard.edu/about/.</p><p>Chio, Jenny. “Visual anthropology.” Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2021). DOI: http://doi.org/10.29164/21visual</p><p>Foster, S. and Adams, Ron. "Vanuatu." Encyclopedia Britannica, March 10, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/place/Vanuatu.</p><p>“The History of ARRI in a Century of Cinema.” ARRI, Accessed May 12, 2022. https://www.arri.com/news-en/the-history-of-arri-in-a-century-of-cinema</p><p>“History of the Film Archives.” National Anthropological Archives, Accessed April 20, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20001022013618/http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/guide/film_history.htm</p><p>Jolly, Margaret. “Custom and the Way of the Land: Past and Present in Vanuatu and Fiji.” Oceania 62, no.4 (June 1992): 330-354. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40332509</p><p>“Nagra III.” Nagra Audio, Accessed May 12, 2022. https://www.nagraaudio.com/product/nagra-iii/</p><p>Ruby, Jay. "The Professionalization of Visual Anthropology in the United States: The 1960s and 1970s." Visual Anthropology Review 17, no. 2 (2001): 5-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/var.2001.17.2.5</p><p>Schäuble, Michaela. "Visual anthropology." The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2018): 1-21. DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1969</p><p><br /></p><p>By Adam Gray, Contractor, <a href="https://sirismm.si.edu/siris/SIASC/hsfa.htm">Human Studies Film Archives</a></p><p>Submitted by Daisy Njoku, <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/collections-overview/anthropology-archives">Anthropology Archives</a>, National Museum of Natural History</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-38442888620718002102022-04-11T15:54:00.002-04:002022-04-13T13:19:31.301-04:00Piedmont Manufacturing: More than Just a Textile Mill<p> By Joe Hursey</p><p>The Archives Center possesses an incredible set of architectural drawings of late 19th-century textile mills, known as the <a href="https://sova.si.edu/search?q=Lockwood+Greene">Lockwood-Greene Records</a>. At first glance, these drawings seem nothing more than well-drafted images of factory buildings on heavy linen material. But to the people who worked in the mills built from these drawings, they represent the beginning of numerous communities throughout South Carolina. The most impressive of these mills was the flagship mill, Piedmont Manufacturing Company.</p><p>Between 1862 and 1863, Henry Pickney Hammett and his partner and father-in-law, William Bates, purchased a total of 415 acres at Garrison Shoals along the Saluda River. On this river their textile mill would be built and named Piedmont Manufacturing. The town would also take the name, to be known as Piedmont, South Carolina. Unlike the previous style of smaller mills in upstate South Carolina, Hammett's grand mill would be based on larger New England-style mill designs. After completion, the mill stood as the largest mill in the United States until 1900.</p><p>Despite their best efforts, the ongoing Civil War delayed the project, and later Bates died in 1872. Not one to be deterred by challenges, Hammett continued the project. He began raising money toward building his mill, but due to the financial after-effects of the Civil War and the economic panic of 1873, Hammett struggled with obtaining investment capital. In order to stay on budget, Hammett reduced building costs by constructing onsite brick-making and ironworks, obtaining construction material from local forests, and bringing in architects, craftsmen, and workers to Piedmont. </p><p>By 1876 the first stage of the plant, Mill #1, was fully operating 5,000 spindles and 112 looms. Hammett continued to add additional buildings for a total of four mill buildings to the textile manufacturing plant in Piedmont. Hammett's mill would usher in the industrial revolution to the upstate. But in order to meet the needs of the growing mill, Hammett needed increased power for it.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidJGBL_S29yXW7zXSlOyCik9MDrMNpYY46OfXRxRchDItJsx8Enmiop21MUwLqrUjl56DYgmo7kDBY1zcJYcCOta_OW7652kl8lIVnD30CBItMgECatY7hXyS5fwgmrWhslrqJLX4Ke0oaXGJcPGVUW01XcOS0qr43fqHPOLColyQf0h4MzyvC1rynMg/s1430/Picture1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1430" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidJGBL_S29yXW7zXSlOyCik9MDrMNpYY46OfXRxRchDItJsx8Enmiop21MUwLqrUjl56DYgmo7kDBY1zcJYcCOta_OW7652kl8lIVnD30CBItMgECatY7hXyS5fwgmrWhslrqJLX4Ke0oaXGJcPGVUW01XcOS0qr43fqHPOLColyQf0h4MzyvC1rynMg/w640-h380/Picture1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Architectural Drawing of the Piedmont Mill, later renamed
J.P. Stevens & Company, from the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.1113?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=lockwood+greene&i=0"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lockwood-Greene Records</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, Archives Center, National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Hammett built a dam that provided the necessary structure for the mill's hydropower system. The dam, built in 1889, designed with a main span and a central overflow section, had a large raceway at each end, serving mills on both sides of the river. As one of the few hydropower mills in the upstate area, Piedmont mill machinery operated by a belt-driven hydro-powered system. This was later updated to a hydroelectric system. Spanning the central overflow portion of the dam, a metal truss footbridge supported by columns anchored to the dam allowed workers to move quickly between the mills. The footbridge was destroyed in 2020 during a high-water event when a dislodged boat dock went over the dam, dragging the steel bridge with it. The Piedmont dam stands as the oldest continually power- producing dam in the state. </p><p>As the mill grew and required more power to operate, it also required increases in labor. The Great Migration provided much-needed labor to the mill industry, which came in two waves. Between the 1880s and 1890s, cotton prices fell, driving farm laborers from the field to the factory. And by 1900 when cotton prices rose, additional buildings were built and workers were recruited. In order to recruit workers for Piedmont Manufacturing, housing planning became an important factor. One method was naming streets, such as Transylvania Street, after the location of where many workers were recruited from, such as Transylvania County, North Carolina. These workers from Transylvania settled on Transylvania Street, knowing that they would live amongst similar people coming from the same place. </p><p>Not only did Piedmont Manufacturing Company build homes for the workers to live in, they built the community infrastructure that provided for every need of the mill's workers: churches, schools, mercantile shops, community buildings, hotel, gymnasium, YMCA and YWCA, and a library. </p><p>Eventually Piedmont Manufacturing led South Carolina to become the largest textile producer in the world. The mills were sold to J.P. Stevens and Company in 1946 and subsequently updated to include modern features such as air conditioning. New buildings were added to the mill campus and the mill houses, which had belonged to the company and were leased to employees. But as competition from foreign mills increased, Piedmont Manufacturing Company's hold on the title of king of textiles started to slide. In 1977 the mill ceased most of its operations and completely closed in 1983.</p><p>While Piedmont Manufacturing is no longer in business, it stood as an important facet of America's Reconstruction period and the New South Movement, transforming a mostly agrarian society into an industrial community. And it was more than just a factory. To the local people and their community, it was the center of the universe. Hammett's dream of a grand textile plant will remain an important part of American history. </p><p><br /></p><p>Joe Hursey is the head of reference services for the <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives">National Museum of American History Archives Cente</a>r through Friday, April 15, 2022. His Archives Center colleagues thank him for his years of service and for this contribution to the SI Collections Blog.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-46307993345149036892022-03-21T16:51:00.002-04:002022-04-04T17:17:40.839-04:00Women, Cameras, and Images<p>By David Haberstich</p><p>In recent years the Smithsonian Collections Blog has featured numerous posts about women photographers represented in Smithsonian collections. For instance, I’ve blogged about the photographers <a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2016/09/every-minute-counts-legacy-of-katherine.html" target="_blank">Katherine Joseph</a>, <a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2021/10/dawn-v-rogalas-circus-photographs.html" target="_blank">Dawn Rogala</a>, and <a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2015/08/collecting-katrina-at-national-museum.html" target="_blank">Melody Golding</a>, whose work is in the NMAH Archives Center, but now I want to highlight a much earlier Smithsonian effort to celebrate women in photography. The National Museum of American History (then the Museum of History and Technology) featured female photographic artists in a series entitled “Women, Cameras, and Images” in 1969-1970, initiated by Curator of Photography Eugene Ostroff. Although three of these photographers were famous, even legendary, and already included in general histories of photography, two were comparatively unknown at the time. Prints by all five are in the museum’s Photographic History Collection, acquired in conjunction with their exhibitions. This program was an early attempt to emphasize the contributions of women to twentieth-century photography via a series that combined three famous photographers, who utilized standard photographic techniques to achieve their unique personal vision, with two younger, relatively unknown artists who experimented with “obsolete” photographic processes, combined with hand techniques, to interrogate assumptions about the nature of photography. Indeed, Betty Hahn later challenged standard notions about photography (and the nature of her multi-media variations) in the very title of her book, <i>Photography…Or Maybe Not</i>. *</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrBqyA1dE5gPQjWJdvmLtgI51EmhSh5PjaGoDs-pAqZZMRo_6JgVZoj1-ECOXBy52GwyuHpxKxAMYeK2eay9Qm-lbLvDzpg94capeV9-OpErYAZoJMwjGAUxXyi_AghV3x4I1EP2fkx7BqGhMzFgNgwKPRukWcQhAIzndepKNRvgnssdcGmvAsMoAnAA=s500" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="500" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrBqyA1dE5gPQjWJdvmLtgI51EmhSh5PjaGoDs-pAqZZMRo_6JgVZoj1-ECOXBy52GwyuHpxKxAMYeK2eay9Qm-lbLvDzpg94capeV9-OpErYAZoJMwjGAUxXyi_AghV3x4I1EP2fkx7BqGhMzFgNgwKPRukWcQhAIzndepKNRvgnssdcGmvAsMoAnAA=w640-h402" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Betty Hahn (b. 1940), "Seasonal Rainbow Transition," gum bichromate with paint on paper, 1968. Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>All four exhibitions were accompanied by poster-checklists and formal, if modest, openings. The first show in the series, “Women, Cameras, and Images I,” was a retrospective of Imogen Cunningham’s classic imagery. I well remember her sly humor and witty sarcasm at her opening: she was delightful, and it was especially gratifying for me after my failed attempt to meet her during a trip to San Francisco.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhKDHkQD26PcnGFUug2MgNZ3Tmk-GlogZOLwv5S3m4lgpyzIs-LSMYSOatPBq3kmS0wCN-e_Ljkhe3MrKCEU25n8VHblsofFtT30P4UaRcGD9WMlwNvLLONhaDCHYzFwo0trO2X1Rt7rgyZ4r9OK5TYOwLAxbRnbgrKH6pgxFt8ElD_vJMdkiD9XOU9Q=s500" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="500" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhKDHkQD26PcnGFUug2MgNZ3Tmk-GlogZOLwv5S3m4lgpyzIs-LSMYSOatPBq3kmS0wCN-e_Ljkhe3MrKCEU25n8VHblsofFtT30P4UaRcGD9WMlwNvLLONhaDCHYzFwo0trO2X1Rt7rgyZ4r9OK5TYOwLAxbRnbgrKH6pgxFt8ElD_vJMdkiD9XOU9Q=w640-h490" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imogen Cunningham (1882-1976), "Unmade Bed," gelatin silver photographic print, 1957, printed 1957, Smithsonian American Art Museum.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvF24nZMNn7bJqZ3iqcRK2JNKQ8H3n7MWnxtIrJyHfLz5OFT4554bdPOpgqaMk37MFdRdO7DX3_QopZb24T_1nL_r_LV5ZmeA-M9CVMyxSOOIRbprC2ydloeHo3ohaIVunmexqPeiOcEQmXG4zHblARDK4pKvS4BEGsBMPiT09GkP34m0eic40VQZo3w=s1260" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="1260" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvF24nZMNn7bJqZ3iqcRK2JNKQ8H3n7MWnxtIrJyHfLz5OFT4554bdPOpgqaMk37MFdRdO7DX3_QopZb24T_1nL_r_LV5ZmeA-M9CVMyxSOOIRbprC2ydloeHo3ohaIVunmexqPeiOcEQmXG4zHblARDK4pKvS4BEGsBMPiT09GkP34m0eic40VQZo3w=w400-h166" width="400" /></a>The second exhibition, “Women, Cameras, and Images II,” combined the work of Betty Hahn and Gayle Smalley. I had met Betty in graduate school at Indiana University and vaguely knew Gayle, who had graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology five years before I had. Their work was very different from that of the other three women, employing radically new approaches to the medium. Hahn was one of the first photographers to experiment with “obsolete” photographic processes, including gum-bichromate, and combined photography with textiles, sometimes adding hand-work, such as paint, needlework and embroidery, which in her words represented a homage to the unsung women who traditionally practiced such stereotypically feminine “crafts.” Independently, Gayle Smalley combined photography with hand printmaking techniques. Hahn’s and Smalley’s prints were colorful, semi-abstract, and often playful and humorous, heavily influenced by contemporary printmaking.<span> </span><span> </span></p><p>Above: Gayle Smalley (left) and Betty Hahn (center) talking with Eugene Ostroff at the opening of their exhibition, 1969. Smithsonian photographer unidentified.</p><p>“Women, Cameras, and Images III” was devoted to the work of Berenice Abbott, whose long and influential career ranged from documentation of New York City to the development of techniques for scientific photography, in which she was an important pioneer. Unfortunately, we lacked funds to bring her to Washington for the opening, and I think she never quite forgave me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjwIQ3eKdF6Pnahtcw_vYEYtS4p42JEVQD9QZTPN1lehXYmii8HAHrgH6fWqYgEVtHIh9hkL9jxELH02J2ftVyr1IkJA5-d1zOZN-A2HHWdN-MbPTt6JaXT-SQ0VFaYH8zM2s8LvErdQ_BQeWGlEvr_DrINnutV92ElS_Miv45aLIG2VfjMict0Hme0Q=s500" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="389" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjwIQ3eKdF6Pnahtcw_vYEYtS4p42JEVQD9QZTPN1lehXYmii8HAHrgH6fWqYgEVtHIh9hkL9jxELH02J2ftVyr1IkJA5-d1zOZN-A2HHWdN-MbPTt6JaXT-SQ0VFaYH8zM2s8LvErdQ_BQeWGlEvr_DrINnutV92ElS_Miv45aLIG2VfjMict0Hme0Q=w498-h640" width="498" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), "Night Aerial View, Midtown Manhattan," 1933, gelatin silver print. Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />Barbara Morgan was the artist of “Women, Cameras, and Images IV.” Noted for her photographs of Martha Graham’s dancers, a major component of the exhibition, she worried about the design of the show, and explained her concern with rhythm and flow in the placement and sequencing of the framed images. I was tempted to let her develop the layout or collaborate with me, but was warned not to permit her participation lest it delay the opening. It was a nail-biter for me as I hung the show, fearing that she didn’t fully trust my curatorial eye, but I needn’t have worried: she was pleased and pronounced it a huge success, telling me “You got it!” She had been honored previously in a similar retrospective solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by my photo-history mentor, Peter Bunnell, and pronounced my design “better.” At social occasions for several years afterward she proudly introduced me as “the man who hung my Smithsonian show, you know,” and we had a lovely and rewarding friendship.<div><br /></div><div>Barbara Morgan's photographs have been collected not only by NMAH, but also by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG). This is also true for the work of Imogen Cunningham and Berenice Abbott. However, NMAH was the first Smithsonian museum to collect and mount exhibitions of their work. <p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6glRInznFfSIP299zUMu0lU2CUuXhGfYICdQpJis03-eems5UUSrAZ8p6udSoryV7tuU_-FVlWk8qb2x9vvxA_zm-aj7KdG1EM7K-F2OMSZ_HdhkQza7RDrhAjBseSQPKWtHAwyfcFSE3w2Q2iMUcocUajX9fD9O1_6CYts6qU0ZPS_C3E8FPzGc-Pg=s500" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="500" height="514" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6glRInznFfSIP299zUMu0lU2CUuXhGfYICdQpJis03-eems5UUSrAZ8p6udSoryV7tuU_-FVlWk8qb2x9vvxA_zm-aj7KdG1EM7K-F2OMSZ_HdhkQza7RDrhAjBseSQPKWtHAwyfcFSE3w2Q2iMUcocUajX9fD9O1_6CYts6qU0ZPS_C3E8FPzGc-Pg=w640-h514" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara Morgan (1900-1992), "Martha Graham--Letter to the World--(Swirl)," 1940, gelatin silver print, printed ca.1980. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Virginia Zabriskie. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>However, the series, which originally was intended to continue for another year, foundered and ended when some photographers objected to being “classified” or identified as “women photographers” within a special series, as if each photographer's work couldn't stand on its own merits. Similarly, I recall hearing certain women criticize the creation of Washington’s National Museum of Women in the Arts for what nowadays some might call bad “optics,” appearing to relegate female artists to a separate category rather than striving to integrate them in greater numbers into existing art museum awareness and practice.</p><p>Opinions, perspectives, and tactics intended to promote social change often themselves change with the times and the politics of culture, however. In 1970 we found that for some women photographers, the prospect of inclusion in a series of gendered exhibitions (curated by men) entitled “Women, Cameras, and Images” could be interpreted as more demeaning than celebratory, perhaps suggesting mere tokenism. Controversial “optics!” By contrast, the emphasis on equity in the 2020s has regularly employed group solidarity and separation as a logical, effective tactic to highlight marginalized groups and their members’ individual stories--for example, through Black History Month and Women’s History Month. I recently noticed a current exhibition at Lehigh University entitled “<a href="https://luag.lehigh.edu/exhibitions/hear-me-roar-women-photographers-part-ii" target="_blank">Hear Me Roar: Women Photographers II</a>,” reflecting the similar strategy of the Smithsonian’s “Women, Cameras, and Images” exhibitions of the tumultuous late 1960s. I couldn't help smiling.</p><p>David Haberstich, Curator of Photography</p><p><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives" target="_blank">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a> <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>* Reference: Steve Yates, <i>Betty Hahn: Photography or Maybe Not. </i>Essays by David Haberstich and Dana Asbury, catalogue by Michelle M. Penhall. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1995.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><div><br /></div></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-29917469692926262132022-02-24T16:09:00.001-05:002022-02-24T16:31:40.315-05:00The Iconic, Controversial Sidney Poitier: A Tribute for Black History Month<p><span style="font-size: medium;">By David Haberstich</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgt9zk7RIIsH8JNr0N5dNSI0VW5gXKpJVCXIXQZfaiZcUygRG5iqRtCBQNC3NY55kOyMSAF6Zt2gqe98YUewDgOuLNKz-AHuuAZct4eobYPOxX4EchHchwNQCsKOMne4pLKoLzpa118bla1iPY1kIrtBr5rAHPqrhxhMjnTPE8H7akDSjXpv0SOFolsBg=s1950" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1617" data-original-width="1950" height="530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgt9zk7RIIsH8JNr0N5dNSI0VW5gXKpJVCXIXQZfaiZcUygRG5iqRtCBQNC3NY55kOyMSAF6Zt2gqe98YUewDgOuLNKz-AHuuAZct4eobYPOxX4EchHchwNQCsKOMne4pLKoLzpa118bla1iPY1kIrtBr5rAHPqrhxhMjnTPE8H7akDSjXpv0SOFolsBg=w640-h530" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal">Actor Sir Sidney Poitier, Feb. 3, 1977, photograph probably
