Smithsonian Collections Blog

The People of India - The Bhats

2012-01-26T08:00:00.002-05:00

The People of India series was researched and written by School Without Walls student, Cal Berer. Cal was an intern at the Freer|Sackler Archives from January 2011-June 20011 where he was then sponsored by the State Department to learn Hindi while spending the summer in India.

The Bhats

The Bhats are an especially interesting tribe. Unlike most, they didn’t occupy a single ancestral homeland, or even several. Instead, they wandered throughout the country, as the Indian equivalent of minstrels and bards. Among the bard Bhats there are two categories: the Birru-bhats and Jaga-bhats. The former were hired out occasionally to sing at festivals and family ceremonies, while the latter served a single family for generations, and function as its historians, visiting the members from time to time to record significant events. However, the most interesting aspect of Bhat culture is this: “Among all the classes and tribes in which the crime of dacoity is followed as an hereditary profession, there is none whose proceedings are characterized by such boldness and skill as the Bhats.” It seems that, in addition to the true minstrel Bhats, a separate clan of Bhat dacoits existed, claiming the same ancestry as their nonviolent counterparts, and using musical recitation as a front to tactfully conceal their real profession. The modus operandi of these sinister Bhats is both chilling and fascinating. Their crimes were nearly always directed towards wealthy bankers and sahukars. Because most Bhats had no permanent residence, bands would travel from town to town, posing as musicians, while their most seasoned members ascertained the location of potential victims. Then, after a target is selected, the Bhats would proceed to make camp some 50 or 100 miles away, and then assemble near the site of their attack. The attack itself always took place at twilight, as a matter of tradition. The doors would be broken down, the house stormed, and any resistors brutally killed without hesitation. Upon raiding the home of its valuables, the gang would retreat from town to their camp, where the spoils would be divided. It should be said that, although barbaric and cruel, the dacoit Bhats never killed indiscriminately; only resistance warranted deadly violence. By the time POI was published, these bandit Bhats were almost entirely extinct, the remnants driven into hiding the by arrest, execution, or deportation of their fellows. Still, they are a morbidly romantic part of India’s tribal history. One might say they were to the subcontinent as the legendary highwaymen were to Victorian England: morally bankrupt, yet roguishly endearing.

To see all text and images of the Bhats as they are represented in the People of India, go to our catalog in the Collections Search Center.

The People of India series will be published once a month highlighting the various tribes as they're covered in the People of India.

Cal Berer, Intern

Freer|Sackler Archives

House Hunting

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Gleason Garden, circa 1960-1967.

A view of the patio with outdoor furniture and a grill.

Photograph by Molly Adams.

The Gleason Garden, circa 1960-1967.

Looking from the patio towards the house.

Photograph by Molly Adams.

There is a whole host of romantic verbs to describe the historian’s process: hunting, digging, seeking, unearthing, recovering, uncovering. However, most historians are not out in the field digging up buried treasure, but buried up to their noses in stacks of books and folders of documents in libraries and archives with bad florescent lighting. Not all historical mysteries are as elusive or exotic as the search for Atlantis or the true identity of Shakespeare—but that doesn’t mean the smaller mysteries hold any less appeal.

The moment I came across images of an unidentified house and garden while perusing the Maida Babson Adams Collection at the Archives of American Gardens, I knew I had to find out more about the cozy, modern home. Perhaps it was the way Molly (Maida Babson) Adams had photographed the home to emphasize the contrast between the horizontal lines of the house and the organic shapes of the garden, or perhaps it was the inviting butterfly chairs on the patio, but I was intrigued. Nothing was written on the back of the photograph except “Gleason.” The only revealing cataloging information was that the garden was designed by landscape architect Nelva Weber; it was anonymously featured in her 1976 book How to Plan Your Own Home Landscape. I continued to wonder about the house. Who lived there? What was their idea of home?