by Robert Scurlock. Gelatin silver acetate negative, <a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/NMAH.AC.0618.S04.06#ref27328">Scurlock Studio Records,Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Above is a photograph from the National Museum of American History Archives Center’s <a href="https://sova.si.edu/search?s=20&n=10&t=C&q=Scurlock+Studio+Records">Scurlock Studio Records</a>, probably taken by Robert Scurlock, showing famed actor Sidney Poitier besieged by young fans seeking autographs. More than any other African American actor, Poitier (who died in January this year) helped to integrate Hollywood. I first saw him many years ago in his 1955 film, </span><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Jungle">Blackboard Jungle</a></i><span>, and recall his magnetic performance vividly. I viewed it again recently, perhaps finding fault with the screenplay, but no less awed by Poitier. He played an unruly teenager who comes to his white teacher’s aid during a deadly classroom brawl at the climax of the film.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgof295_gZbi4wbtg0cPhKyB9rZX5eFX3Dhwzci_oXTEP3nlcaqpLUJ2IOC_EgwfoQsnD1SW2e9Nt0O-VPTlH5_YSJrTvttMmNdFhze61w2ICdLwWL9FfB4xW83QZ-nynED_x1tnxfvMFs7kDM29HkN8w4NNGzSYnp3xNF9kV2175nfPFIfP18t3wuTwg=s1226" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1226" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgof295_gZbi4wbtg0cPhKyB9rZX5eFX3Dhwzci_oXTEP3nlcaqpLUJ2IOC_EgwfoQsnD1SW2e9Nt0O-VPTlH5_YSJrTvttMmNdFhze61w2ICdLwWL9FfB4xW83QZ-nynED_x1tnxfvMFs7kDM29HkN8w4NNGzSYnp3xNF9kV2175nfPFIfP18t3wuTwg=w261-h400" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poster for "Lilies of the Field." Copyright © 1963 by United Artists. Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from original image. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97585903">Public Domain,</a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He was the first African American to win a “best actor” Academy Award for his performance in <i>Lilies of the Field</i> (1967). Despite the acclaim he received, he was not universally admired by African Americans. The Black critic and playwright Clifford Mason famously denounced him as “dishonest” in a New York Times article, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/heat-ar.html">“Why Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?” (Sept. 10, 1967)</a>: “I submit that the Negro (or black, if you will), image was subverted in these films much more so than it was in the two films he seems worried about.” Playing Porgy in <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053182/mediaviewer/rm51205888/">Porgy and Bess</a></i> was one of the roles that concerned Poitier, supposedly accepting it against his better judgment as the price for being allowed to play such roles as the heroic Virgil Tibbs in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_(film)">In the Heat of the Night</a></i>. What Mason liked about the Porgy character was that “at least we have a man, a real man, fighting [for] his woman and willing to follow her into the great unknown, the big city, poor boy from Catfish Row that he is.”</span></p><p> <span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">“But he remains unreal,” Mason continued, “as he has for nearly two decades, playing essentially the same role, the antiseptic, one-dimensional hero.” The critic was disappointed that the Virgil Tibbs character had no apparent love interest to certify him as a “real” man. Furthermore, he minimized the significance of the famous slap which Tibbs gives a white bigot, complaining that it occurs only after the bigot slaps Tibbs first. Perhaps Mason had not yet heard Poitier declare that he had insisted that his character should respond with a retaliatory slap, refusing to continue without it. I found the scene riveting, not only for Tibbs’s sudden explosion of righteous pent-up anger, but for the expression of startled, befuddled disbelief on the face of the racist sheriff, played by Rod Steiger. At first I thought the tears and sniveling of the white “aristocrat” in the aftermath of the slap were overdone, but later decided his reaction was perfect symbolism. For the first time, these figures of white oppression were beginning to realize that their comfortable world might be crumbling.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Apart from Poitier’s acceptance of film roles that Mason and others found troubling, the actor’s life was a rags-to-riches story that I find inspiring. First, he nearly succumbed to a premature birth while his parents were working in Miami, Florida. As a barely literate Black teenager from Cat Island in the Bahamas, he suffered racist indignities in the Jim Crow South of Miami, then moved to a slightly more congenial New York City, where he toiled as a dishwasher while seeking a better job. He tried to join the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Negro_Theatre">American Negro Theatre</a>, initially failing in humiliation due to his shaky reading skills. With timely coaching from a friend, he quickly solved this problem, then embarked on a personal campaign to suppress his Bahamian accent and hone his acting skills. Eventually he acted on Broadway, then found his niche in film, especially with his break-through role in <i>Blackboard Jungle</i>. His subsequent roles explored many aspects of the Black man in white society. His prominence in Hollywood echoed aspects of the real-life civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, not only through the impact of <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Guess_Who%27s_Coming_to_Dinner_poster.jpg"><i>Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?</i> </a>on the previously taboo topic of interracial marriage. Moreover, he was an active participant in the civil rights struggle, risking arrest or worse by helping to deliver $70,000 to Freedom Summer volunteers in 1964.</span></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Poitier’s achievements beyond acting are extensive, including directing films and publishing memoirs and a novel. He was also a diplomat, serving as Bahamian ambassador to Japan (1997-2007) and concurrently to UNESCO (2002-2007). He was even granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth in 1974. In 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. Perhaps his most satisfying honor was the acknowledgment by younger Black actors that he had broken ground and opened doors for them. Denzel Washington gratefully cited Poitier’s contributions while presenting him with the Honorary Academy Award in 2002. His remarks were followed by sustained, enthusiastic applause from the audience.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> </span>Broadway theaters dimmed their lights in honor of Sir Sidney Poitier on January 19, 2022.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">David Haberstich, Curator of Photography</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a></span></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-4967901858228042712022-02-15T21:00:00.003-05:002022-02-16T09:57:16.061-05:00Hidden History, Part 2: Joy McLean Bosfield Sings at Kennedy Center Dedication<p> <span style="font-size: medium;">By Jennifer Sieck</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyMhUO8qXOCIRh4FpRAwxbDz_Mqds-94qHSb_48najjFc9SpYoXs8Q9Eg-tm8gFql85jEfMTsKV5ruj4JiZcEAp855y9N8uyblIka5uLYg40y51MGe9xuzabUE3dvsNpcqXPj7ab8lmtzoRaLUehUdZGjz4lozpurN1EOYIlxUVXJ-wXmAg0Qqj-eLMg=s1265" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1265" data-original-width="969" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyMhUO8qXOCIRh4FpRAwxbDz_Mqds-94qHSb_48najjFc9SpYoXs8Q9Eg-tm8gFql85jEfMTsKV5ruj4JiZcEAp855y9N8uyblIka5uLYg40y51MGe9xuzabUE3dvsNpcqXPj7ab8lmtzoRaLUehUdZGjz4lozpurN1EOYIlxUVXJ-wXmAg0Qqj-eLMg=s320" width="245" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Joy McLean Bosfield framed this page from the score for “Gloria in Excelsis” signed for her by MASS composer Leonard Bernstein. She sang in the choir for MASS’s world premiere, conducted by Bernstein for the Kennedy Center’s dedication in 1971. Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGIdEb4DO6U">"Gloria in Excelsis"</a> proclaims the title of this autographed musical score in prelude to the story of Joy McLean Bosfield (1924-1999), a musician, educator, and entrepreneur who lived in Washington, DC from 1962 to 1985. Like another accomplished African American musician in the District featured <a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2021/11/hidden-history-lillian-evantis-lobbying.html">in a prior post on this blog</a>, McLean Bosfield was instrumental in bringing the Kennedy Center into being. Her contribution took the form of singing in Leonard Bernstein’s <a href="https://leonardbernstein.com/news/mass-50">MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers</a> at the Kennedy Center’s dedication on September 8, 1971. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in memory of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, Bernstein riffed on the traditional Latin mass to honor the nation’s first Roman Catholic president in an operatic piece featuring more than 200 performers and choreography by Alvin Ailey. <a href="https://www.kennedy-center.org/press-releases/50th-anniversary-season/">The Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Season</a> concludes with a new interpretation of MASS in September 2022.</span></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp5bfjUi36IXVzCXntKV9YVBlvoHEx7rgd8IykK0qS-f2BRbxSPRJQ4yCKcbf8ihZtWfqBx6eRk5CuQl3lL4uRr9suJYgB6-YKK8cxamrOH6htwrHYJfaSMghxhvZRFfamCucj-5qbEsC579IR6_MM6g-AvIeOeSh3vUvfu_LqCWYNVgHDBP0WqgMj_Q=s1000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="1000" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp5bfjUi36IXVzCXntKV9YVBlvoHEx7rgd8IykK0qS-f2BRbxSPRJQ4yCKcbf8ihZtWfqBx6eRk5CuQl3lL4uRr9suJYgB6-YKK8cxamrOH6htwrHYJfaSMghxhvZRFfamCucj-5qbEsC579IR6_MM6g-AvIeOeSh3vUvfu_LqCWYNVgHDBP0WqgMj_Q=w640-h450" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Original Production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, 1971. Photo by Fletcher Drake. Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Center Archives, 1971. Joy McLean Bosfield might be among the robed choir members above the dais, possibly the second singer in the first row to the right of the center aisle. The photo ran on the front page of <i>The Washington Post </i>on September 9, 1971.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The framed sheet music might have been especially meaningful for McLean Bosfield, as she had co-founded a business that prepared printed music for publication in 1959. This excerpt from “Gloria in Excelsis” shows the choral and orchestral parts for an exuberant response to the absolution of sin. Across the opening bars, Bernstein inscribed in red ink, “Gloria to Joy McClean!” [sic] along with his signature and the date. Significantly, it is the only framed item among the newspaper clippings (including Washington Post articles about MASS at the Kennedy Center), photographs, and programs in the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/ACMA.06-008">Joy McLean Bosfield papers</a><span> at the Anacostia Community Museum.</span></span></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSmeztzryHJGNkR7ejfSm90XOypckWIdIeAEqMBOO3ozowTtFwSC7P-Oo6-vRjAUtvHqmfZKCqAtbm60jWOIS4O6kw_mHMA9HOqoH9GKjpgdYKYwow_q7UAI0_nsLqo8CwyJ5AH2aYq9uvDyXKzj6t3xSeH7zo6IpLYJk19ez8QD0ehY8iEEV2vwRuDg=s472" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="472" height="597" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiSmeztzryHJGNkR7ejfSm90XOypckWIdIeAEqMBOO3ozowTtFwSC7P-Oo6-vRjAUtvHqmfZKCqAtbm60jWOIS4O6kw_mHMA9HOqoH9GKjpgdYKYwow_q7UAI0_nsLqo8CwyJ5AH2aYq9uvDyXKzj6t3xSeH7zo6IpLYJk19ez8QD0ehY8iEEV2vwRuDg=w640-h597" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />A photo from Joy McLean Bosfield’s scrapbook shows the cast of </span><i style="text-align: left;">Porgy and Bess</i><span style="text-align: left;"> in Hollywood in 1954: left to right, unidentified man, Irene Williams, Leslie Scott, Joy McLean, LeVern Hutcherson. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>“Joy McLean” appears among the names in the </span><a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kgXxP42kvmbIIw?hl=en">MASS program</a><span> along with other renowned artists, such as Alvin Ailey dancers Judith Jamison and Sylvia Waters. The name served as both her real and stage name for much of her career, including when she sang the role of Clara in an international touring production of </span><i>Porgy and Bess</i><span> that played a significant role in Cold War cultural diplomacy in the 1950s. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqXwopi0Pgh8CLEQVFiEMXMMIkem6ZB498spQnIW4zOK2Z8HLFoBYCEuUs9n-JQfcy7ViYI7GfO-CQZ-gxERxxuuuPBgM3LT6WPsm3_IydkVLNvpVrXy5P6nkhkguUG5F-v_AynRF8CTxOAJO973t5cmMwVsK3XxSqbhLDeVZA4LeQoSdk3R9Ca6PU8g=s768" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="592" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqXwopi0Pgh8CLEQVFiEMXMMIkem6ZB498spQnIW4zOK2Z8HLFoBYCEuUs9n-JQfcy7ViYI7GfO-CQZ-gxERxxuuuPBgM3LT6WPsm3_IydkVLNvpVrXy5P6nkhkguUG5F-v_AynRF8CTxOAJO973t5cmMwVsK3XxSqbhLDeVZA4LeQoSdk3R9Ca6PU8g=w494-h640" width="494" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Norman Scribner wrote a letter to the original MASS cast members on Kennedy Center letterhead, Feb. 16, 1972. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>McLean Bosfield’s papers also include a letter from Washington Choral Arts and MASS choir director <a href="https://edan.si.edu/slideshow/viewer/?eadrefid=ACMA.06-008_ref559">Norman Scribner</a></span><span>. Its salutation reads, “Dear ‘Original Cast’ Member,” and invites her to participate in a 1972 touring revival of MASS. Professional obligations likely prevented her from participating, such as her service as music minister for John Wesley AME Zion Church in the District’s Logan Circle. A church colleague, </span><a href="https://siarchives.si.edu/history/featured-topics/African-Americans/john-kinard">Rev. John R. Kinard</a><span>, became the founding director of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in 1967. Recognizing the value of her papers, he worked with </span><a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/Content/img/Home/Portia_James.pdf">Senior Curator Portia James</a><span> to acquire them for the museum’s collection as McLean Bosfield prepared to retire to Mexico in 1985.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_JKLrWTXjum3d0-mUKBGglHxVKC_oAwoyJXfYxRXZUXxNZKIeLh9n-is2qQDGP7mdeoL_CkuFBG_PRioXxxQLoUpIvwGt92xI4JlHE44ECeRjWSEO0OxNFqnOrMiIw9gVdYvAGBl4E-eGkSfzpUtn2YbZD6kC6UDoAKPVDr4hFeKy7EPElYt4Hcoe-g=s640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="640" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi_JKLrWTXjum3d0-mUKBGglHxVKC_oAwoyJXfYxRXZUXxNZKIeLh9n-is2qQDGP7mdeoL_CkuFBG_PRioXxxQLoUpIvwGt92xI4JlHE44ECeRjWSEO0OxNFqnOrMiIw9gVdYvAGBl4E-eGkSfzpUtn2YbZD6kC6UDoAKPVDr4hFeKy7EPElYt4Hcoe-g=w640-h398" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Annotated scrapbook photos show Joy McLean Bosfield teaching her choreography to youth in rehearsals for the Community League of West 159th Street’s Cotillion in New York City, 1958. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Born and raised in New Jersey, McLean Bosfield came of age artistically in New York City. Like Bernstein, she performed and conducted at Lincoln Center. Her </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/ACMA.06-008">scrapbooks</a><span> attest to a wide-ranging repertoire rooted in African American musical traditions, including those of her mother’s birthplace of Demarara, British Guiana (Guyana, in 2022), alongside fluency in mélodie (French art song), classical compositions, and Broadway showtunes.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A verse on a handmade card congratulating McLean Bosfield on her college acceptance concludes with the double entendre, “Let Joy Be Unconfined.” Her archive and students bear witness to a legacy of unconfined Joy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">In harmony with this post and in honor of <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/articles/black-history-month-2022">Black History Month</a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, McLean Bosfield’s scrapbooks are being
relaunched on the Smithsonian Transcription Center. Digital volunteers can
refine prior transcriptions, which proved challenging due to the scrapbooks’ varied
and fragile materials. Check out the scrapbooks: <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/project/8546">here</a></span><span style="color: #4a4a4a; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://transcription.si.edu/project/8546"> </a></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">and <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/project/8565">here</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Jennifer Sieck, Ph.D., </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Collections
Researcher</span></p><p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/">Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum</a></span></p><div><br /></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-11471906084710776562022-01-24T17:28:00.012-05:002022-02-07T08:57:33.872-05:00Butter and Egg Money<p>By Lily Stowe-Alekman</p><p>Elizabeth Bourne Robinson was born on December 3, 1892, and died on July 25, 1976. On November 20, 1929, she married Frank A. Robinson and moved to the Robinson family farm near Brandywine in Prince George’s County, Maryland. They had three children: Mary Elizabeth, Franklin Alexander, and Robert Lee. After Frank’s father died in 1937, he bought out his siblings’ and mother’s portions of the estate to retain the property as one. In 1937, the farm consisted of "1 corn house & cow stable, 1 stable, and 1 Granary & Stable.” Elizabeth kept a record of life on the farm in her diaries beginning in 1951 through 1960. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXd45O4bfqF9ed_xqcgM4l0aGK03kd_yAwXDB4KFKdwGfgpeMcDcw2ys_uHwbqVUmMDh6uUk1NmMl5HkmOaLzOqrhbwPf6K0zkga6b7M6IaoXNe-5fz6o3ZNAHsOwzlwi_rHE0is7gIrqgW1EtsgZzSQkCQpUzAJA1v80Hzlqj2Djmi9VsKvo7nZZ4iQ=s4147" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4109" data-original-width="4147" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXd45O4bfqF9ed_xqcgM4l0aGK03kd_yAwXDB4KFKdwGfgpeMcDcw2ys_uHwbqVUmMDh6uUk1NmMl5HkmOaLzOqrhbwPf6K0zkga6b7M6IaoXNe-5fz6o3ZNAHsOwzlwi_rHE0is7gIrqgW1EtsgZzSQkCQpUzAJA1v80Hzlqj2Djmi9VsKvo7nZZ4iQ=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Elizabeth and Frank Robinson, December 25, 1957, Ferndale Farm. Gelatin silver photographic print, Robinson and Via Family Papers, Box 33, AC0475.0000342, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Elizabeth’s farm diaries are housed in the Archives Center’s Robinson and Via Family Papers, AC0475. In her earliest diaries, 1951 to 1953, she writes about the farm workers, her children’s activities, what her husband does, who visits, where she goes, the weather, and anything else that seemed important to her. A large part of her entries consists of logging the work done on the farm. The family grew many things, but tobacco was a very important crop on the farm. In her diaries, Elizabeth also tracked how many eggs were collected from the chickens each day, how much money was made on eggs, and how much money was made on butter. At the end of each month and year, Elizabeth totaled the income from these items made and how many eggs were collected. In 1951, Elizabeth recorded making $151.90 on butter, $85.35 on eggs, $237.25 together, and collected 5062 eggs. Elizabeth recorded making $161.90 on butter, $49.40 on eggs, $211.30 together and collected 2880 eggs in 1952. In 1953, Elizabeth wrote, “took in for year from eggs and butter. $255.80.” From looking at only these three years, one can see that Elizabeth was bringing in significant income from her egg and dairy production. Elizabeth tends not to record amounts of money from other ventures, so clearly tracking the sale of butter and eggs and her egg collection was important to her.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEnrD0KGE2DLfVcCi6CJZ_9CPy9KAtJaixAwP8B77Su3HHLUJOQOj3ig8S6B-qqNbvRXNEnP9d5g9EPsvhbgHs-uLOtKPoMdi88tZuug5eWrOSBmtzFLihbo_wDf1vPhQTkLdPkyEn9YsJavnwK40Tn59Lbn5lqUKPO4sd47nYlWqxIEF6gadL-VkQ2A=s1806" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1806" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhEnrD0KGE2DLfVcCi6CJZ_9CPy9KAtJaixAwP8B77Su3HHLUJOQOj3ig8S6B-qqNbvRXNEnP9d5g9EPsvhbgHs-uLOtKPoMdi88tZuug5eWrOSBmtzFLihbo_wDf1vPhQTkLdPkyEn9YsJavnwK40Tn59Lbn5lqUKPO4sd47nYlWqxIEF6gadL-VkQ2A=w640-h200" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 18.4px; text-align: left;">Elizabeth’s totals for income from butter and eggs and number of eggs gathered for 1951 in Elizabeth Robinson’s Farm Diary Volume 1, 1951-1953, page 58, Robinson and Via Family Papers, Box 4, Folder 6, NMAH.AC.0475, </span><a href="https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">Scholars have written about farm women’s egg and butter production and sales. While it is uncertain how much control Elizabeth had over managing farm operations, her recording the eggs and butter shows they were important in her daily notations. In "<i>Women</i> <i>Who Work in the Field": The Changing Role of Farm and Nonfarm Women</i>, Stephanie Carpenter states, “By 1940, female field labor had in many areas become obsolete. Removing women from field work downplayed their importance in field production and placed greater emphasis on their part in dairy, garden, and poultry operations.” Carpenter also notes that this changed during World War II as women went to work in the absence of men fighting in the war, indicating that “during the last years of war, more than three million farm and nonfarm women provided labor to farmers through private employment and as members of the Women’s Land Army.”</p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnlNdy5bWW1W5Yhc-pY21Xe3H52ezg_q-d5AGIXj34kHAH71PP5bNbYx3CT4938isSbXxrVv-tbA2ja65o6WoKdRBDhejWWAuB1gCe1MZm3I-9NbF_RiFCHi7elo86MwH8chuzHS9MM88_YRGgb1dafjwSJ_jTvyHFRPj_YbYk101JKrRt6dS_hWUFlw=s5221" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3793" data-original-width="5221" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnlNdy5bWW1W5Yhc-pY21Xe3H52ezg_q-d5AGIXj34kHAH71PP5bNbYx3CT4938isSbXxrVv-tbA2ja65o6WoKdRBDhejWWAuB1gCe1MZm3I-9NbF_RiFCHi7elo86MwH8chuzHS9MM88_YRGgb1dafjwSJ_jTvyHFRPj_YbYk101JKrRt6dS_hWUFlw=w400-h290" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Elizabeth Robinson (left) and Adina Mae Via (right) in a field of wheat, June 1956. Gelatin silver photographic print, Robinson and Via Family Papers, Box 17, AC0475-0000341. Archives Center, National Museum of American History.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In 1953, the Women’s Bureau recorded that 730,000 women were “farmers and farm workers” as opposed to 690,000 in 1940. Elizabeth’s first diaries are firmly placed in this period. While I have not researched Elizabeth’s experience during WWII, placing her in the context of other farm women in this period is important. Following WWII, there was a push for women to resume and return to their traditional feminine roles as mothers and wives and out of the workforce. Part of this would mean a return to the jobs women were supposed to embrace instead of field work in 1940: “dairy, garden, and poultry operations.” Carpenter believes that “in their effort to embrace the feminine ideal of the postwar era, farm women described their lives as they hoped they would be.” As such, in popular farm magazines, women weighed in that they should not do field work, but also that this was not all that was realistic for them. Butter and egg production, it seems, were acceptable tasks for women to do on farms while maintaining this image of femininity. I wonder if there were other ways for Elizabeth to earn money for her work on the family farm or if egg and butter production were the only socially acceptable ways? It is difficult to tell what additional work Elizabeth herself completed on the farm, as she often writes without crediting tasks to different people; however, she often notes that her son Franklin did the milking. It seems Elizabeth spent most of her time on the farm and was thoroughly involved in its day-to-day operation. Her daily diary entries provide a very personal and detailed look into life on a mid-Atlantic family farm for a woman in the mid-20th century. <p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAjujSH51J8oDtln8fhb-kxpWpfQ3Pdj1CvYAD562HNzj4x_8l7OJ6l-tOd2dClDRei_J-OEReE_4rZRNHALii6YYlxBGNk28IT5gRLJCn_yzalaqqkZW6I23U7tYl-F7_8-oDU9Ow9t-5HwREo4iPj35UuEVKLTLRGkwSxDpOsDrtzUBF4trKRDwz2g=s5915" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4130" data-original-width="5915" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAjujSH51J8oDtln8fhb-kxpWpfQ3Pdj1CvYAD562HNzj4x_8l7OJ6l-tOd2dClDRei_J-OEReE_4rZRNHALii6YYlxBGNk28IT5gRLJCn_yzalaqqkZW6I23U7tYl-F7_8-oDU9Ow9t-5HwREo4iPj35UuEVKLTLRGkwSxDpOsDrtzUBF4trKRDwz2g=w400-h279" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Planting tobacco, standing: Norris Grose; sitting: Elizabeth Robinson; and driving: Frank Robinson, July 1955, Ferndale Farm." Gelatin silver photographic print, Robinson and Via Family Papers, Box 17, AC0475.0000340, Archives Center,<br />National Museum of American History.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><div><u>Works Cited</u></div><div><br /></div><div>Carpenter, Stephanie. “’Women Who Work in the Field’: The Changing Role of Farm and Nonfarm Women on the Farm.” <i>Agricultural History </i>74, no.2 (Spring, 2000), pp. 465-474. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3744865">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3744865</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Find a Grave. “Elizabeth Bourne Robinson.” Accessed December 1, 2021. <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23927447/elizabeth-robinson">https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23927447/elizabeth-robinson</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Robinson, Elizabeth Bourne. “Elizabeth Bourne Robinson Farm Diary Volume 1, 1951-1953.” January-December 1951. Robinson and Via Family Papers, NMAH.AC.0457, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31">https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Robinson, Elizabeth Bourne. “Elizabeth Bourne Robinson Farm Diary Volume 1, 1951-1953.” January-December 1952. Robinson and Via Family Papers, NMAH.AC.0457, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-60">https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-60</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Robinson, Elizabeth Bourne. “Elizabeth Bourne Robinson Farm Diary Volume 2, 1953-1955,” January-December 1953. Robinson and Via Family Papers, NMAH.AC.0457, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. <a href="https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31">https://transcription.si.edu/view/7008/NMAH-AC0475-0000251-31</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Robinson, Franklin A., Jr. “Guide to the Robinson and Via Family Papers.” NMAH.AC.0475, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. <a href="https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.0475.pdf">https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.0475.pdf</a></div><div><br /></div><div>U.S. Women's Bureau. <i>Women as Workers: A Statistical Guide.</i> Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953. In Carpenter, Stephanie. “’Women Who Work in the Field’: The Changing Role of Farm and Nonfarm Women on the Farm.” <i>Agricultural History </i>74, no.2 (Spring, 2000). <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3744865">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3744865</a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><p><b>Lily Stowe-Alekman</b></p><p>Intern, <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a></p><div><br /></div></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-56228547553053157732022-01-24T15:30:00.009-05:002022-02-11T16:29:49.720-05:00Living Documents and Historic Postcards of Guinea<div class="separator"><span style="font-size: medium;">By Haley Steinhilber</span></div><div class="separator"><br /></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing? On an archival document?! Traditionally, archives are known for their dedication to preserving original photographs, documents, and visual materials in their original condition and order—but what happens if the donor invites collaboration?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When former USAID Foreign Service officer Stephen Grant donated his annotated copy of <i>Images de</i> <i>Guinée</i> (1991) to the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives (EEPA) in 2020, he hoped that the book should remain open for others—specifically Guineans and those with ties to Guinea—to share in the margins their own reflections of the historic postcards.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Adding to a collection is not a rare occurrence. In fact, Grant himself has donated over 10,000 photographic postcards from Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Senegal, and the Republic of Guinea in separate instances in 2001, 2018, and 2020. The EEPA also accepts new donations to the African Postcard collection (EEPA.1985-014) every year, continuously altering the make-up of the collection. One of the many things that makes <i>Images de Guinée </i>unique is the concept of a typically static item (a book) remaining active in a concept known as a “living” document. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A <i>living document</i> is a text that is continually edited and updated, and perhaps limited by a set of frameworks.(1) This term has been applied to materials like the United States Constitution, but it can also refer to a website like Wikipedia, the digital encyclopedia that allows account holders to update articles freely.(2) In the context of the archive, a living document can be a way for visitors to connect in a more personal way—no longer an observer, but an active participant in history making. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In a 2020 interview with museum staff, Grant explained how postcards helped him relate to others in the countries where he lived: </span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I learned something about introducing oneself when you go abroad for the U. S. government. You can say your name, and shake hands, and that’s it. Or, soon after you meet someone, you can surprise them by pulling out of your pocket a small stack of picture postcards of the country and see how your new friend or colleague reacts. There will be astonishment that you have these items in the first place; most people throw away postcards.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Secondly, the person will invariably make a comment comparing what the scene looked like in the past, and looks like today. Thirdly, for more impact, show the postcards simultaneously to children, young adults, and older adults, and listen to their different reactions! Picture postcards open up conversations. They provoke the beholder to compare the past with the present. They prompt unsuspectedly rich exchanges in a family setting.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When Grant helped put together the book of postcards in 1991, he had already been collecting postcards for over 10 years. He was inspired by an exhibit at the National Library in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, in 1980, which featured hundreds of old picture postcards of the country. In turn, while living in Guinea as a USAID officer, Grant inspired others with his own postcard exhibit, which took place at the Franco-Guinean Cultural Center in Conakry. The exhibit attracted around 1,700 visitors in March 1991.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">German Ambassador to Guinea, Dr. Hubert Beemelmans, was so taken with the exhibit that he approached Grant about turning it into a book. They could repair and use a printing press at the Catholic Mission in Conakry—they only needed the staff and supplies.(3) Beemelmans requested money from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn, Germany to buy paper, ink, materials for binding, and to train additional local staff on the printing press. Postcard collectors from France, Bernard Sivan and Pierre Dürr, also provided images from their large collections. The resulting publication became the first book published in Guinea in the private sector. All previous publications had been printed by the Patrice Lumumba National Printing Office, according to Seydouba Cissé, the Assistant Director of National Archives in Conakry.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgiEdYzg6MWNjdl_poqsxQM3vgukewDKWBdgwsIkQ3Z1_lkbFfv2fqjlueXLsfWTIKTitvqGWj_wVtpQl1GialdvjIaUhHUF_oX2gP8QdCMH_Pqcgz7ylpv7RP7Aux1rzhy8PIJEfV6DFlLP2t_Ac6cFYeTQCDDpYMIEVsFmg8i7MrbQI8goJpC6t-Dw=s817" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="817" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgiEdYzg6MWNjdl_poqsxQM3vgukewDKWBdgwsIkQ3Z1_lkbFfv2fqjlueXLsfWTIKTitvqGWj_wVtpQl1GialdvjIaUhHUF_oX2gP8QdCMH_Pqcgz7ylpv7RP7Aux1rzhy8PIJEfV6DFlLP2t_Ac6cFYeTQCDDpYMIEVsFmg8i7MrbQI8goJpC6t-Dw=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Stephen Grant (left) speaking with German Ambassador to Guinea, Dr. Hubert Beemelmans, at the postcard exhibit, 15 March 1991, Conakry, Guinea. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">From the beginning, the book was grounded in remembering Guinea’s past. As Dr. Beemelmans writes in the preface (translated from French): </span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The past is the foundation of the present and future. Humankind and nations that ignore their past do not know each other and do not know where they are going. One can criticize the past, but at the end of the day one must accept it or at least come to terms with it...This book is the memory and the messenger from the past...This book is intended to appeal to those Guineans and foreigners who love Guinea and want to know its past in order to better understand its present and be able to accompany its future.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At first, only Grant’s fellow contributors wrote in the book: the collectors Sivan and Dürr, printer Augusto Bindelli, and Seydouba Cissé, Assistant Director of the National Archives in Conakry. But soon, Grant began inviting others to leave inscriptions before he departed for his next assignment in Indonesia. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What resulted was an assortment of experiences, from fellow USAID officers to local politicians and educators to a descendant of one railroad family in Conakry. The inscriptions date from 1991 to 2020, when Grant invited the current Ambassador from Guinea to add his own recollection to the book. </span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7nviFgUuqGfJrkV4h7KJIsfEGShSF0cYi6_dnM8XAqkO57-JPx-dfLmpMkzs0V9gKNdZJ3LHatumRGKposJ1EkCm0qSwbkx2DcmGcArsdKRyaEDQ9wnbkA8cVQBWPNAhpm9ZRrjDfPj38xbucukRZvn0uz66xkepu3hfP-CcDUChL1j6egIJ_nXU_Mw=s1036" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="719" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7nviFgUuqGfJrkV4h7KJIsfEGShSF0cYi6_dnM8XAqkO57-JPx-dfLmpMkzs0V9gKNdZJ3LHatumRGKposJ1EkCm0qSwbkx2DcmGcArsdKRyaEDQ9wnbkA8cVQBWPNAhpm9ZRrjDfPj38xbucukRZvn0uz66xkepu3hfP-CcDUChL1j6egIJ_nXU_Mw=w255-h368" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Stephen Grant’s leather-bound annotated copy of </span><i style="text-align: left;">Images de Guinée</i></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">, 1991.<br />The cover was designed by Annick Grant.</span><br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAPpJCInohGsSzIQnwsZYuwwqZlxmHcTR6_UJkNxitJ2N0NKIMa0iTfybuvb9mMRqR_EYLEj3eWxpqOiTuNJ4XWZQ94qmT9paDR_hzjXGJ7ugpNLNOl6loghnVxlnRNmbjcShJMMvcMazXSyiRS8SNf6wI9TCf4PALKgSXQfxgeBEoT3DWCXUd9gGv5A=s1036" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="689" height="589" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAPpJCInohGsSzIQnwsZYuwwqZlxmHcTR6_UJkNxitJ2N0NKIMa0iTfybuvb9mMRqR_EYLEj3eWxpqOiTuNJ4XWZQ94qmT9paDR_hzjXGJ7ugpNLNOl6loghnVxlnRNmbjcShJMMvcMazXSyiRS8SNf6wI9TCf4PALKgSXQfxgeBEoT3DWCXUd9gGv5A=w392-h589" width="392" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></span><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">From the Pages of History</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-size: medium;">Education For All </span></u></p><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyyIJkRcNH0EBeIMDFgIII2Jfs8gwCuiifTU1gaejI7SGRCP9TNul037V3Xn3QV1h87lg8Mt52ZkIVHUVjC2b3nSDzs4EtgofJ8F2T8OQCyv_KBM7elni3aRG2dLpu7WTGSqAkoQkEp6qeiAi-CYtS6BHw31K5jm7RRIkmUjNcjCbVnIOrMBev1usdNg=s1024" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="1024" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyyIJkRcNH0EBeIMDFgIII2Jfs8gwCuiifTU1gaejI7SGRCP9TNul037V3Xn3QV1h87lg8Mt52ZkIVHUVjC2b3nSDzs4EtgofJ8F2T8OQCyv_KBM7elni3aRG2dLpu7WTGSqAkoQkEp6qeiAi-CYtS6BHw31K5jm7RRIkmUjNcjCbVnIOrMBev1usdNg=w640-h421" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Une école primaire indigène en Guinée Française - F.N. [An indigenous primary school in French Guinea], Ag. Ec. De l’A. O. F., c. 1910, Postcard, collotype, EEPA 2001-001-0940, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgIAAT1Xzp421E0bxC7eWjZ3URJWjvtUtKjGeDm4K6q516Pbqc2XTbHuUDsB1MQPeeOhrI8uitpR229WYiaoCXgMNbAEr___TZKE4m3ruCvhNMkYCL3LuWjTlNZBqEUpqYbl0FVWawDHy6FA5yDjcHOisxQFBol9gf_I1vo2GsH9hBiMODx3ui6sMGUg=s1980" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1980" data-original-width="1373" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgIAAT1Xzp421E0bxC7eWjZ3URJWjvtUtKjGeDm4K6q516Pbqc2XTbHuUDsB1MQPeeOhrI8uitpR229WYiaoCXgMNbAEr___TZKE4m3ruCvhNMkYCL3LuWjTlNZBqEUpqYbl0FVWawDHy6FA5yDjcHOisxQFBol9gf_I1vo2GsH9hBiMODx3ui6sMGUg=w445-h640" width="445" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Page 119 of <i>Images de Guinée,</i> featuring postcard and text from inscription by Aïcha Bah Diallo, 2. Une école primaire indigène en Guinée Française - F.N. [An indigenous primary school in French Guinea], Ag. Ec. De l’A. O. F., c. 1910, Postcard, collotype, EEPA 2001-001-0940, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Mr. Grant, thank you for asking me to write something about this photo. You recognize my role as mother and responsible for education. I love school and aim to do something significant for this sector with which I have been entrusted.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Which school is this? I’ve asked a lot of people. Not one could tell me. Nevertheless, I am leaning toward the region of Mamou because of the Moslem leader (almamy) holding a child. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank you, Mr. Grant. You have led me to relive the olden days thanks to your photos. We realize how much we have lost by not saving mementos (photos, postcards). With your cards, how many memories come back, and with what emotion! It is the history and the culture of our country that we relive. This is what explains the triumph of your exhibit. Thank you for that. I wish you good luck. </span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">--Aïcha Bah Diallo, President of the Network for Education for All in Africa, and former Minister of Education of Guinea. Original French:</span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Mr. Grant, Merci de m'avoir demandé d'écrire quelquechose devant cette photo. Vous me reconnaissez mon rôle de mère et de responsable de l'Education. J'aime l'école et je souhaite faire quelquechose pour ce secteur qui m'est confié depuis Juin 1989.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Quelle école est-ce? Je l'ai demandé à beaucoup de monde. Personne n'a pu me le dire. Cependant on peut dire que cette école doit être dans les environs de Mamou à cause de l'Almamy tenant un enfant. Merci Mr. Grant. Vous nous avez fait revivre les temps anciens grâce à vos photos.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Nous avons realisé combien nous avons perdu en ne gardant pas les souvenirs (photos, cartes postales). C'est une leçon que vous nous avez donnée. Avec vos cartes combien de souvenirs nous remontent et quelle émotion! C'est l'histoire et la culture de notre pays que nous vivons. C'est ce qui explique le succès de votre exposition. Merci pour tout cela. Je vous souhaite beaucoup de succès.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Diallo braids several themes into her inscription—her role as a mother, a friend to Grant, and an elected local official entrusted with the education of the community. She writes about connecting with others around her and asking about the history of the school, which further highlights Grant’s observation that the postcards inspire conversation. </span></p><p><u><span style="font-size: medium;">Nostalgia of the Railroad</span></u></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">During the 1930s when the Conakry-Niger Railway was a real railroad, you could count more than ten trains per day from Conakry to Kankan and back. My father was a station master at Kolenté where I was born. My father trained five other members of our family as station masters. Of the thirty or so stations in the Conakry Niger, my parents occupied half a dozen.</span></i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuTkIO9d62s0AqbImefAxMZYzGXodUcDyvOQsnv-eSoptNoRtbM_V4qtC68gt9put0BYau0u03WY9DfFSezIsdct2rAXsNJz1xiYezQeXPjtUrS7KLDA9YwotQWNOBy5a_vFzWFP_t_rZCbOi7VdS-1KbgEbyZWWgfhZb6IVPmVRIEP-_TLVdrq3iW6A=s907" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="907" height="413" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuTkIO9d62s0AqbImefAxMZYzGXodUcDyvOQsnv-eSoptNoRtbM_V4qtC68gt9put0BYau0u03WY9DfFSezIsdct2rAXsNJz1xiYezQeXPjtUrS7KLDA9YwotQWNOBy5a_vFzWFP_t_rZCbOi7VdS-1KbgEbyZWWgfhZb6IVPmVRIEP-_TLVdrq3iW6A=w640-h413" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Image Caption: 682. C.F.C.N. (Guinée Française) - Station de Siffray [ C.F.C.N. Chemin de fer, Conakry, French Guinea - Siffray Station, Collection de la Guinée Francaise, A. James, Postcard, collotype, c.1907, EEPA 2001-001-1032, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I spent several vacations at Siffray station (Dagomet) where my father's last little brother served as a station master for a long time. In short, I experience a great admiration for this beautiful collection characterized by discipline and perseverance exceptionally moving for connoisseurs.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I like the rails, I like the train, I like the stations, I like everything related to the railroad because I belong to the family of railway workers. Thank you, Mr. Grant, for this beautiful work which makes me very nostalgic. Thank you for your warm friendship.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">[El Hadj] Tafsir H. Thiam, 6/30/92, Deputy Director of Peace Corps in Conakry and child of prominent railroad family in Guinea</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuBaNVBFaqbLZoGAWtvl9WUwW0qNGFBL0OBQL8yizfJ5tdUqhSQHDtLOKzC9-TejKOxE1IeIqI0dCWgYanht-9t9JFlEIp7qBlt4_XsVB-nzXGejJhaeSZSaP3hUazdX1EW5EdR7p-pZDppbWgfL_GL-zDq35rzDkFrL378WOtB87_MUKiUEwZpXUIYw=s1244" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1244" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiuBaNVBFaqbLZoGAWtvl9WUwW0qNGFBL0OBQL8yizfJ5tdUqhSQHDtLOKzC9-TejKOxE1IeIqI0dCWgYanht-9t9JFlEIp7qBlt4_XsVB-nzXGejJhaeSZSaP3hUazdX1EW5EdR7p-pZDppbWgfL_GL-zDq35rzDkFrL378WOtB87_MUKiUEwZpXUIYw=w640-h418" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Guinée - Une Station de chemin de fer. [A railway station.], unknown photographer, c. 1910, Postcard, collotype, EEPA 2001-001-1057, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Pendant les années 30 lorsque le Chemin de fer Conakry-Niger était un vrai chemin de fer, lorsqu'on pouvait compter plus d'une dizaine de trains par jour de Conakry à Kankan et retour. Mon père était chef de gare à la Kolenté où je suis né. Mon père a formé cinq autres membres de notre famille comme chef de gare. Sur la trentaine de gares que comptait le Conakry Niger, mes parents en occupaient une demi douzaine.