Over the next few months I spent a few minutes each day searching for the house. Molly Adams was a prolific garden photographer, shooting gardens in the Northeast from the 1960s through the 1980s for magazines such as Flower Grower and Popular Gardening & Living Outdoors. Flipping through my mental rolodex of mid-century architects, my first thought was that the home may have been designed by Joseph Eichler or Carl Koch, both prolific mid-century architects who designed small, modern homes for suburban families. Geographically it seemed most likely that the house was located in Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Connecticut. That meant Eichler, builder of mass-produced homes in California, was out. In the beginning I spent an embarrassing amount of time Googling “Molly Adams Gleason,” “Gleason modern house,” Gleason modern garden,” “Gleason Connecticut modern,” “Nelva Weber modern,” etc. Clearly, this was going to be a long search.

Back to the drawing board, and failed by modern tools, I turned to books. Home design books and traveling museum shows like the Museum of Modern Art’s “Good Design” exhibits were key to disseminating new ideas about suburban living to a design-conscious middle-class. I checked out a multitude of 1950s home design books from the library, including John Hancock Callender’s 1953 book Before You Buy a House. The book was of interest to me because it included a house by Hugh Stubbins, who was on my list of potential architects. And there it was, staring right back at me on page 113. The house was not designed by Hugh Stubbins, but by the architectural firm Nemeny & Geller. Designed for a rolling, wooded site in Morristown, New Jersey, the house in the book was part of the then-new Robert Morris Park development.

Nemeny & Geller created a basic house plan to be used throughout the development that could be varied through the addition of a garage or different paint colors, yet still present a unified front. A garden design by Nelva Weber surely further distinguished the Gleason house from the rows of similar houses in the neighborhood. Robert Morris Park was a stepping stone between owning one of the “little boxes made of ticky tacky” (from the 1962 Malvina Reynolds song) and paying a well-known architect to build a custom home. Originally 305 houses were planned, but only a small percentage of them were ever built. A quick Google search confirmed that there was a Gleason living in Morristown, and a Google street view search revealed the house itself. It took hours of searching for the right book to divulge the identity of the garden, but only minutes on the internet to confirm its identity.

As with most archives, a number of images in the Archives of American Gardens came to the archives without documentation. The research efforts of museum specialists and volunteers have saved many gardens in the collection from anonymity. Are you interested in digging into a garden mystery? Learn more about AAG’s Mystery Gardens Initiative and how you can contribute to preserving America’s garden heritage.

-Kate Fox

Kate Fox is a guest blogger who is currently working on an upcoming SITES exhibition for the Archives of American Gardens at Smithsonian Gardens

Come in from the Cold: Warming up with Monitor Records

2012-01-20T18:29:00.000-05:00

If you were to wander into the dimly lit Russian cafe in lower Manhattan called the Two Guitars on almost any evening you would find Sasha Polinoff entertaining the guests...Sasha sets the Slavic mood for the vodka, caviar, and the Kiev cutlets. (MFS 432)

Monitor Records, founded in 1956 by Michael Stillman and Rose Rubin in New York City, issued over 250 recordings of music from around the world. An artifact of the period's interest in "exotic" records, the recordings were appealing to people for the same reason I find them fascinating today: they project a sense of another place. Sometimes these places aren't "real"--much of the music on Monitor was licensed from state-sponsored record labels in the then-Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Sometimes they are--as is the case for the recordings made in venues in New York City. But from the covers to the liner notes to the music itself, the albums are transporting.

The Monitor albums I'm feeling drawn to these days all mention cafes and nightlife and warmth, and make me want to bundle up and find a little place where the food is filling, the drinks flowing, and the music wistful (wistful for what? I'm not sure, but when music makes you feel like you're somewhere else, it kind of feels like that place is lost to you at the same time). If you feel like that too, here are my picks for getting cafe-cozy, accompanied by excerpts from the liner notes.

Russian Cabaret: The Balalaika of Sasha Polinoff (MFS 432)

"Put the record on your turntable, dim the lights, pick up your vodka drink and relax--it's Sasha time!"