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">J'ai passé plusieurs vacances à la gare de Siffray (Dagomet) où le dernier petit frère de mon père a servi pendant longtemps comme Chef de gare. En bref, j’éprouve une grande admiration devant cette belle collection caracterisée par une discipline et une perseverance exceptionellement émouvantes pour les connaisseurs.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">J'aime les rails, J'aime le train, j'aime les gares, j’aime tout ce qui est lié au chemin de fer car j'appartiens à la famille de cheminots. Merci Mr. Grant pour cette belle d’oeuvre qui me rend très nostalgique. Merci pour votre chaude amitié.</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In this recollection, nostalgia infuses every word Thiam writes. From the Siffray station where he spent several vacations with his uncle, to the crowded platform that reflects a typical day on the railroad, the impact of these two postcards of the railroad draws memories of his family history that may not have been written down elsewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>The Familiar Crocodile</u><b> </b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhp1DepMNPeEnA3tjHDj1304QjrWdevQeK77xqDn2wVIqgVFwvdVIqEcpt8fuBUZ5mmgMQE5zM9caR5-zpOLRFOjoiRMDfLAWWRAPcB4Gd-rIk-9SzfK-bhtP_G7QXDRXjxCZZKBoBSRFtCHhMJwy5bvPkKtsdLCYnr6mGMyucqpxBTuqO7ib391GmQlg=s1024" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="1024" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhp1DepMNPeEnA3tjHDj1304QjrWdevQeK77xqDn2wVIqgVFwvdVIqEcpt8fuBUZ5mmgMQE5zM9caR5-zpOLRFOjoiRMDfLAWWRAPcB4Gd-rIk-9SzfK-bhtP_G7QXDRXjxCZZKBoBSRFtCHhMJwy5bvPkKtsdLCYnr6mGMyucqpxBTuqO7ib391GmQlg=w640-h424" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Colonies Françaises-- Guinée - Le Niger à Kouroussa [French Colony – Guinea - Niger river at Kouroussa], unknown photographer, c. 1910, Postcard, Collotype, EEPA 2001-001-1135, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Boda Kudu:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <i>A little downstream, there was a familiar crocodile, guardian of all the children of Kouroussa. He hunted any foreign crocodile, but alas! also munched on the foreign children who ventured into his domain.</i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOB1lC-59G5yIb-ekK5Ibf35MwT5jFdgn6GmatskUwv9GfuvrIiaDA-sN9iQLGV0JIC-AArzIQ9NeBnaf063JYsBoUXdSyDUXT67HHAfBT3QKUSF2LoZkqXYtmoqj57SuwWp4hit2ONnjiS9MBRuoe8MKjDEh3KVDE6E2psBsaVN1LrqVVQQ1eHZX-NQ=s1394" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1110" data-original-width="1394" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjOB1lC-59G5yIb-ekK5Ibf35MwT5jFdgn6GmatskUwv9GfuvrIiaDA-sN9iQLGV0JIC-AArzIQ9NeBnaf063JYsBoUXdSyDUXT67HHAfBT3QKUSF2LoZkqXYtmoqj57SuwWp4hit2ONnjiS9MBRuoe8MKjDEh3KVDE6E2psBsaVN1LrqVVQQ1eHZX-NQ=w640-h510" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br />Page 89 of <i>Images de Guinée</i>, featuring postcard and text from story by Yvonne Condé, Colonies Françaises- Guinée - Le Niger à Kouroussa [French Colony – Guinea -- Niger river at Kouroussa], EEPA 2001-001-1135, Postcard, Collotypes, Stephen H. Grant Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">We would hang onto his back; we would dive with him ... My God, time stood still. By Grant‘s magic! For this emotion that you created by your photos, for these tears shed on the fled treasures of my childhood, for the happiness of seeing again in photos all the places that I knew and loved in my childhood, those places whose destruction has been an amputation in my soul, for all that and for the delicacy of the gesture, you are blessed." - Yvonne Condé - Key member of the Comité transitoire de redressement national (CTRN). She is also responsible for the writing of Loi fondamentale in 1990.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Un peu en aval, il y avait un crocodile familier, tuteur de tous les enfants de Kouroussa. Il chassait tout crocodile étranger, mais hélas! croquait aussi les enfants étrangers qui s’avanturaient dans son domaine. </span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>On s'accrochait à son dos, on plongeait avec lui... Mon dieu, le temps s'est arrêté; Par la magic de Grant! Pour cet émoi que tu as créé par tes photos, pour ces larmes versées sur les trésors enfuis de mon enfance, pour ce bonheur de revoir en photo tant de lieux que j'ai connus et aimés dans mon enfance, ces lieux dont la destruction a été une amputation dans mon âme, pour tout cela et pour la délicatesse du geste, sois béni. </i>- Yvonne Condé</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This entry is particularly interesting in the context of Guinean politics. Condé, a key member of the Comité transitoire de redressement national (CTRN), shares a story almost like a fairy tale--about a place that may not exist anymore, or perhaps she is far from home. As a member of the organization trying to establish democracy in Guinea, Condé describes this allegory of a territorial crocodile.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Into the Future, As We Look Towards the Past</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although these are just a few examples, each of these inscriptions marks a separate significance to the postcards. The work for improving education, steady livelihood through a stable career on the railroad, or the treasures of childhood and reflecting on change in Guinea. How many other countless memories of the past could be provoked by these images?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Advances in technology and digitizing collections provide more options for archives to connect with the communities they serve, to preserve history, and invite collaboration. Over the last few years, EEPA has worked to digitize and catalog postcards from Grant’s postcard donations in 2001 and 2019. In the future, the EEPA will provide access to the full collection of historic postcards from Guinea and other African countries for folks to inscribe. Soon, anyone with access to the Internet (and a device) can view the historic postcards.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you are interested in sharing your own memories of Images de Guinée or sending a message to the EEPA about the postcards below, please send an email to elisofonarchives@si.edu with the subject line “Images of Guinea.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Due to Covid-19, the EEPA is currently closed to the public. In accordance with Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, it will reopen to visitors and researchers projected January 2022. Please email the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives to set up a visit to view the physical <i>Images de Guinee</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Notes:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> 1. Shanahan, D.R. A living document: reincarnating the research article. Trials 16, 151 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-015-0666-5</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> 2. Marshall, Thurgood. "The Constitution: A living document." <i>Howard LJ 30</i> (1987): 915. Kitchin, Heather A. "The Tri-Council Policy Statement and research in cyberspace: Research ethics, the Internet, and revising a ‘living document’." <i>Journal of Academic Ethics</i> 1, no. 4 (2003): 397-418.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> 3. Phone call with Stephen Grant, October 2021. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="font-size: medium;">Haley Steinhilber, Photo Archivist</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.si.edu/siasc/eepa_nmafa#:~:text=As%20part%20of%20the%20museum,cultures%20and%20history%20of%20Africa.">Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives</a>, National Museum of African Art</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 6.75pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", serif;">Also
visit Stephen’s website at </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", serif;"><a href="http://www.stephenhgrant.com">www.stephenhgrant.com</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 6.75pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", serif;">More
from the </span></i></b><a href="https://stephenhgrant.com/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", serif;">Stephen Grant</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", serif;"> Postcard Collection</span></i></b></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><br /></p><p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVmoM2RY601HAa2Zhiu629Fj10znZW8pqPLdD-2pHT-Oct5AvQ44jdPfcMh1bT7-jQFsKu203tdTJfBYFUIVtTdtcsUqytLc_0XRTsE62emudOKJ09HczeeQvGR_GlyiKNbJOrr_tn62fB4xoZRRfRWy4YC_naoBLyDtYAaFuU8QESneWlYpwpIHQqQw=s1292" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1292" data-original-width="1002" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhVmoM2RY601HAa2Zhiu629Fj10znZW8pqPLdD-2pHT-Oct5AvQ44jdPfcMh1bT7-jQFsKu203tdTJfBYFUIVtTdtcsUqytLc_0XRTsE62emudOKJ09HczeeQvGR_GlyiKNbJOrr_tn62fB4xoZRRfRWy4YC_naoBLyDtYAaFuU8QESneWlYpwpIHQqQw=w496-h640" width="496" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Collection de la Guinée -
A. James, Conkary. 82 – Conakry (Guinée Française). Le Ramadam: Le Salam (4e
phase).</i> [Guinea Collection – A. James, Conakry.
82- Conakry (French Guinea) Ramadan: Salam (4<sup>th</sup> phase).] Photograph
by A. James, c. 1932. Postcard, Collotype, EEPA 2001-001-0917. Stephen Grant
Postcard Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of
African Art, Smithsonian Institution</span><o:p></o:p></p><p><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1aeW_2yHI2ayyTSCjdVp6qbOoO0AdIaXTpehWlKpCf0RZVPlmGBJHazErkHdGZy2Uhw4_8RJUmt1JwDrZH5uQE1A09SlCor-jCXajKIO_ZnWXZqWNil2MxFeh_zjzUjWeDGuUM5SC01PpM7fDfAlAPBKd1JZt70bHALkNp2sAUd7Obt9B6CfGoZF-qw=s323" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="247" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1aeW_2yHI2ayyTSCjdVp6qbOoO0AdIaXTpehWlKpCf0RZVPlmGBJHazErkHdGZy2Uhw4_8RJUmt1JwDrZH5uQE1A09SlCor-jCXajKIO_ZnWXZqWNil2MxFeh_zjzUjWeDGuUM5SC01PpM7fDfAlAPBKd1JZt70bHALkNp2sAUd7Obt9B6CfGoZF-qw=w306-h400" width="306" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>549. Guinée Française - Konakry</i></b><b>
[French Guinea, Conakry], </b>Collection Fortier Dakar,
c. 1906, Postcard, Collotype, EEPA 2001-001-0972, Stephen Grant Postcard
Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African
Art, Smithsonian Institution</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_A1YFrerz3NOLNrZxIeLCIvUzu_gfBT-47LPmYfnr9qNg0L9Y98_LZONv0zLEO5k4SjkfYxAxen9KZel5dtvFcbfncZz0ACfYbrhSx4147YbsmyPt86dk7tgMaHHD4vMJQ7VeK182LCaFfV3YNegmyfe1D-6GGF9BzRW0o80xWf5Xh8jgattl4km9cw=s997" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="997" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_A1YFrerz3NOLNrZxIeLCIvUzu_gfBT-47LPmYfnr9qNg0L9Y98_LZONv0zLEO5k4SjkfYxAxen9KZel5dtvFcbfncZz0ACfYbrhSx4147YbsmyPt86dk7tgMaHHD4vMJQ7VeK182LCaFfV3YNegmyfe1D-6GGF9BzRW0o80xWf5Xh8jgattl4km9cw=w400-h308" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Jeune négresse et
petit Européen," French Guinea, unknown photographer, c.
1910, Postcard, Collotype, EEPA 2001-001-0981, Stephen Grant Postcard
Collection, Eliot Elisofon
Photographic Archives, National Museum of
African Art, Smithsonian Institution</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYB9BfbILjtT9uziueRnjPtpxz3PeKsWjymW9GMOI25-QaoVm2AjeYE36QeILpMylFZqnuECeam5XpaKQic-NXagiMvS-wh9Avsw8h3qV86NHUBVPuhal03aqBJLWzErkCqNJyMydQSZETjDJFSpGOyQXCfYdgmh5dHtkaFBLN6x8O956Gf0sOy0csoA=s976" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="627" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYB9BfbILjtT9uziueRnjPtpxz3PeKsWjymW9GMOI25-QaoVm2AjeYE36QeILpMylFZqnuECeam5XpaKQic-NXagiMvS-wh9Avsw8h3qV86NHUBVPuhal03aqBJLWzErkCqNJyMydQSZETjDJFSpGOyQXCfYdgmh5dHtkaFBLN6x8O956Gf0sOy0csoA=w413-h640" width="413" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Afrique occidentale -
Guinée[,] 1042. Femme Foulah</i> [West Africa, Guinea,
1042. Foulah Woman]<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Collection Générale
Fortier, Dakar, c. 1911, Postcard, Collotype, EEPA 2001-001-1176, Stephen Grant Postcard
Collection, Eliot Elisofon Photographic
Archives, National Museum of
African Art, Smithsonian Institution</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /><p></p><p><br /><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-40517444704750126362021-11-12T08:00:00.002-05:002021-11-15T12:46:36.963-05:00Hidden History: Lillian Evanti's Lobbying Contributes to the Creation of the Kennedy Center<p> By Jennifer Sieck</p><p>This post is being published on November 12, the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the National Negro Opera Company in 1941.</p><p>At the same time, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2021. It opened twelve years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed bipartisan legislation creating a national cultural center in 1958. However, the <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/ACMA.06-016">Evans-Tibbs Collection</a> at the Anacostia Community Museum includes even earlier bills. House Resolutions (H.R.) 5397 and 8047 testify to the advocacy of Madam Lillian Evanti (1890-1967) in the early 1950s (see below). The international opera star lobbied for a national performing arts center in her <a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/ACMA.06-016?t=W&q=traviata#ref20">native city of Washington, DC</a>.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixUJQoc7DQELSDpzvogBkEo5h-phnjK-rpPWPpSXKFJffz0tqPv8EotSpTWrTD2mi3Co0Gj0fwAwDk5iwddZkIjftWP11L_NqZ3bIHri40kl5V0cczwZtcghrEhq-bRhIuYzWa6LaXYv0u/s1328/HR5397_1953.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1328" data-original-width="905" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixUJQoc7DQELSDpzvogBkEo5h-phnjK-rpPWPpSXKFJffz0tqPv8EotSpTWrTD2mi3Co0Gj0fwAwDk5iwddZkIjftWP11L_NqZ3bIHri40kl5V0cczwZtcghrEhq-bRhIuYzWa6LaXYv0u/w437-h640/HR5397_1953.jpg" width="437" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu83CRcMfIITwK5OD8jsV2vk89yS1gfzok6lp2lVYvLJM8ZG2GmYa3UERfJB72j09Ta38VJahIJ8VRh9vH6_PWUCAXBWhfhIDsTqMjjrS-vCqFqdwo-xSoSVa6LON7eH14vQc94E4BM7W9/s1321/HR8047_1954.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="889" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu83CRcMfIITwK5OD8jsV2vk89yS1gfzok6lp2lVYvLJM8ZG2GmYa3UERfJB72j09Ta38VJahIJ8VRh9vH6_PWUCAXBWhfhIDsTqMjjrS-vCqFqdwo-xSoSVa6LON7eH14vQc94E4BM7W9/w429-h640/HR8047_1954.jpg" width="429" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>A graduate of Armstrong High School, Miner Teacher’s College, and Howard University, Evanti sang the role of <a href="https://sova.si.edu/search/within/ACMA.06-016/?q=traviata&t=W&o=doc_position">Violetta </a>in the <a href="https://nationaloperahouse.org/history/">National Negro Opera Company’s</a> staging of <i>La Traviata</i> on the <a href="https://boundarystones.weta.org/2017/11/02/whatever-floats-yourorchestra">Water Gate barge</a>, anchored just downstream from the Kennedy Center’s future location on the Potomac River. An August 28, 1943 performance drew an audience estimated at 12,000, and rave reviews inspired an encore show the following night. The Water Gate provided a rare, racially-integrated venue as segregation barred African Americans from many performance spaces, especially for large-scale productions like operas. This discrimination contributed to Evanti’s desire for a national arts center open to all.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1u4kzFWNO_6Y9hUCQhI5aSolS08EO7Y0bz69wKnjEqMsGrzGtP8nedUxnb8ME_uRe-RiKtyds4lqqLvqc5eukWar608Va29m_t8qp46QlBBF_w0n7bWbRIuYlRtcXmB5bmdhotQU-o_7/s1725/Ticket_acma_06-16-6_01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="1725" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1u4kzFWNO_6Y9hUCQhI5aSolS08EO7Y0bz69wKnjEqMsGrzGtP8nedUxnb8ME_uRe-RiKtyds4lqqLvqc5eukWar608Va29m_t8qp46QlBBF_w0n7bWbRIuYlRtcXmB5bmdhotQU-o_7/w640-h450/Ticket_acma_06-16-6_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Evanti’s handwriting on H.R. 5397 references H.R. 9111, the “most recent” bill as of May 1954. Stamps on the bills read “From Congressman <a href="https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/H000858">Charles R. Howell</a>,” who represented New Jersey’s 4th District and introduced H.R. 5397 on the House floor in May 1953. Representative <a href="https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/S000327">John “Jack” Shelley</a> of California introduced H.R. 8047 in February 1954. Both bills were referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. Groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center took place in 1964, three years before Evanti’s passing. </p><p>Visit the Museum’s Collections page to see Madame Evanti’s <a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/collection/object/acm_2002.5001.0001a-b">custom-built piano</a>, <a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/collection/object/acm_2002.0006.0041">handheld fan</a>, and <a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/collection/object/acm_2002.0006.0026">opera glasses</a>. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR_EFaPnJOQ8YBWF4ABJjGWzHC1GH4GpCm-zyMnrejZlmY7Hx_FzT4ZH7UMIvx3YwBzUqNE-S_y8mmNY1wVpinnLkaSpofEHmy-msikxhf8CwEcdvvXXhthn0lu7CLl8XTM73HjOFd5J8v/s1784/NNOCProgram_acma_06-16-15_17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1784" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR_EFaPnJOQ8YBWF4ABJjGWzHC1GH4GpCm-zyMnrejZlmY7Hx_FzT4ZH7UMIvx3YwBzUqNE-S_y8mmNY1wVpinnLkaSpofEHmy-msikxhf8CwEcdvvXXhthn0lu7CLl8XTM73HjOFd5J8v/w640-h422/NNOCProgram_acma_06-16-15_17.jpg" width="640" /></a></p><p>Above: Reproduction of an article by Grace W. Tompkins and photos of <i>La Traviata</i> staged at the Water Gate in 1943 in <i>A Pictorial History and Listing of Achievements of the National Negro Opera Company and National Negro Opera Company Foundation</i>, 1959, p. 32-33. Co-stars William Coleman as Germont and Lillian Evanti as Violetta are pictured in the top right. All images from Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.</p><p>Jennifer Sieck</p><p>Collections Researcher</p><p><a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/">Anacostia Community Museum</a></p><p><br /></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-50641119537836011442021-10-18T16:18:00.007-04:002021-10-25T15:07:39.499-04:00DAWN V. ROGALA'S CIRCUS PHOTOGRAPHS: A SMITHSONIAN COLLABORATION<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">By David Haberstich</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">October is American Archives Month! I’m celebrating it with this backstory and update to an SI Collections Blog post by former Smith College intern Kira Leinwand, published in late 2019. Kira’s insightful post, emphasizing the cultural dimensions of circus traditions, enthusiastically described some of the fascinating photographs in the NMAH Archives Center’s <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.1427?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Rogala&i=0">Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers</a>, also the subject of a book entitled <i>When the Circus Came to Town! An American Tradition in Photographs</i> (Photographs by Dawn V. Rogala; Essays by Dawn V. Rogala, David E. Haberstich, and Shannon T. Perich). Dr. Rogala, now a paintings conservator at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute (MCI), was an amateur photojournalist during the years of her self-assigned circus project. See Kira’s article, <a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-traditional-international-american.html">"The Traditional, International American Circus."</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">On October 24 this book was awarded the 2021 Stuart Thayer Prize by the Circus Historical Society, so this is a fitting stimulus to update the story of the collection and the book. Don Covington, president of the society, wrote in an email announcing the award, “The award is presented annually by the Circus Historical Society in recognition of superior documentation of circus history. Your book, ‘When the Circus Came to Town,’ was deemed by the selection committee to be the top entry in a crowded field of competitors.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Early on, Ginger Minkiewicz of the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press expressed interest in publishing a book on Dr. Rogala’s circus photographs. At the same time Dawn was concerned about preserving her photographs from this multi-year project in a suitable repository, and engaged in discussions with Shannon Perich of the NMAH Photographic History in the Division of Work and Industry and myself in the NMAH Archives Center. We both wanted Dawn’s photographs! We easily reached an appropriate compromise. Dawn donated her original negatives, work prints, and related papers from her circus project to the Archives Center, but also prepared a new portfolio of 16” x 20” exhibition-quality prints as a gift to the Photographic History Collection, giving new life to the documentary photographs she had created decades earlier.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Dawn was available to consult on the arrangement of her archive, although it was already in a logical, meaningful order when she delivered it to the Archives Center. I emphasize her role as a congenial consultant, as I know archivists and curators with cautionary tales about allowing donors to “curate” their own collections! Dawn worked with me and Kira Leinwand, answering questions, offering suggestions, and explaining how her working methods as a photographer had informed her decisions about arrangement. Processing was completed by Alison Oswald.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Dawn, Shannon, and I simultaneously embarked on a related collaboration, the creation of the lavishly illustrated scholarly book mentioned above, for which we all wrote essays. Dawn recounted her fascinating experiences in photographing a dozen small traveling circuses over a seven-year period, “embedded” with her subjects in much the same sense that war photographers are said to be embedded with the troops they follow and photograph. Shannon wrote about Dawn’s photographs within the historical context of circus, carnival, and entertainment photographs. As Dawn’s images concentrated on circus people and their behind-the-scenes work and relationships, rather than the spectacle of circus performances as entertainment, I chose to write about her images within the context of “work” photography and its history. Her pictures vividly depict the muscle work of practice and rehearsals, of erecting and dismantling tents, training animals, and the myriad efforts of performers and other workers to create a spectacle for audiences. I also contributed a preliminary finding for the archival collection and other reference material to an appendix in the book. All three of us reviewed each other’s texts, trying to meld them into a cohesive, informative, and entertaining volume. To me, our most rewarding collaboration was the selection, sequencing, and layout of the photographs to be reproduced in the book, conducted by all three of us in several long sessions in conference rooms with large tables. We seemed to be of a single mind, with no significant disagreements.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnnAfSMB6H6admFqE5bWXOrnlt1kV7Sg6-9MMutzo42hyphenhyphenIWijgOmwvbxRmeVlly516EAoRyLi-Sq_b4vyKLOwcc_upZe8J_XEGzHBLvVD1qJGzjEVMn_D0NzgMcoNVx4TAlBUwAvUBwON/s500/NMAH-AHB2017q011388.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="500" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwnnAfSMB6H6admFqE5bWXOrnlt1kV7Sg6-9MMutzo42hyphenhyphenIWijgOmwvbxRmeVlly516EAoRyLi-Sq_b4vyKLOwcc_upZe8J_XEGzHBLvVD1qJGzjEVMn_D0NzgMcoNVx4TAlBUwAvUBwON/w640-h534/NMAH-AHB2017q011388.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Kiss, Carson & Barnes Circus, 1995," by Dawn V. Rogala. Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission. Gelatin silver print, Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History. <br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTuXAOo2cbkbHL8YxmMyBQiMijpY0P0FDsSJE1xCAayj4t6TqOlqto9tLqqn97j_C6GnQS_ELF9O1jbdww_fmyrSkbJciI1w2aBSfAQsSAGzuL7-j3ea6lvjMEwydV8kAHTYYCU75mQFm/s2048/KM+and+CBCB.jpg" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1547" data-original-width="2048" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpTuXAOo2cbkbHL8YxmMyBQiMijpY0P0FDsSJE1xCAayj4t6TqOlqto9tLqqn97j_C6GnQS_ELF9O1jbdww_fmyrSkbJciI1w2aBSfAQsSAGzuL7-j3ea6lvjMEwydV8kAHTYYCU75mQFm/w400-h303/KM+and+CBCB.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ephemera from the Archives Center's Rogala Collection: Route Cards for Kelly Miller Circus and Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, 1995.</td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This archival collection contains a rich trove of information beyond the pictorial documentation, including interviews with circus performers and personnel, memorabilia and colorful ephemera, rare publications, travel itineraries, and related documents. One senses the end of an era, as most of the circuses which Dawn lovingly photographed no longer exist, literally having folded up their tents for the last time.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our book serves as an extension of Dawn’s circus archive, as it contains her biographical commentary, observations, and fond reminiscences of her travels with the circuses. As a paintings conservator at the Smithsonian’s MCI, she employs the keen analytical eyes she developed as a documentary photographer. She also has to her credit a number of scholarly and scientific books and other publications in her field.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now here’s the shameless plug: our book, <b><a href="https://scholarlypress.si.edu/store/all/when-circus-came-town-american-tradition-photograp/">When the Circus Came to Town! An American Tradition in Photographs / Photographs by Dawn V. Rogala, Essays by Dawn V. Rogala, David E. Haberstich, and Shannon T. Perich</a></b>, is available from the usual sources, and would make a great Christmas/holiday gift!</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">David Haberstich, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Curator of Photography, </span><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-28542610455887680122021-10-04T11:00:00.001-04:002021-10-04T11:00:00.268-04:00Gardens: The Universal Language<p>By Taylor Elyea</p><p>In January 1937, one hundred forty-seven members of The Garden Club of America ventured on a nineteen-day trip to numerous sites in Mexico. Extensive documentation of that journey, now part of The Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of American Gardens, makes it clear that the members covered a vast array of Mexican landscapes, gardens, and sites. The group trekked to landscapes in Guaymas, Mazatlán, the Barrancas, Guadalajara, Uruapan, Pátzcuaro, Morelia, Mexico City, Taxco, Cuernavaca, and many other cities. One of the sites visited by the group was the former home of Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933), an aficionado of Mexican gardens and botany and notable American archaeologist.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWLer9GKcPEOy868JqAIQ3f6F43S4dLJvGIQbsASbHINhJhzIbLkkwZfcNcCJcHTz-yS9EhuPc0OumIXDBanxynSKjHwo3AqYzGtuWgZaKuZ3iMWglC4xXyRBVVrG66wx8eZZXjCDW3eb/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="766" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWLer9GKcPEOy868JqAIQ3f6F43S4dLJvGIQbsASbHINhJhzIbLkkwZfcNcCJcHTz-yS9EhuPc0OumIXDBanxynSKjHwo3AqYzGtuWgZaKuZ3iMWglC4xXyRBVVrG66wx8eZZXjCDW3eb/w281-h400/image.png" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>Born in San Francisco to a Mexican-American mother and Irish father, Zelia Nuttall’s love for the Mexican landscape ultimately culminated in her purchase of Casa Alvarado, a 16th-century mansion in Mexico City. Here she explored her newfound interest in Mexican gardens and botany by studying garden and landscape art as well as medicinal herbs. She authored the monograph, The Gardens of Ancient Mexico, which was reprinted in the <a href="https://ia801306.us.archive.org/27/items/annualreportofbo1923smit/annualreportofbo1923smit.pdf" target="_blank">Smithsonian’s Annual Report for 1923</a>, and shared her love for Mexican landscapes by hosting many visitors in the gardens at her home.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLWKHWSeCvE_5_rqe1GocrlYOhLT4J44Rr3UqOn7NQnfxJu5LKBub0eTbI9m-6qI7l24NabmPc0q4ua6xMM3_UAXVPXRl2i7gyTMBI2e51RyFgeIel_udiRNjDBrDEMtn5a0P7F4M9ojr/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1865" data-original-width="2000" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimLWKHWSeCvE_5_rqe1GocrlYOhLT4J44Rr3UqOn7NQnfxJu5LKBub0eTbI9m-6qI7l24NabmPc0q4ua6xMM3_UAXVPXRl2i7gyTMBI2e51RyFgeIel_udiRNjDBrDEMtn5a0P7F4M9ojr/w640-h598/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GCA members at lunch in the gardens at Casa Alvarado, former home of scholar Zelia Nuttall. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>It was in these gardens that members of The Garden Club of America enjoyed a luncheon as guests of William Richardson, manager of the National City Bank’s Mexican branch. A copy of Nuttall’s article was provided to each GCA member, courtesy of the Garden Club of Mexico. </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q0YHx_g0jaSRW2eH9VC_uZUEGeEKAXveftaOdbYjfddFdKojLgL6KBUy2t5YjdAEMXkSfJBWsy6rmVOM0wI1ubOkPT_UANHU1EFfyVs1wd1SE-LiZVTjQgb0sBXUj8Pw0IKzLCfnulKe/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="2000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q0YHx_g0jaSRW2eH9VC_uZUEGeEKAXveftaOdbYjfddFdKojLgL6KBUy2t5YjdAEMXkSfJBWsy6rmVOM0wI1ubOkPT_UANHU1EFfyVs1wd1SE-LiZVTjQgb0sBXUj8Pw0IKzLCfnulKe/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walled garden, the Churubusco Monastery. Both sites in Mexico City were just two of many visited by the GCA in January, 1937.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>During their 1937 trip, GCA members met with their counterparts from a number of different garden clubs throughout Mexico. A few lines from a detailed travelogue of the trip published in the March, 1937 Bulletin of The Garden Club of America sums up the universal tie that a shared love of gardens brings: “…we have left them with our hearts and our gratitude, eternally…we said goodbye to them with real affection and regret.”</p><div style="text-align: left;">Taylor Elyea<br />2021 Virtual Summer Intern <br /><a href="https://www.si.edu/siasc/american_gardens">Archives of American Gardens</a> </div><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-83623499972806925402021-06-28T16:00:00.002-04:002021-06-29T22:23:20.732-04:00From March to Marketing: The Changing Face of Pride<p>By Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.</p><p>The Stonewall uprising of 1969 was triggered by a New York Police Department (NYPD) raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located at 53 Christopher Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Although a common NYPD practice at the time, on this particular occasion patrons rebelled and fought back, igniting the spark leading to the modern gay rights movements. The Archives Center at NMAH has been actively collecting documents, ephemera, and Pride-related materials since the early 2000s.</p><p>While the uprising may have been the spark, the marches commemorating the uprising the following year were the fire. The first celebrations, termed “Gay Liberation Day” or “Christopher Street Liberation Day,” later to be known as Pride, were held on June 27 and 28, 1970 in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, and San Francisco. Many LGBTQ organizations, including the Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Liberation Front, the Mattachine Society, and others converged on these major cities to, in the words of one New York City marcher, “serve notice on every politician in the state and nation that homosexuals are not going to hide any more.” Even though the number of national and international Pride celebrations continues to grow annually, the road to universal celebration has not been smooth, with local LGBTQ organizations often encountering social and legal roadblocks before being allowed to celebrate. * </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieEBa5Pp06rfrDZLYWSQEi0CjlaB2f_NmsUlImnDrWpar5NDohHYHsZSW3oxEymt6l11Vj89vOFXMAqzJgLt5rqOegvhhLBdwIZlHl-C81lvegxYGNplkm52qN582eugDlR6f2h9bPV0Pp/s1248/Screen+Shot+2021-06-29+at+9.28.27+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1248" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieEBa5Pp06rfrDZLYWSQEi0CjlaB2f_NmsUlImnDrWpar5NDohHYHsZSW3oxEymt6l11Vj89vOFXMAqzJgLt5rqOegvhhLBdwIZlHl-C81lvegxYGNplkm52qN582eugDlR6f2h9bPV0Pp/w308-h400/Screen+Shot+2021-06-29+at+9.28.27+AM.png" width="308" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Program for the Christopher Street Pride Celebration in Los Angeles, California, July 1976.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2f5496; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div></div></div></div></div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8iHrb8KiaspSU4hAOAcPda-rRxOruFJzpv2cZFR_Bu4wHALKraDlvSMZjS6GuNKPEI5U8WryERvbWeOy_-DIMdRphuowZwZztiDxNHz-9J3KGTF04cUoVamNU7Rr4Ha1Q2JNsg2SRwexX/s138/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="90" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8iHrb8KiaspSU4hAOAcPda-rRxOruFJzpv2cZFR_Bu4wHALKraDlvSMZjS6GuNKPEI5U8WryERvbWeOy_-DIMdRphuowZwZztiDxNHz-9J3KGTF04cUoVamNU7Rr4Ha1Q2JNsg2SRwexX/w261-h400/image.png" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Central Intelligence Agency poster collected at Washington, DC Pride in 2019.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>As the LGBTQ community has gained broader acceptance, one aspect of Pride that has changed radically is the corporate and community presence at Pride street fairs. During early Pride celebrations recognizable corporate logos, participating community organizations, churches, educational institutions, and locally based businesses were few or non-existent. During present-day celebrations more and more groups, businesses, and entities look to celebrate the event and compete to be a Pride sponsor. Multi-national corporations such as Comcast, Lockheed Martin, and Price Waterhouse Coopers, LLP, actively promote their companies at Pride. Government agencies, among them, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Park Service, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showcase their internal LGBTQ affinity groups as well as highlight employment opportunities. Colleges, universities, local businesses, and community organizations all vie for prime table space at Pride street fairs.</p><p>Modern day Pride has become an opportunity for not only celebration and commemoration but also for product and service advertising, educational and community organizations to dispense information, businesses to target potential customers, all the while remaining a diverse platform for performers, activists, and community leaders. The progression of Pride will be the subject of an upcoming NMAH Tuesday Colloquium on August 10, illustrated with items from the Archives Center's collections.</p><p>* Sources:</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Thousands of Homosexuals Hold a Protest Rally in Central Park,” Fosburgh, Lacey, <i>New York Times</i>, June 29, 1970, page 1.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt;">“15 to 20,000
Join Homosexual March.” Battenfeld, John for United Press International. The
Atlanta Constitution, June 29, 1970, page 2A.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Homosexuals Get ACLU Aid in
Fight for Parade Permit.” Houston, Paul, <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, June 13,
1970, page A1.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Homosexuals Stage Hollywood Parade,” Houston, Paul. <i>Los
Angeles Times</i>, June 29, page 3.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Gay Liberation Stages March to Civic
Center,” <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, June 28, 1970, page A3.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing">Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., Archivist, <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives" target="_blank">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a>.</p><div><b>Note:</b></div><div>If you wish to attend <b>Franklin Robinson's August 10 colloquium on Zoom,</b> which will feature Archives Center collection items, contact David Haberstich at haberstichd@si.edu.</div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-83612927282507178302021-06-28T14:26:00.001-04:002021-06-28T14:26:23.002-04:00Seeking Pride in Our Collections<p>By Hannah Byrne </p><p>Like so many employees across the Smithsonian (and at museums, libraries, archives, and cultural heritage institutions around the world), at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives we are anxious to get back into collections to pick up research projects we put down at the start of the pandemic. At the Archives, we help collect, preserve, and tell the stories of Smithsonian employees and community members. One research project that was halted by our departure, was looking more closely at our collections to understand the history and experience of LGBTQ+ employees at the Institution. </p><p>As we celebrate Pride this year, we’re looking back at one of the founding documents of the Smithsonian Lesbian and Gay Issues Committee. In this memo, Smithsonian employees Leonard Hirsch and Eric Keller, as representatives of the committee, sought formal recognition from Smithsonian administration for the group to operate and advocate effectively for LGBTQ+ employees across the Institution. The memo--luckily for us was already digitized--accompanied the group’s founding guidelines. We learn so much from this document: the group’s origin and connection to National Coming Out Day, the invisibility of LGBTQ+ employees at the Smithsonian, and the work they hope to accomplish as an advocacy group. When we return to the archives, we hope to explore more collections related to this topic to learn more about this group, more about the diversity of their members, more about their initiatives, and more about their successes and challenges to advocate for LGBTQ+ employees at the Institution. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyJgMywndXFtsNLxiXQP7aYvxkw4eW41v0DksviXy0Me5DKZ3yLPAu76nUoRFZeM5SJbbFyb7x77e6Y3hToBEpcsSC89zPUpMhBNPSkm5HbWfbmZgA76N7tbv0hOmMpHxlM7sF-Fd4LNCn/s768/SIA2017-045374a-S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="598" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyJgMywndXFtsNLxiXQP7aYvxkw4eW41v0DksviXy0Me5DKZ3yLPAu76nUoRFZeM5SJbbFyb7x77e6Y3hToBEpcsSC89zPUpMhBNPSkm5HbWfbmZgA76N7tbv0hOmMpHxlM7sF-Fd4LNCn/w498-h640/SIA2017-045374a-S.jpg" width="498" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Memorandum from Leonard P. Hirsch to James Early, June 3, 1991, page 1, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 15-218, Image no. SIA2017-045374a.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8C6Tj2Ekmk3VMWzd4QHYq-HiOzELHedh0J1xk4MwmB80C9wPFaxbEW-2333byJgJTFPk4tN4TVxdTu_m-bM-VnZ9NnZyib4pNK4LMXhDIU4U34bTMsKX2sVSn1ByapdLnGU-kuirPwsR/s768/Page2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="598" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8C6Tj2Ekmk3VMWzd4QHYq-HiOzELHedh0J1xk4MwmB80C9wPFaxbEW-2333byJgJTFPk4tN4TVxdTu_m-bM-VnZ9NnZyib4pNK4LMXhDIU4U34bTMsKX2sVSn1ByapdLnGU-kuirPwsR/w498-h640/Page2.jpg" width="498" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br />Memorandum from Leonard P. Hirsch to James Early, June 3, 1991, page 2, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 15-218, Image no. SIA2017-045374b.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Hannah Byrne, Program Assistant, Institutional History Division,</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span><a href="https://siarchives.si.edu/about/contact-us" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">Smithsonian Institution Archives, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives</a></div></div></div></div><p></p><p class="xmsonormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="xmsonormal"><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-6115094435919946662021-06-21T14:32:00.000-04:002021-06-21T14:32:16.259-04:00Joseph Cornell Study Center Processing Project<p>By Anna Rimel</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hprNq9Fq7vjUWbHGpOQyqpDJzqpRo-hNOPpH6Q-NPIZ58_e0DTvcE6f8gIxYIsBiP69p4p6catlb0F5Yt7Xlmf7rmIWxKgPkFbk1O3Ahe9QRYFBV54VHOwEMnikuAFVjs83zaUjsg9Y/s2048/Cornell+Viewing+Book+Object_scan.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1727" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hprNq9Fq7vjUWbHGpOQyqpDJzqpRo-hNOPpH6Q-NPIZ58_e0DTvcE6f8gIxYIsBiP69p4p6catlb0F5Yt7Xlmf7rmIWxKgPkFbk1O3Ahe9QRYFBV54VHOwEMnikuAFVjs83zaUjsg9Y/s320/Cornell+Viewing+Book+Object_scan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p align="center" class="MsoCaption"><i>Joseph Cornell with
Book Object, circa 1940<b><o:p></o:p></b></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the summer of 2017, I began work as the archivist of the
Joseph Cornell Study Center collection in the Smithsonian American Art Museum
(SAAM). My task, to put it simply, was to arrange, describe, and make
accessible a room full of the studio contents, personal and family papers, and
library and record collection of collage artist and avant-garde filmmaker
Joseph Cornell (1903-1972).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ7joRME2zCA2RG8hpTw-n6HMSMql6KN7HFWt4fE3DgZjTYDLIGcMJrP3Ra7IA2IHay8pB44Y7qGaCqnTbr2BjfkMFvGzPxE8PGceT6Ph1paHPCCmrl9-G1SbLWTfQBDZzSDK7U_DgSRM/s703/JC+Studio+Image+2_Terry_Schutte.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="650" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ7joRME2zCA2RG8hpTw-n6HMSMql6KN7HFWt4fE3DgZjTYDLIGcMJrP3Ra7IA2IHay8pB44Y7qGaCqnTbr2BjfkMFvGzPxE8PGceT6Ph1paHPCCmrl9-G1SbLWTfQBDZzSDK7U_DgSRM/w324-h350/JC+Studio+Image+2_Terry_Schutte.jpg" width="324" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p align="center" class="MsoCaption"><i>Joseph Cornell's
Basement Studio. Photographed by Terry Schutte.<b><o:p></o:p></b></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Working
primarily from his basement studio at home in Queens, New York – a home that he
shared with his mother and brother for their whole lives – he collected a wide
range of materials that he would store in cardboard boxes or cigar boxes.
Images clipped from magazines, articles from newspapers, and scattered notes
often resided in overstuffed folders or in stacks along various surfaces of his
studio.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">My first task was to familiarize myself with the history of
the collection and how it came to be at SAAM – no small task, since the
collection began with a donation from Joseph Cornell's sister, Elizabeth
Cornell Benton, in 1978, along with several additional donations and transfers
of personal materials into the 1990s. A veritable treasure trove of material
giving insights and contextual clues to Joseph Cornell's work and life, the
collection has been available to visiting researchers and previously included
in comprehensive exhibitions and publications on the artist. But access was
previously limited by the extreme extent and variety of the materials and the
lack of a complete finding aid (an organizational document providing
description of contents and contextual information) to the collection.</span></div><div><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next step was to familiarize myself with the physical
materials, the extent of groups or types of material, and determine if the
creator of the collection, Joseph Cornell, had any organizational systems in
place and maintain those systems. I also needed to determine if there were any
conservation or preservation concerns, which ultimately required going through all
of the items in the collection to make a preliminary assessment.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOob70W8nvbPFY-ZA-sxeINqZ7zyh4Kzx5p21moBgOLsozuErekt-v2T1a36NQ8iQCWY1xxf-niLCkPItMO2EAGD18JH-kxgF_0REnFv2PlTvJ13C-SjlHlpbnU8AqhbcAFjkub9jHZao/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="238" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOob70W8nvbPFY-ZA-sxeINqZ7zyh4Kzx5p21moBgOLsozuErekt-v2T1a36NQ8iQCWY1xxf-niLCkPItMO2EAGD18JH-kxgF_0REnFv2PlTvJ13C-SjlHlpbnU8AqhbcAFjkub9jHZao/w209-h337/image.png" width="209" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoCaption"><i>An array of damaged negatives found in the Joseph Cornell
Study Center during processing. Photograph by Anna Rimel, 2019.</i><b><o:p></o:p></b></p></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieb1PrGwBI-T5tByWX3PjYrSE4MyZRAjoiwkIveLIndeoI8jJFfTOG-E6Nmyww15-BwbX_qnL69xRvGMqpmljnajOdBoJBP44psY29XTzvv6bvuWUUlsnjLXm6iG5m6rF7rmNfWvci5Z8/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="206" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieb1PrGwBI-T5tByWX3PjYrSE4MyZRAjoiwkIveLIndeoI8jJFfTOG-E6Nmyww15-BwbX_qnL69xRvGMqpmljnajOdBoJBP44psY29XTzvv6bvuWUUlsnjLXm6iG5m6rF7rmNfWvci5Z8/w208-h277/image.png" width="208" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoCaption"><i>An example of a rusted paperclip found in the Joseph
Cornell Study Center collection during processing. Photograph by Anna Rimel,
2019.</i><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoCaption"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As
most gatherers of things are aware, materials kept in basements and attics
where temperatures and humidity tend to fluctuate, are often more at risk for
mold, rust, and pests. Since the collection has been in a climate-controlled
space for upwards of 40 years, any discovered damage was likely due to the
materials themselves degrading. For example, archivists are generally averse to
keeping old paper clips in collections because these tend to rust and damage
paper, and this was no exception for this collection. Also, in a collection like
this it is not unusual to discover unstable film and paper materials, such as
old newspapers and newsprint or nitrate and acetate film negatives.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acetate film negatives were introduced in the 1930s and the
popular film negative used until the more stable polyester film was introduced
in circa 1960. Acetate negatives, after a number of years and depending on
their storage conditions, can break down and off-gas, becoming a risk to
materials stored near them, and negatives can warp and wrinkle, rendering the
image inaccessible. Newspaper, inherently unstable and acidic, becomes brittle
over time.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These materials need special housing considerations
and take more measured and planned approaches as other processing and
arrangement work continues. The extent of this type of material, material that
needed more attention and care, turned out to be much more than originally
anticipated, causing me to necessarily adjust workflows and timelines. </span></p><div><span style="line-height: 107%;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3G05-gWNK1miImtcVoVRewIbSSAFZpW0MrznX5HT6c2g9kIHfa5rRR7euBJ6ZTORuord-U5CJVlqw8dkPuDL3XsPUTeJfEMz13HgrjR2x-cnElaVWZfVpG9_xtD-yUA6OcRtvDApJx_4/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="185" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3G05-gWNK1miImtcVoVRewIbSSAFZpW0MrznX5HT6c2g9kIHfa5rRR7euBJ6ZTORuord-U5CJVlqw8dkPuDL3XsPUTeJfEMz13HgrjR2x-cnElaVWZfVpG9_xtD-yUA6OcRtvDApJx_4/w191-h325/image.png" width="191" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoCaption"><i>Joseph Cornell's source material box of "Mouse
Material" in the Joseph Cornell Study Center. Photograph by Anna Rimel,
2018.</i><b><o:p></o:p></b></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But my work hasn't been all rusty paperclips and brittle
pages. One of the most interesting aspects of Joseph Cornell's life has been
how nostalgic he appeared to be about so many things. He might be having a good
day, taking a walk, and find a rusty bit of metal or a pull tab from a soda
can. He would pick up that found bit and attempt to capture that good day by
scrawling a little note, or a date and a word, and fold it around that bit of
metal. These were the constant surprises of the collection, in addition to
whimsically labeled boxes of other stuff – "Mouse Material" being one
of my favorites. Much to my relief, this box doesn't actually contain mouse
fur, but what appears to be gathered dust or lint from a vacuum.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While working through what amounts to Joseph Cornell's life
and a kind of fractured story of his artwork and ideas, there's a certain urge
to create groups of material based on known works of art. This urge simply
comes from wanting to understand Cornell's mind and present a body of material
that makes sense to outside eyes. However, the work of an archivist is not to
contrive groups of material or force things to fit into our need for order, it
is to understand the original intent behind a stack of paper, given contextual
clues, folder titles, or material type. With Cornell, the complexity of a found
objects artist combined with an individual who nostalgically collected and
gathered so much, this work was often like untangling an especially knotted
bundle of chain jewelry. For me, this meant that I never decided a group of
material was about any one thing unless explicitly stated through labels and
notes by Cornell himself. Oftentimes, a group of material was about more than
one thing, idea, person, memory, etc.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Understanding this, my next step, apart from
reading extensively about Joseph Cornell, was to come up with a planned
arrangement for the collection. With a collection numbering hundreds of boxes,
a planned outline is necessary to make the work doable. Having gone through the
collection and available inventories, I could estimate which boxes would
include which kind of material, according to my arrangement, and approach the
collection work in this way. Of course, with all great plans comes the
possibility for adjustments along the way, and that is part of the work as
well. Having tackled the overall high-level approach to the collection, I then
spent the next several years working through each item – unfolding notes,
removing paper clips and staples, removing materials from envelopes,
interleaving acidic documents with archival paper to extend the life of the
material, and properly housing everything in new, acid-free and lignin-free
folders and boxes. I began with the paper-based documents, which made up a
large part of the collection. My approach was to think of the collection as
large groups of material: with the paper-based materials as one group, including
photographs, prints, magazines, letters, financial records diaries, etc.; the
three-dimensional objects that require special housing considerations and a
different approach, as another part of the collection; the library collection
of hundreds of boxed books with notes and annotations, as another part; and the
record album collection as another part. Each of these larger groups has been
described in the same comprehensive finding aid to the collection, but </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">housing and planned physical approach differs for each type of material.</span></p></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRVQKKaB_fw7cuKAr8Exm9TKaahPxU5Oosl5NAtN3eGZnyFwT1Ksl1TbQspl_-OX2Qlmadgyz308GjXCEp7BqRTvAmSCHqRdwiVZXOXZJRE8SDJgePo5t-4P1wPsciwXvompub9ioq5g/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="342" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRVQKKaB_fw7cuKAr8Exm9TKaahPxU5Oosl5NAtN3eGZnyFwT1Ksl1TbQspl_-OX2Qlmadgyz308GjXCEp7BqRTvAmSCHqRdwiVZXOXZJRE8SDJgePo5t-4P1wPsciwXvompub9ioq5g/w291-h388/image.png" width="291" /></a><br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoCaption"><i>Shifting work in progress as files of material are placed
in their appropriate locations. Photograph by Anna Rimel, 2019.<o:p></o:p></i></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Going
forward, further work can be done to physically get the collection to where it
needs to be, but the collection now has a publicly accessible, comprehensive description in the form of the finding aid, which is a big
step towards accessibility and findability of such a significant, unique
collection of an important American artist.</span></span></div></div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">To learn more about the Joseph Cornell Study Center collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, please visit <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/research/cornell">https://americanart.si.edu/research/cornell</a></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">To view the finding aid to the collection, please visit <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/SAAM.JCSC.1">https://sova.si.edu/record/SAAM.JCSC.1</a></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">Anna Rimel, Joseph Cornell Study Center Archivist, <a href="http://americanart.si.edu">Smithsonian American Art Museum</a></div></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-17748820816749522692021-06-14T16:49:00.005-04:002021-06-21T14:32:58.601-04:00Collections-Based Research and Zoom Programs<p>By David Haberstich</p><p> <span> The pandemic of 2020-2021 suddenly and ruthlessly </span>limited human interaction, but educational institutions and organizations responded rapidly to fill the gaps. Everyone had to “pivot” in some manner from old ways to the “new normal.” Much formal learning took place in virtual classrooms, while separate Zoom and YouTube programs on a wide variety of specialized topics proliferated. As the National Museum of American History prepared to shut down in March 2020, one of my disappoint-ments was having to cancel or postpone indefinitely the remaining schedule of speakers for the weekly NMAH Tuesday Colloquium series which I had assembled. After a few months, as it became clear that the health crisis was not going to disappear soon, it seemed like a good idea to “pivot” the Tuesday Colloquium from its in-person setting in a conference room, complete with tea and cookies, to a virtual Zoom room. The procedures for hosting and managing a Zoom meeting are relatively simple and easy; I’ve had far more technical trouble over the years just trying to project a computer image onto a conference room screen!</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our ability to expand colloquium audiences is aided by Zoom. People who might be unable to attend in person can watch on their computers, and I can provide recordings on demand to those with schedule conflicts. Audiences were very large for a series of eleven related colloquia called “Pandemic Perspectives,” woven through our general schedule to fill gaps. This special mini-series was assembled by a team of NMAH curators who utilized the usual colloquium mailing list, plus targeted audiences and wider publicity. Rather than featuring a single speaker, each “Pandemic Perspectives” program was built around a panel composed of NMAH staff and outside experts for each topic. Nearly all of those programs were illustrated with NMAH collection materials as points for analysis and discussion—for example, objects from the medical history collections.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?max=800&id=https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/AHB2013q073573v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="800" height="456" src="http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?max=800&id=https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/AHB2013q073573v1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #41505c; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">Mulford Rabies Vaccine Outfit, ca 1921. From the Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History. This particular image was not part of a "Pandemic Perspectives" colloquium, but other NMAH collection materials related to pandemics, vaccination, and related topics were included.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">The NMAH Tuesday Colloquium has been a tradition in the museum for decades. (See my post about its history at https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2018/06/nmah-tuesday-colloquia-from-research.html.)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">It was originally intended as a forum for curators, other staff, and fellows to present their research, but we invite outside speakers as well, especially colleagues recommended by staff. Programs presented by staff and fellows frequently feature information about collection items from the museum. After all, the need to study materials in the museum’s rich collections is usually part of the rationale for research projects by staff, fellows, and visiting scholars. Collection artifacts have been featured in many NMAH Tuesday Colloquium presentations, including a recent illustrated lecture by Jennifer A. Porter-Lupu, an NMAH fellow and Ph.D. candidate in anthropology, Northwestern University: "Excavating Healthcare Inequalities: Mapping Disease and Drug Access in Washington, DC, 1890-1920."</span></div></div><p></p><p></p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>If you would like to be on the mailing list for the NMAH Tuesday Colloquium, please leave your request in a comment here, or email me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">David Haberstich, </span><span style="text-align: left;">Curator of Photography, </span><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives" style="text-align: left;">Archives Center, National Museum of American History</a>; <span style="text-align: left;">Coordinator, NMAH Tuesday Colloquium; haberstichd@si.edu</span></div></div><div><br /></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-48228202601961649062021-06-01T14:33:00.002-04:002021-06-01T16:41:44.287-04:00Elizabeth Peratrovich: An Early Civil Rights Activist from Alaska<p>By Mikaela Hamilton and Nathan Sowry</p><p>On February 16th, 1945, nearly 20 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States was signed into effect. The Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945 was created to address discrimination against Indigenous populations within the Alaskan territory by banning segregationist policies based on race. The successful passing of this act has often been credited to the dedicated work of Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich (Tlingit), a prominent figure in the fight for equality and civil rights in the early twentieth century.</p><p>As of this month, the <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAI.AC.078" target="_blank">Peratrovich family papers </a>are now available online, and will soon be available for research and reference in the National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. This collection includes photographs, audio recordings, correspondence, and newspaper clippings documenting the life and important civil rights work of Elizabeth and her husband Roy. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5SBWeYuWdgM23OJhEdKS0ds-bbrbaw6YnGHCSkrTNKOWQuODbLvd72F4DKojOGZVKJ_-mJYedeJpf1noPT2V0-gG4V8M4dowu39jyxNqOT7LvyJTqA0D5N6xKW8EIy1WaFlMMH3_ug4/s619/NMAI.AC.078_001_01_021.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="472" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih5SBWeYuWdgM23OJhEdKS0ds-bbrbaw6YnGHCSkrTNKOWQuODbLvd72F4DKojOGZVKJ_-mJYedeJpf1noPT2V0-gG4V8M4dowu39jyxNqOT7LvyJTqA0D5N6xKW8EIy1WaFlMMH3_ug4/w305-h400/NMAI.AC.078_001_01_021.jpg" width="305" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich, 1911-1958.<br />Peratrovich family papers (NMAI.AC.078), NMAI.AC.078_001_01_021.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Elizabeth (Ḵaax̲gal.aat) was born on July 4, 1911, in Petersburg, Alaska, as a member of the Lukaax̱.ádi clan, in the Raven moiety of the Tlingit nation. Elizabeth spent the first decade of her life in Sitka, a coastal city in southeast Alaska, until her family moved further southeast to the Native village Klawock, where Elizabeth met her future husband, Roy Peratrovich (Tlingit). Although Elizabeth and Roy spent their early years at segregated boarding schools, they were able to graduate from Ketichikan High School, which was integrated following a lawsuit won by attorney William Paul (Tlingit). In 1931, Elizabeth married Roy Peratrovich. They had three children: Roy Jr., Loretta Marie, and Frank Allen. </p><p>In 1941, the Peratroviches moved to Juneau, the capital of the Alaska Territory, in search of more opportunities for themselves and their children. Although they encountered hostile white homeowners who refused to rent to Native Americans, they persevered to become one of the first Indigenous families to live in a non-Native neighborhood. They soon took on leadership roles within the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood. Throughout Juneau, discrimination was ubiquitous; local businesses commonly displayed signage reading "No Natives Allowed," "No Dogs, No Natives," and “We cater to white trade only." After encountering a “No Natives Allowed Sign” on a local inn just weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth and Roy were driven to write a letter to Governor Ernest Gruening in protest, marking the beginnings of their political activism to establish legal protections for Indigenous people in Juneau and beyond. The letter read, in part:</p><p>“The proprietor of ‘Douglas Inn’ does not seem to realize that our Native boys are just as willing as the White boys to lay down their lives to protect the freedom that he enjoys. …We as Indians consider this an outrage because we are the real Natives of Alaska by reason of our ancestors who have guarded these shores and woods for years past."</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8n9bI2HwQfFpB0GUjrAhLG87rhqJ6ttH_y09m5wLXB_8wjK5zMXJJ2XtXtCFLpgrQW7ry0tg084iOsEMXkM7KIaHDfP2X1CbaNdT2kh1_JyMwt69gn1tldVYk1mWjA2JLpAWRe8UEHc/s1337/NMAI.AC.078_001_02_001.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="1337" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8n9bI2HwQfFpB0GUjrAhLG87rhqJ6ttH_y09m5wLXB_8wjK5zMXJJ2XtXtCFLpgrQW7ry0tg084iOsEMXkM7KIaHDfP2X1CbaNdT2kh1_JyMwt69gn1tldVYk1mWjA2JLpAWRe8UEHc/w640-h392/NMAI.AC.078_001_02_001.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Letter from the Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich to Ernest Gruening, Governor of Alaska, December 30, 1941.<br />Peratrovich family papers (NMAI.AC.078), NMAI.AC.078_001_02_001.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Successfully gaining Governor Gruening’s support, Elizabeth and Roy began a campaign to pass an anti-discrimination bill in 1943. With a vote of 8-8 in the House of Alaska’s two-branch Territorial Legislature, it failed to pass. Undeterred, Elizabeth continued to tirelessly campaign across the Alaskan territory. After garnering public support, Elizabeth and Roy, representing the Alaska Native Brotherhood/Sisterhood, brought a new anti-discrimination bill before the Alaska Senate in 1945. In an eloquent two-hour long testimony, Elizabeth stood before a white male majority and eloquently argued for an end to racial discrimination within Alaska. </p><p>During the hearing, Allen Shattuck, a Juneau territorial senator, asked Elizabeth “Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites, with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?” Elizabeth famously responded, “I would not have expected that I, who am ‘barely out of savagery,’ would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them, of our Bill of Rights.” A local newspaper printed that she “shamed the opposition into a ‘defensive whisper.’” The Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945 was signed into law by Governor Gruening on February 16, 1945. The Act provided that all Alaskans be entitled to “full and equal enjoyment” of public areas and businesses and banned signs that discriminated based on race. This marked the end of “Jim Crow” laws within Alaska.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYTQn3X6ofRP3G2F4GvNGB0DkuZphApdaNaJihEk98TwsuairAXjJhVjUIApgZ3KdjTvyGlJlK6LcVlfiXENdn4nvQUVfMmBBRDlDvl_FfOS_DPEhTvReZo1W23YOChEvaynAr2_lCw4E/s1262/NMAI.AC.078_001_02_082andNMAI.AC.078_001_02_083.tif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="1262" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYTQn3X6ofRP3G2F4GvNGB0DkuZphApdaNaJihEk98TwsuairAXjJhVjUIApgZ3KdjTvyGlJlK6LcVlfiXENdn4nvQUVfMmBBRDlDvl_FfOS_DPEhTvReZo1W23YOChEvaynAr2_lCw4E/w640-h416/NMAI.AC.078_001_02_082andNMAI.AC.078_001_02_083.tif" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Transcript of Alaska Territorial Senate Hearing regarding proposed Equal Rights Bill, February 6, 1945.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Peratrovich family papers (NMAI.AC.078), NMAI.AC.078_001_02_082 and NMAI.AC.078_001_02_083.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In recognition of her antiracist advocacy to provide equal accommodation privileges to all citizens regardless of race, in 1988 the state of Alaska posthumously established February 16th as Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich Day. More recently, celebrating the 75th anniversary of Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Law, Elizabeth Peratrovich appeared on the 2020 Native American $1 coin design. That same year, a Google doodle featuring the work of Tlingit and Haida artist Michaela Goade (Sheit.een) commemorated Elizabeth’s life and activism. Elizabeth and Roy’s efforts helped to pave the way for continued Indigenous activism within the United States. </p><p><br /></p><p>Mikaela (Mik) Hamilton, Intern, <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/collections/archive">National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center</a></p><p>Nathan Sowry, Reference Archivist, <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/collections/archive">National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center</a></p><p><br /></p>rmenyukhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03746409037049488371noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-75449942435838813972021-04-01T09:00:00.001-04:002022-08-02T15:50:34.490-04:00New Virtual Finding Aids for Three Smithsonian Institution Anthropology Collections<p><span style="font-family: arial;">By Katherine Christensen</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition to collections
which were maintained and donated by individual scientists, the National
Anthropological Archives (NAA) holds collections created and maintained by anthropology
departments and divisions within the Smithsonian Institution and for projects
conducted by those departments. This post covers three of those collections,
whose finding aids have recently been made available through the Smithsonian
Online Virtual Archives (</span><a href="about:blank" style="font-family: arial;">SOVA</a><span style="font-family: arial;">).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="about:blank"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Department
of Anthropology records</span></a></span></h3><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunmTXsf_VZTwF6wpLt4AJEM0sWhkR3RqLIOTOpdz5-r_7VIGHzmYMLR6AnjEUVFVE7PHTPynhDxG-ahiR7Jv8E-m_smbt7nU2cGXQ5Myj51EuikPSoJcdlcQB1Gc3bmLFeN6VnhG3E_s/s500/DoA1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="500" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunmTXsf_VZTwF6wpLt4AJEM0sWhkR3RqLIOTOpdz5-r_7VIGHzmYMLR6AnjEUVFVE7PHTPynhDxG-ahiR7Jv8E-m_smbt7nU2cGXQ5Myj51EuikPSoJcdlcQB1Gc3bmLFeN6VnhG3E_s/w640-h490/DoA1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Staff of the
Department of Anthropology, United States National Museum, 1904, standing in
front of the Arts and Industries Building. Standing from left to right: Edwin
H. Hawley, G. C. Maynard, Alěs Hrdlička, Thomas W. Sweeney, Walter Hough, H.
W. Hendley, Richard A. Allen, E. P. Upham, Paul Beckwith, Immanuel M.
Casanowicz, and J. Palmer. Seated from left to right: Miss Malone and Miss
Louisa A. Rosenbusch. <u>SIA-NAA-42012-000002 Smithsonian Institution Archives</u></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">.</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">There have been a
number of incarnations of the Department of Anthropology through the years as
the Smithsonian Institution and its component museums restructured. These
include </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; line-height: 107%;">the
Section of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, the Division of
Anthropology of the United States National Museum, the Office of Anthropology
of the National Museum of Natural History, and the </span><span style="line-height: 107%;">Department
of Anthropology<span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> of the National Museum of Natural History.</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> This collection holds papers and
photographs generated by the department and its members in each of these forms.</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONsxsZihT-IhE_YejpPUOiH9qGyE47nvhf2KCjVvjXJEcSEk8TwQwNFXL_Ex1yn7epSV2BZThUcwH8E-G94dnMOLpdyFluXHPSUm9Kgw9g707oongmese1pPSB4rDpagc2-ccESibZkY/s500/DoA2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="500" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgONsxsZihT-IhE_YejpPUOiH9qGyE47nvhf2KCjVvjXJEcSEk8TwQwNFXL_Ex1yn7epSV2BZThUcwH8E-G94dnMOLpdyFluXHPSUm9Kgw9g707oongmese1pPSB4rDpagc2-ccESibZkY/w640-h510/DoA2.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Staff of the
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), 1931.
Seated (L. to R.): T. Dale Stewart, Frank M. Setzler, Neil M. Judd, Walter
Hough, Aleš Hrdlička, Herbert W. Krieger, Henry B. Collins. Standing (L. to
R.): Charles Terry, William H. Short, Richard A. Allen, George D. McCoy,
William H. Egberts, Richard G. Paine, W. H. Bray, Leta B. Loos, and Helen E.
Heckler. <u>SIA-MNH-18107A, Smithsonian Institution Archives</u>.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The department was originally
focused primarily on collections care and fieldwork as a means of growing the
collections, while research was conducted by the Bureau of American Ethnology
(BAE). In the 1950s the department shifted to a greater emphasis on research,
leading to a merge with the BAE in 1965 in order to eliminate redundancy.</span><sup><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></span></sup><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> The Department of Anthropology collection holds </span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">some archival materials
related to the BAE, such as documents from the River Basin Surveys, but the
majority of the BAE’s materials are housed within the Bureau of American
Ethnology records.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><br /></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitJZcYKkagl6yg3cWbCZrUQpDKhyphenhyphenwxnDBz2y43NX0yejPCaiHS3Kk8JU2e3Fw_ph_G9aPsMC_n63XbzAt9VtWTIorkHyMYNJNqh_YEXqex0oRE1h-Gi_XK1mylWNn1aDqNhLl9cnFTUb0/s499/1959.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="499" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitJZcYKkagl6yg3cWbCZrUQpDKhyphenhyphenwxnDBz2y43NX0yejPCaiHS3Kk8JU2e3Fw_ph_G9aPsMC_n63XbzAt9VtWTIorkHyMYNJNqh_YEXqex0oRE1h-Gi_XK1mylWNn1aDqNhLl9cnFTUb0/w640-h506/1959.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Staff of the
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), October
29, 1959. Top row (left to right): Saul Reisenberg, Cliff Evans, Robert A.
Elder, George Metcalf(?), Joseph Andrews, and unidentified man; second row
(left to right): Neil Judd, Eugene Knez, Robert G. Jenkins, G. Robert Lewis, George
Phebus (?), and Gus Van Beek (?) ; third row (left to right): Gordon Gibson, T.
Dale Stewart, unidentified man, unidentified man, and Waldo Wedel; and bottom
row (left to right): Willie Mae Pelham, Jeraldine M. Whitmore, unidentified
woman, unidentified woman, Mildred Wedel (?), and Betty Meggers. Smithsonian
Institution Archives.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;">The collection primarily contains
institutional records, rather than records of the research conducted by the
department’s members. The papers of many members of the department through its
long history have been transferred to the NAA, so there are numerous other
collections</span><sup><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></span></sup><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"> which contain materials relating to the
activities of the department. There are additional departmental materials in
the Smithsonian Institution Archives.</span><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><br /></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT-UCL9yMPGixOfYel6KgKMs72DOeMb5vg_r1CZKGvI9pe3hY396O53vqcjDxs8OdXmRQKMXHoWp5iB0lMzAcbTiNd3-IsBVjXE-Fr1VcYiSRZz3uucejfJt5EB7BLmtogkHGfIMQ09Yc/s2048/2007.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1356" data-original-width="2048" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT-UCL9yMPGixOfYel6KgKMs72DOeMb5vg_r1CZKGvI9pe3hY396O53vqcjDxs8OdXmRQKMXHoWp5iB0lMzAcbTiNd3-IsBVjXE-Fr1VcYiSRZz3uucejfJt5EB7BLmtogkHGfIMQ09Yc/w640-h424/2007.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">Staff of the
Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), 2007.
Top row (left to right): Chris Dudar, Bill Billeck, Doug Ubelaker, Mike Frank,
Randal Scott, Eric Hollinger, Christopher Parker, Bruno Froilich</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, Sarah Zabriskie, and Dave Hunt; second row
(left to right): </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">Kim Neutzling, Gail Solomon, Carrie Beauchamp,
Bob Laughlin, Mary Jo Arnoldi, Lynn Snyder, Paulina Ledergerber-Crespo, Ron
Bishop, Jim Krakker, Rob Leopold, and Dave Rosenthal; third row (left to
right): Bruce Bernstein, Cheri Botic, Bill Crocker, Nancy Shorey, Pam Wintle,
Stephanie Christensen, Jai Alterman, Jim Blackman, and Don Ortner; fourth row
(left to right): Georgia O’Reilly, Bill Fitzhugh, Cindy Wilczak, Noel
Broadbent, Paul Michael Taylor, Vyrtis Thomas, unidentified woman, Lorain
Wang, Daisy Njoku, Christie Leece, Roy (Chip) Clark, and Mark White; fifth row
(left to right): Don Tenoso, Ruth Selig, unidentified woman, Cesare Marino, P. Ann
Kaupp, Carmen Eyzaguirre, unidentified man, and Jim Haug; sixth row (left to
right): Kari Bruwelhide, Paula Cardwell,
Betty Meggers, Bill Merrill, and Stephen Loring; seventh row (left to right): Jane
Walsh, Barbara Watanabe</span><span style="line-height: 107%;">, </span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">Laurie Burgess, Ruth Saunders, Candace Greene,
and Risa Arbolino; eighth row (left to right): Doug Owsley, Jake Homiak, Dennis
Stanford, Letitia Rorie, Rick Potts, Jennifer Clark, and Carole Lee Kin; and
ninth row (left to right): Erica Jones, Dan Rogers, Deloris Walker, Peggy
Jodry, Zee Payne, JoAllyn Archambault, Joanna Scherer, and Felicia Pickering.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="about:blank">The Center
for the Study of Man records</a></span></h3><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Center for the Study of Man (CSM) was created in 1968 to
apply anthropological knowledge to problems facing all mankind. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In pursuit of this goal,
the CSM organized meetings of established anthropologists with specific
programs and brought researchers together into special task forces. The center
additionally headed a number of programs, including an Urgent Anthropology
Program (which granted funds to facilitate field work in and accumulate data on
cultures that were rapidly changing under the pressure of modernization), an American
Indian Program (which sought both to create the <i>Handbook of North
American Indians</i> and to undertake action anthropology projects in
conjunction with various Native American groups), the Research Institute on
Immigration and Ethnic Studies (RIIES), and the National Anthropological Film
Center (now the Human Studies Film Archive). The center also sought to create a
Museum of Man, which would host exhibits devoted to anthropology and ecology.
However, due to internal disagreements over the aims of this museum, the
project was never approved. Beginning in 1976, the CSM was slowly phased out
due to difficulties with funding and with melding the research goals of
individual staff members with those of the center as a whole.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oDKRSaeDM2SxSsVGUhyphenhyphenPaFfXnKvz2B29lfU7sQWfDPNjVliKNxPBGPyPqYxVvTePJTqtgqSU_brZlIyQOQ5CSdBt_2wUNsM6Oy7rc5zUaQFkk8Gs6nLf_l1BumBoiNfYVJHGX_PqDZc/s2048/CSM.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1523" data-original-width="2048" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oDKRSaeDM2SxSsVGUhyphenhyphenPaFfXnKvz2B29lfU7sQWfDPNjVliKNxPBGPyPqYxVvTePJTqtgqSU_brZlIyQOQ5CSdBt_2wUNsM6Oy7rc5zUaQFkk8Gs6nLf_l1BumBoiNfYVJHGX_PqDZc/w640-h476/CSM.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Center for the Study
of Man meeting, May 19, 1970. From left to right: William C. Sturtevant, Robert
M. Laughlin, Sol Tax, Sam Stanley, Mysore N. Srinivas, Douglas W. Schwartz, T.
Dale Stewart, Fredrik Barth, Wilcomb E. Washburn, Laila Shukry El Hamamsy, George
W. Stocking Jr., Surajit C. Sinha, Gordon D. Gibson, and Henry B. Collins.
Center for the Study of Man records, Sam Stanley papers, Box 141.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The records of the CSM document several international CSM-sponsored
conferences, including a planning meeting in Cairo in 1972, several pre-session
conferences (on cannabis, alcohol, population, and the transmission of culture)
at the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological
Sciences in 1973, and a 1974 meeting at Bucharest on the cultural implications
of population change. They also include records concerning an attempt to issue
a series of monographs and the organization of special task forces concerned
with questions of human fertility and the environment. Additionally, there is material
pertaining to the action anthropology projects with Native Americans, focusing
on economic development and including material relating to the coordination of
studies of specific tribes carried out with funds from the Economic Development
Administration and economic development consulting for the American Indian
Policy Review Commission.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;"><a href="about:blank">The Tulamniu CWA Project records</a></span></span></h3><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV29vSaPwYy9fYpy-1hTVlKEJTY2vsioiQ1ytaacncXtHh55hvzRxhz2m0exvD6C6Vqa60M_hby2ItYXAgIIUmP4ojD52sb7zIlOiKKD1UpKEIBmU3ERj0rvJj7yFi1YRJdm4QDIHauak/s1431/CWA1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="1431" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV29vSaPwYy9fYpy-1hTVlKEJTY2vsioiQ1ytaacncXtHh55hvzRxhz2m0exvD6C6Vqa60M_hby2ItYXAgIIUmP4ojD52sb7zIlOiKKD1UpKEIBmU3ERj0rvJj7yFi1YRJdm4QDIHauak/w640-h432/CWA1.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Beginning first cross
trench north village midden mound. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National
Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;">As part of his
recovery plan for the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt created a variety
of agencies whose goal was to provide work to the unemployed. Under the auspices
of one of these, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Smithsonian
Institution sponsored a number of archaeological excavations around the United
States. One of these, during the winter of 1933-1934, excavated four sites
searching for the historic Tulamni Yokuts village of Tulamniu in Kern County,
California.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipR7UHZCTYC2xLHrQE12O1SWPotFc8kXAd1My9S8MYGRxbZNa-KcpxLfI4iMasgV_qpMF4p_HzrX0IoOQFdBth4FHahPOIHOq_cKd33ebP5h1_6yQvRqD6vFJl4EHe-l4aYVeJRhu1HWs/s1429/CWA2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1429" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipR7UHZCTYC2xLHrQE12O1SWPotFc8kXAd1My9S8MYGRxbZNa-KcpxLfI4iMasgV_qpMF4p_HzrX0IoOQFdBth4FHahPOIHOq_cKd33ebP5h1_6yQvRqD6vFJl4EHe-l4aYVeJRhu1HWs/w640-h396/CWA2.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Beginning survey
baseline first trench. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National
Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
project was headed by William Duncan Strong (whose </span><a href="about:blank"><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">papers</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> were previously profiled on this
blog) and recovered thousands of artifacts and, in keeping with the practices
of the time period, many Native American burials. These artifacts and remains
were shipped to the United States National Museum for study after the
excavations were complete. The Smithsonian Institution began repatriations to
U.S. tribes in 1982 and, in 2013, collections from the project were </span>repatriated
jointly to the Tule River Indian Tribe and the Santa Rosa Rancheria of Tachi
Yokuts Indians; they were reburied at the Tule River Indian Reservation.<sup><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></span></sup></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><sup><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></sup></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibA567spvkKT7v_1qs-YXJRvPRQEBccnJA-anH4Pl0JhcB_JgkdzdJvALK7h_y-raMZwAgo6jS1LMqdzyLTzf_Ex-14CLxmit_9OHwIJ0zS_IZbpOaj2_J3ihRmx3oqiNfV9it8cg03UU/s1722/CWA3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1722" data-original-width="1069" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibA567spvkKT7v_1qs-YXJRvPRQEBccnJA-anH4Pl0JhcB_JgkdzdJvALK7h_y-raMZwAgo6jS1LMqdzyLTzf_Ex-14CLxmit_9OHwIJ0zS_IZbpOaj2_J3ihRmx3oqiNfV9it8cg03UU/w398-h640/CWA3.jpg" width="398" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">Closeup of first trench in north village midden mound. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The collection primarily contains
correspondence, the field notes of the archaeologists, catalogs, maps, and
charts.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Katherine Christensen<br /></span></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Contract Archivist<br /></span></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.si.edu/siasc/naa">National Anthropological Archives</a><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">____________________________</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">1</span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;"> For more information, see https://naturalhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/media/file/history-anthropology-si_0.pdf<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">2 </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Some notable collections include the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.2013-01"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Betty J. Meggers and Clifford Evans papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">, the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.1974-31"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Aleš Hrdlička papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">, the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.2009-25"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Priscilla Reining papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">, the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.2016-29"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;"> papers, the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.1988-33"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Thomas Dale Stewart papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">, the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.2016-24"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">Matthew Williams Stirling and Marion Stirling Pugh papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">, and the </span><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/NAA.2008-24"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">William C. Sturtevant papers</span></a><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;">3 </span></sup><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">See <i>Repatriation Office Case Report
Summaries California Region</i> for more information. Accessed November 2,
2020.
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/media/file/case-reports-california-region-rev2-2020.pdf</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: center 3.25in;"><br /></p></div>kbchristhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03891227264784249006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-90204781565946776052021-03-30T14:43:00.003-04:002021-03-30T14:44:55.205-04:00Geneva Townes Turner<div class="separator"> By Jennifer Morris</div><div class="separator"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQHnTt8tOkR7HOJ8mhpxmhA-ePdZ64dWi0WvxJcJH5Ssh6RTkJhNGv8r6ZdEY9r-ppmM8x0Hp6YTfpDT3eApPu87-FBQjDsmd7NZle6I9Pu3d7HPuHpFNCxyh49o0TrEuXPR6Vm1egXnc/s768/acma_06-069_01-S.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="521" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQHnTt8tOkR7HOJ8mhpxmhA-ePdZ64dWi0WvxJcJH5Ssh6RTkJhNGv8r6ZdEY9r-ppmM8x0Hp6YTfpDT3eApPu87-FBQjDsmd7NZle6I9Pu3d7HPuHpFNCxyh49o0TrEuXPR6Vm1egXnc/w434-h640/acma_06-069_01-S.jpg" width="434" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/ACMA.06-069?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Geneva+Townes+Turner&i=0" target="_blank">Geneva Calcier Townes Turner</a> married <a href="https://sova.si.edu/record/ACMA.06-017?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Lorenzo+Dow+Turner&i=2" target="_blank">Lorenzo Dow Turner</a>, a pioneering African American linguist and celebrated father of Gullah studies, who conducted groundbreaking research in the Sea Islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Geneva worked as an unofficial research associate and scribe for her husband’s projects in the early years of his research. She participated in creating recordings of the Gullah people’s songs and dialect, and studied the international phonetic system at Brown University in order to better identify and transcribe Gullah speech. While her contributions to the formative years of Dr. Turner’s Gullah research were never fully acknowledged, she took pride in “sharing in his accomplishments.”</p><p>The couple separated after nineteen years of marriage, and Geneva went on to enjoy a successful career as an elementary school educator in Washington, DC. She also collaboratively published and distributed two children’s books. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixK4byC_KvE8CjKOfo72dXceEO96o_057mI_2sukrDz3Pc9Kn_ItkP1IYeoybOVVhW_XHw7ZZ8Kr9srqboG_GL8mYAyMqxg28RKw7QTF6X6VoRCSwWD8xr2G_OkE4lK0jQXvkxSMvfVQtQ/s768/PH2003.7064.309-S.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="518" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixK4byC_KvE8CjKOfo72dXceEO96o_057mI_2sukrDz3Pc9Kn_ItkP1IYeoybOVVhW_XHw7ZZ8Kr9srqboG_GL8mYAyMqxg28RKw7QTF6X6VoRCSwWD8xr2G_OkE4lK0jQXvkxSMvfVQtQ/w270-h400/PH2003.7064.309-S.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/ACMA.06-017?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Lorenzo+Dow+Turner+papers&i=0#ref1389" target="_blank">KatieGrovener [Grovernor] Brown</a>, Gullah Informant, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 1933</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRD3cnM7jdSMCQWaXxRAkQ0AjOjYUwKOvf0oG_mcxcUWq4Lkgb4X54fLAfKn3Gi5lgVGOIcFodMBJ1TShkX2aMNm2yHedUtdyiuwiP0q2IVb3tu6nkT-vLBYNGNiD3pkOoVeQ6nZAbYpL/s768/PH2003.7064.311-S.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: times;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="525" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpRD3cnM7jdSMCQWaXxRAkQ0AjOjYUwKOvf0oG_mcxcUWq4Lkgb4X54fLAfKn3Gi5lgVGOIcFodMBJ1TShkX2aMNm2yHedUtdyiuwiP0q2IVb3tu6nkT-vLBYNGNiD3pkOoVeQ6nZAbYpL/w274-h400/PH2003.7064.311-S.jpg" width="274" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 8.65pt; margin: 8.65pt 0in 12pt; mso-outline-level: 5;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/ACMA.06-017?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Lorenzo+Dow+Turner+papers&i=0#ref1391" target="_blank">Parris and Rosa Capers</a>, Gullah Informants, St. Helena
Island, South Carolina, 1932 </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPo0ycUlwPPD67BvsxcPr4LuXvnHS0MxZMhnD4sqJLycQ0l_PhyzXe9BGuEEAm-Tg_G9h7Dtlh-l5Li1xNGSthzi4-zCYCeXQNR0-1n49hUBdG_a8WpGkSH1CD0vHvotnF5qGS-aXsOnfi/s768/acma_PH2003.7064.305-S.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="525" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPo0ycUlwPPD67BvsxcPr4LuXvnHS0MxZMhnD4sqJLycQ0l_PhyzXe9BGuEEAm-Tg_G9h7Dtlh-l5Li1xNGSthzi4-zCYCeXQNR0-1n49hUBdG_a8WpGkSH1CD0vHvotnF5qGS-aXsOnfi/w274-h400/acma_PH2003.7064.305-S.jpg" width="274" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 8.65pt; margin: 8.65pt 0in 12pt; mso-outline-level: 5;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.1pt;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://sova.si.edu/details/ACMA.06-017?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=Lorenzo+Dow+Turner+papers&i=0#ref1385" target="_blank">SamPolite</a>, Gullah Informant, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1932</span> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: 0.1pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table>Jennifer Morris, Archivist<div><a href="https://anacostia.si.edu/collection/" target="_blank">Anacostia Community Museum</a></div>Jennifer Morrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506552679451413119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-16760467108743780932021-03-24T09:00:00.002-04:002021-03-24T09:00:01.194-04:00Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers No. 3<p> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>By Pamela Wintle</b></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk66191729;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">"For most of
history, Anonymous was a woman.” Virginia Woolf<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 107%;">Mayme Lou</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> Bruce, known as Stevey, was married to James Bruce, a prolific
amateur filmmaker and explorer who had a particular interest in Melanesia but
also filmed in other areas of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As with other husband-and-wife teams, in the Human Studies Film Archives collections, we know
that Stevey accompanied her husband and photographed their adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As is so often true, the full extent to which
she contributed remains “anonymous.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-WjWNGS0oluBEz9Rpvucvl1RKiL_foMXxMQGSH2BybYgojIO5ZJaeick7tZLgr-srrH_eC-tu6eQJF_TqJaDvGFWb41_pT0VpqQ99zf0_qwyQt1RczJlGSLEZza25JMwJZnEV6elVa0H/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="429" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-WjWNGS0oluBEz9Rpvucvl1RKiL_foMXxMQGSH2BybYgojIO5ZJaeick7tZLgr-srrH_eC-tu6eQJF_TqJaDvGFWb41_pT0VpqQ99zf0_qwyQt1RczJlGSLEZza25JMwJZnEV6elVa0H/w640-h429/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indonesia, ca. 1975, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Indonesia75_026</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi32puq4A_DJl2UgaSHaGEUETTbs4rcXU2FYNfLywRhyFnD6kcgJJao4lDxhzMkjSLr2e9IsjGRYWz53XmmxC3lbxLVN5eUzUjbGjGVn3jVOioRui8vAi4gTQV3Di_Hw_fuXMcctSZAaXrM/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="424" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi32puq4A_DJl2UgaSHaGEUETTbs4rcXU2FYNfLywRhyFnD6kcgJJao4lDxhzMkjSLr2e9IsjGRYWz53XmmxC3lbxLVN5eUzUjbGjGVn3jVOioRui8vAi4gTQV3Di_Hw_fuXMcctSZAaXrM/w400-h268/image.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ecuador, 1976, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Ecuador76_005)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPv89_g5nrWaP_qNBgXESad8YH5e-OwANF8vHBO_t4Hl63GX5SwLnlsV0KO7fCZE881Dg-HPHsOrxNtAi8f7DIwYnZglipP7TCJ_NrxfmUDXPRdkEQOVFqDmiJIuLK6-_CmifnfJXHmi8/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="453" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEPv89_g5nrWaP_qNBgXESad8YH5e-OwANF8vHBO_t4Hl63GX5SwLnlsV0KO7fCZE881Dg-HPHsOrxNtAi8f7DIwYnZglipP7TCJ_NrxfmUDXPRdkEQOVFqDmiJIuLK6-_CmifnfJXHmi8/w400-h269/image.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nepal, ca. 1968, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Nepal68)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Pamela Wintle</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://sirismm.si.edu/siris/SIASC/hsfa.htm">Human Studies Film Archives</a></span></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-26023533751436461972021-03-19T09:00:00.038-04:002021-10-18T14:30:10.781-04:00Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers, No. 2<p> <b>By Pamela Wintle</b></p><p>“The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.”</p><p>― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night (1935)</p><p>Anne Hansen married John V. Hansen, a Danish adventurer and accomplished amateur filmmaker, and fully participated in his journeys to various European countries, the American West, Alaska and Central America. We know that Anne Hansen served as the travel photographer, necessitating her own intrepid spirit and sense of adventure. We don’t know for certain if this is Anne Hansen with the rope tied around her waist, but one can imagine that it is she risking a perilous slide in order to witness a geologic feature. Below this image are two of her photographs from their many other travels.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8DNxpJNRlyjl0SJimBLRPoKhcbXLQvtcc4Uy8c0zEEVsBSFtEHGBp5UG6zlwQidA0mFbi-T0ljoTG23vNIvv_R_4PkhtpG7yM24qjMznRc16VIITRd_iSTYVBzVBTzrf5IUkra-mKarq/s452/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="452" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8DNxpJNRlyjl0SJimBLRPoKhcbXLQvtcc4Uy8c0zEEVsBSFtEHGBp5UG6zlwQidA0mFbi-T0ljoTG23vNIvv_R_4PkhtpG7yM24qjMznRc16VIITRd_iSTYVBzVBTzrf5IUkra-mKarq/w400-h271/image.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grinnel Glacier at fissure, Glacier National Park, Montana, ca. 1942, photograph by Anne Hansen<br />(John and Anne Hansen Collection, sihsfa_1999_10_op_americanwest_007)<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrZhHNS0gHuASsKcJC8UTrvY6_RXql4GXaeWOvXecRhA4dh3x2nEcTP4eWW4Os7CnECTVD_h4iE4CnoNlyDCfl7XuTMaROsowfyxGATverldk3_iAVcu9Wyd5KZeBtrAdiVNhlbauaLLo/s503/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="503" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrZhHNS0gHuASsKcJC8UTrvY6_RXql4GXaeWOvXecRhA4dh3x2nEcTP4eWW4Os7CnECTVD_h4iE4CnoNlyDCfl7XuTMaROsowfyxGATverldk3_iAVcu9Wyd5KZeBtrAdiVNhlbauaLLo/w640-h424/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tikal Guatemala, 1968, photograph by Anne Hansen (John and Anne Hansen Collection, sihsfa_1999_10_mexico037)</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-RStxvlZZjqX3o6hKqWNrvf0uSbf6BBSWb71eUp-v6u0MSsR4xR14jo7ZMvZwtD_hi-v1S3w_GN78w5eh8vXW24T5rIgw0CSZuugUu53sehyphenhyphenLzTKANqpa_dK9B0tE5EmqK9w4C-q9REJ/s504/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="504" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-RStxvlZZjqX3o6hKqWNrvf0uSbf6BBSWb71eUp-v6u0MSsR4xR14jo7ZMvZwtD_hi-v1S3w_GN78w5eh8vXW24T5rIgw0CSZuugUu53sehyphenhyphenLzTKANqpa_dK9B0tE5EmqK9w4C-q9REJ/w640-h430/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mendenhall Glacier, ca. 1945, Anne Hansen (John and Anne Hansen Collection sihsfa_1999_10_americanwest028)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Pamela Wintle</div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://sirismm.si.edu/siris/SIASC/hsfa.htm">Human Studies Film Archives</a></div></div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div><br /></div></div><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-52384619051933488322021-03-15T11:22:00.002-04:002021-10-18T14:30:47.735-04:00Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers, No. 1<p><b>By Pamela Wintle </b></p><p><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Not content with making sandwiches and massaging feet, these
women were active both in the field and in post-production. They recorded
sound, shot film, edited, wrote, narrated, co-hosted, and co-directed.” </span><a href="https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2010/03/women-in-frame.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Smithsonian Collections
Blog: Women in the frame, March 23, 2010</span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The Human Studies Film Archives has a number of husband-and-wife
collaborations in the collections, but rarely do we know the extent to which
“these women” contributed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, in a
few of these collections we do know that the woman in the team was the main
still photographer in addition to many other duties! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">These women were usually behind the camera, so photos of them
in the field are rare. Thus, although we cannot see her face, we believe from
images in the Hassoldt Davis collection that the photographer of the image below is Ruth Diawara (nee </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Staudinger, also formerly Ruth Rozaffi, Ruth Cadoret, Ruth Davis, and
Ruth Schaffner, 1914-1996)<span style="background: white;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After her death, her personal slides and films
documenting travels to Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and various African
countries were discovered in a Los Angeles storage unit and donated to the
Human Studies Film Archives.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuMhvPOLQKSmaCMIVPP6qxvjv9hdDnkKw95whOC3_bhQSwh-DRMRrwbK91o9cypinjSlDP-fv6SPoQeg2T0kNSX6Vh3F0cb4SU_MnKyEwcGQ_2M8t7sgwwTgpiI_ZVV-mhjiiaRuwFvx3/s459/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="304" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuMhvPOLQKSmaCMIVPP6qxvjv9hdDnkKw95whOC3_bhQSwh-DRMRrwbK91o9cypinjSlDP-fv6SPoQeg2T0kNSX6Vh3F0cb4SU_MnKyEwcGQ_2M8t7sgwwTgpiI_ZVV-mhjiiaRuwFvx3/w265-h400/image.png" width="265" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span> </span>Mount Fuji, 1966, photographer unknown (Ruth Diawara
Collection, sihsfa_2013_002_op_003)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Cu7Smu8TQM4ElrsILiA1iPeo5_9J59Lh5NeoJhfzkFeFaS1SdgcfqDxQOcdn_XdwASKl_Ibnlj8kKB-pAGJhAkZyk0PrPKpLiiJ9Fz3FNfCdh47hWcP-Ikj1SdV-U9Ltu0wTaRGTtWaZ/s461/image.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="461" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Cu7Smu8TQM4ElrsILiA1iPeo5_9J59Lh5NeoJhfzkFeFaS1SdgcfqDxQOcdn_XdwASKl_Ibnlj8kKB-pAGJhAkZyk0PrPKpLiiJ9Fz3FNfCdh47hWcP-Ikj1SdV-U9Ltu0wTaRGTtWaZ/w640-h424/image.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;"><span> </span>Japan, 1966, photograph by Ruth Diawara (Ruth Diawara Collection, sihsfa_2013_002_op_002)</span><o:p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;"></o:p></p><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;">Pamela Wintle</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://sirismm.si.edu/siris/SIASC/hsfa.htm">Human Studies Film Archives</a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background: white;"><br /><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-90997396370208245032021-03-08T13:50:00.002-05:002021-03-08T14:53:45.918-05:00Celebrating Smithsonian Women in Women's History Month<p>By Pamela Henson</p><p>Smithsonian Institution Archives has a wide array of photographs of women since our early years, but some stand out more than others. I am particularly fond of this image of a group of women celebrating a retirement. Like the flowers Nellie Smith is holding, they are arranged like a bouquet of flowers themselves! But this is a group of very important women at SI in 1930 – they ran a lot of major offices. Louise Pearson moved with Alexander Wetmore to the Secretary’s Office when he became Secretary in 1944 and kept the Institution running. Miss Nellie Smith was replaced by Helena M. Weiss, who was later SI Registrar. When Weiss retired she was replaced by seven separate unit heads. Their titles don’t capture their responsibilities. Moodey was an “Aid” in Geology, but actually curated the gem collection for many years. As “clerks” to the Institution’s top administrators, this select group of friends kept the Institution humming.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-94-4431" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="800" height="566" src="https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-94-4431" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Luncheon for Nellie Smith, 31 July 1930, at the Ye Old Inn. Photograph Probably taken by Narcissus H. Smith, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7177, Box 13, Folder 16, neg. #SIA- 94-4431.<br /> </span>Image: https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=SIA-94-4431 </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>This image is from a luncheon given by these friends in honor of the retirement of Miss Nellie H. Smith at Ye Old Inn on Thursday, July 31, 1930. She was appointed in March 1890 and spent 40 years at the Smithsonian. Top L to R: Louise A. Rosenbusch, Principal Clerk, Office of Dr. William H. Holmes, Director, National Gallery of Art, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum; Louise Pearson, Secretary to Dr. Alexander Wetmore, Assistant Secretary, SI (later the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian, 1944-1952); and Narcissus Smith, Clerk to the Editor, Dr. M. Benjamin, United States National Museum (USNM). Bottom L to R: Helen A. Olmsted, Principal Clerk, Office of Mr. W. de C. Ravenel, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary, USNM; Nellie Smith, Clerk, Division of Correspondence and Documents, USNM; and Margaret W. Moodey, Aid, Geology in charge of Gem Collection, working for many years with G.P. Merrill, Head Curator, Department of Geology.</p><p><a href="https://library.si.edu/event/meet-archives">Pamela Henson, Ph.D., Historian, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives</a></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104856646562997476.post-45349219977603420342021-03-01T14:30:00.002-05:002021-03-01T17:37:26.800-05:00Scurlock Photographs, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the NMAH Archives Center, Part 2<p>By David Haberstich </p><p>The previous post described Robert Scurlock's unsuccessful attempts to publish or exhibit photographs by his father, Addison N. Scurlock, and the Scurlock Studio. This happy ending of the story is offered as an extension of Black History Month into the first few days of March.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFrjRHQ-1lQwULi01VJDhbOk5NHZIJZw2VhG4Jw9yny6D-sJWdmVUostmyhdzv9AykvuSxxQw-I_hKDxzSUbzK60IiKxMNuQplaV1Vk-G_F1MHWshYTT3WmuwbP3LvZEFYf_cZnNeTzwvx/s768/AC0618ps0229803-01pm-S.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="604" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFrjRHQ-1lQwULi01VJDhbOk5NHZIJZw2VhG4Jw9yny6D-sJWdmVUostmyhdzv9AykvuSxxQw-I_hKDxzSUbzK60IiKxMNuQplaV1Vk-G_F1MHWshYTT3WmuwbP3LvZEFYf_cZnNeTzwvx/w315-h400/AC0618ps0229803-01pm-S.jpg" width="315" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. W.E.B. DuBois. Negative by Addison N. Scurlock, 1943.<br />Later print by Robert S. Scurlock. 14" x 11". Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><u style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Harry Lunn, the Corcoran Exhibition, and Jackie Onassis</u></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Robert finally found an advocate in Harry H. Lunn, Jr., the charismatic and successful dealer of photographic art based in Washington. Lunn’s gallery, which flourished in several locations, was the premier gallery at a time when there were several other art dealers in Washington who sold photographs exclusively, riding the crest of the first few years of the new photography boom, which I date from 1967. Many historians credit Lunn as the single most important force in establishing photography as a collectible commodity as well as a serious field of academic study. Lunn, Kathleen Ewing, Marie Martin, Jo Tartt, and the Washington Gallery of Photography, operated by Byron and Mary Schumaker, were among the dealers who regularly exhibited and sold “vintage” and contemporary photography, at steadily increasing prices. It was Lunn’s business acumen which finally helped to make Ansel Adams rich after decades of work as America’s best-known landscape photographer. At some point Robert Scurlock apparently approached Lunn, probably hoping the dealer would help to sell Scurlock photographs. I have found no evidence that Lunn ever sold or exhibited Scurlock photographs, but he encouraged and advised Robert in his quest for recognition. This was especially important for Robert, who was enmeshed in the world of commercial photography and apparently was unaware of the parallel world of contemporary photographic art, which was making gigantic inroads among art collectors and scholars and into museum collections. Despite Robert’s early interest in expanding his horizons beyond the studio-based, insular field of portrait and commercial photography by working as a photojournalist, he was a novice in approaching the new “art” photography and its norms, customs, and cast of influential characters. He wrote two letters on May 13, 1975, in which he noted that Lunn had suggested contacts. He wrote to Douglas Morgan of Morgan & Morgan, a well-known publisher of art photography books and technical texts. Apparently nothing came of this effort, although he met Morgan at a photographic conference and they discussed his proposal, as verified in his letter of September 30, 1975. His letter to Roy Slade, director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, however, finally bore fruit within a remarkably short period. He noted that Lunn had specifically suggested that an exhibition of Addison Scurlock’s work, especially his portraits of notable African Americans, could supplement an existing Bicentennial theme, already established by the Corcoran.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOZ7eTFQsLfhximM2xCvIximxiwFnZH41bbnJZL6aodJIV0idRlGyU5HkbE9orBCSUrkcujMHaUelB5LOklqpb30J6OnUFQIYc7cOrhAWEvSXQaHuxDUd6uQd4Av2VAlehbEngMlJkcDHL/s2048/618ps0237203-01sc.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1645" data-original-width="2048" height="514" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOZ7eTFQsLfhximM2xCvIximxiwFnZH41bbnJZL6aodJIV0idRlGyU5HkbE9orBCSUrkcujMHaUelB5LOklqpb30J6OnUFQIYc7cOrhAWEvSXQaHuxDUd6uQd4Av2VAlehbEngMlJkcDHL/w640-h514/618ps0237203-01sc.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mid-Winter Assembly [of the NAACP], Baltimore, Maryland, 1912.<br />In the Corcoran exhibition and catalog, Robert Scurlock misidentified this photograph as "Formal Dance at Whitelaw Hotel, ca, 1923." Robert made a new 16" x 20" print for the exhibition from the original 8" x 10" glass plate negative. Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">With Slade’s blessing and enthusiastic support from the Corcoran’s chief curator, Jane Livingston (who was already especially interested in Black artists), and photography curator Frances Fralin, Robert arranged for an exhibition of his father’s photographs to begin in June 1976, as part of a series of “American Bicentennial” exhibitions sponsored by the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The Gallery previously had commissioned new work by eight noted (white) photographic artists of diverse styles as a Bicentennial theme. Apparently Lunn convinced the Corcoran curators to host an exhibition of Addison Scurlock’s photographs as an historical counterweight or adjunct to the new commissioned work. The actual arrangements seemed a little unusual, perhaps due to a tight schedule, with Robert himself ordering the printing of the catalog by Colortone Creative Printing on March 17, 1976. Fifteen “vintage” prints by Addison’s hand were the core of the exhibition, while Robert made more than one hundred new prints from his father’s negatives.</span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Robert now renewed his efforts to get a full-fledged book published in connection with the exhibition, and on March 3, 1976, wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at Viking Press in hopes that she would help her mentor from years ago. One of the Scurlock family’s favorite anecdotes concerns Jacqueline Bouvier’s short-term study at the Capitol School of Photography, which Robert and George managed out of the studio from 1948 to 1952. Citing her brief tenure as a student at the school, he wrote:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">“Dear Mrs. Onassis,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“[It’s] been a long time but I presume you remember your former teacher of photography. (Jackie Bouvier – Times Herald days) Like many, I’ve followed your career very closely, and [it’s] nice to know that you are back in America and working for Viking Press. I would like to outline a coming event that is very important to me, and if possible, enlist your aid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“This summer, The Corcoran Gallery will open an exhibit of 125 or so of my father’s photographs. He was a very skillful Camera Artist and probably the most important Black Photographer in the country. This will be a memorial exhibit and will include his portrait studies of people like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois [sic], Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Mary Bethune, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen and many others.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Publishing a photographic book of this material is one of my objectives, and in discussing the plans with Jane Livingston, Curator of the Corcoran, the thought occurred that just possibly Viking might be in a position to publish a catalog for us. We realize that time is very short since the exhibition is due for opening in mid-June, however it will be up most of the summer.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I love the line, “Like many, I’ve followed your career very closely…” We don’t know how Jacqueline Onassis reacted to it—if she saw it. It might have provided a chuckle or two. This request for a major publisher to produce an exhibition catalogue or monograph on only a few months’ notice was unrealistic—even as a personal favor. An assistant at Viking Press wrote Robert to advise that scheduling a book to coincide with the exhibition was impossible. However, there was indeed a modest booklet produced by the Corcoran, basically an illustrated checklist with introductory text (by the reliable Michael Winston), almost identical in format to the publications which accompanied the exhibitions of the eight (white) photographers from whom new work had been commissioned, and identifying the Scurlock exhibition as a component of the Corcoran’s Bicentennial series, “The Nation’s Capital in Photographs, 1976.” Ironically, a copy of this free booklet was recently advertised online at a price of nearly one thousand dollars.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Adopting a more modest goal, on June 21, 1976, Robert wrote to the editor of <i>Studio Light</i>, a Kodak publication, suggesting a story on the exhibition. On July 15 he sent a copy of the 24-page catalog to Cassie Furgurson at <i>Time </i>magazine, requesting a story. On July 26 he wrote to inform African American Congressman Charles Rangel about the exhibition, seeking assistance for publicity. Unfortunately, these efforts did not pay off. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">However, there were gratifying outside contributions toward the exhibition. Robert wrote to the Independence Federal Savings & Loan Association on July 28 to thank “Mr. Fitzgerald” for “financial support given to the Corcoran gallery” in mounting the exhibition. The exhibition included a variety of subjects, but concentrated on portraits of African American leaders of international, national, and local renown. It even included several of his photographs of Black entertainers wearing blackface (represented in the catalog), which apparently were not considered controversial at the time.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjrEXGYmJcYXKLhueAgTdNzXoKe5hgFh1b22bf6nhjEso0gntcnUyw2wV2bghvKWisTOJ3RRN9nNjuGCo0BZIO1eMdfx8rRhSo3pYyo0MsadeZCDJlQWnV3vORdaCyK3vv22IuiWp1h2d_/s2048/618ns0179056pg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1656" data-original-width="2048" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjrEXGYmJcYXKLhueAgTdNzXoKe5hgFh1b22bf6nhjEso0gntcnUyw2wV2bghvKWisTOJ3RRN9nNjuGCo0BZIO1eMdfx8rRhSo3pYyo0MsadeZCDJlQWnV3vORdaCyK3vv22IuiWp1h2d_/w640-h518/618ns0179056pg.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picnic Group, Highland Beach, Md. Original negative by Addison N. Scurlock, ca. 1931-1932.<br />New print for Corcoran exhibition by Robert S. Scurlock, ca. 1976.<br />Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">One of the most influential and well-known American curators of photography saw the exhibition and expressed interest in acquiring Addison’s work for her museum. On September 24, Robert wrote to Anne Tucker at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, offering to sell her prints at $150.00 each, and suggesting the possibility of showing the exhibition in Houston. Although the show did not travel to Houston, Tucker was among the new wave of eager young photography curators to be hired by major art museums, so the subsequent sale represented a coup for Robert.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Jane Livingston and Frances Fralin, as well as later dedicated Corcoran photography curators, demonstrated their continuing interest in Black photographers through many other exhibitions and acquisitions. For example, just a year after the Scurlock show, the Corcoran sponsored “Black Photographers in America” from July 30-Aug. 31, 1977. While the Smithsonian Institution was arguably the first American museum to collect and exhibit photographs as works of art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s photography exhibitions date from the early twentieth century, and the museum maintained a vigorous, internationally known photography exhibition and acquisitions program until the Corcoran’s sad demise in 2014, its collections eventually dispersed to other museums. After teaching the history of photography in the Corcoran College of Art for two years, with friends among Corcoran teachers and curators, I was deeply disappointed by that unfortunate turn of events. We can’t blame a pandemic for the permanent closing of that illustrious museum. There is some solace in knowing that the Corcoran’s ground-breaking exhibition of Addison Scurlock’s work ultimately became a component of the Archives Center’s Scurlock collection. Kudos to Jane Livingston and the late Frances Fralin and Harry Lunn for their foresight and dedication in helping to bring Addison Scurlock, a major Black photographer and chronicler of Washington’s African American history, to the attention of photographic historians and the general public.</span></p><p><a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">David Haberstich, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Curator of Photography, Archives Center</span></a></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">National Museum of American History</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>David Haberstichhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00434228778308166807noreply@blogger.com1