The Feenjon Group

Belly Dancing at the Cafe Feenjon, (MFS 497)

"The Feenjon Group can be heard nightly at the Cafe Feenjon...a mecca for lovers of Israeli, Greek, Arabic, Turkish and Amenian song and dance. Many notables of the entertainment world, too, attracted by the informal atmosphere and musical excitement of the Cafe, have become late-late habitues and frequently participate in the performances."

Liane

Vienna by Night (MP 510)

"A songstress with haunting appeal she evokes the intimacy and charm of the small Viennese cafes."

Bela Babai and his Fiery Gypsies

An Evening at the Chardas (MFS 700)

"Bela Babai...can be heard nightly at New Yorks Chardas where lovers of Gypsy music and fine Hungarian cuisine meet. Wherever Bela Babai appears the musical greats come to hear..."

-Cecilia Peterson, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

The Donald A. Cadzow Photograph Collection

2012-01-13T18:10:00.002-05:00

Kainah (Blood) man, 1882 (P01531)

The Donald A. Cadzow photograph collection documents numerous indigenous cultures across North America, Canada, and Alaska through the various expeditions and archeological excavations he conducted for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation from 1916 until 1927.

The son of Hugh and Nellie Cadzow, Donald was born in Auburn, New York in 1894. In 1911, at the age of 17, he traveled to the far Canadian Northwest to live with his uncle Daniel Cadzow at the Rampart House, a Hudson Bay Company trading post on the Alaska-Yukon boundary line. After five years there, Cadzow returned to the United States. He began working for George Gustav Heye in the fall of 1916, but enlisted as seaman in the U.S.N.R.F. on January 20, 1918, only to be released from service on December 22 that same year. He returned to work for Heye at the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation on January 1, 1919, and worked there until 1928.

Young Assiniboin (Stoney) woman, 1926 (N11750)

Between 1917 and 1919, Cadzow, collected artifacts and archaeological materials from the Copper and Kogmollok Eskimo, the Loucheux, Slavey, and Woodland Cree of Alberta, Canada. In 1919, Cadzow assisted Alanson Skinner on an archeological excavation in Cayuga County, New York. Cadzow next worked with Mark Harrington: excavating a site on Staten Island, New York in 1920; on the Hawikku expedition to study Zuni Indian culture in McKinley County, New Mexico in 1921; and to Arkansas and Missouri in 1922. In 1924 and 1925 he conducted an expedition to a prehistoric Algonkian burial site on Frontenac Island, Cayuga Lake, in New York; traveled to the Bungi tribe in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, and the Prairie Cree in Saskatchewan, Canada. He continued this work in 1926 again visiting the Prairie Cree and also the Bush Cree in Saskatchewan, the Assiniboin in Saskatchewan and Alberta; the Iroquois and the Northern Piegan (Blackfoot) in Alberta. In 1927, the last year that Cadzow worked for Heye, he assisted George P. Putnam on an expedition to Baffin Island and the Hudson Bay district to visit the Sikosuilarmiut, Akuliarmiut, and Quaumauangmiut Eskimos.

Pokiak (Inuvialuit Inupiaq), 1917-1919 (N02023)

After his work at MAI, in 1928 he took a job in the Bond Department of Lage & Co., a brokerage company in New York City. He was later state archeologist for the Pennsylvania Historical Commission from ca. 1929-39; and executive secretary from 1939-45. He was also treasurer of the Eastern States Archeological Federation from 1940-42. In 1945 he was named executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and held the position until 1956. He died on February 9, 1960, in Pennsylvania. During his career Cadzow gave a number of lectures and radio talk programs, and published extensively in Indian Notes (a publication of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation), for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, in a variety of publications, and several books.

See more of Cadzow's photographs, as well as objects he collected for the museum here.

~Jennifer R. O'Neal, Head Archivist, NMAI Archive Center

Indentures of Apprenticeship from Early Nineteenth Century New York City

2012-01-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology in Washington, D.C. has a manuscripts collection with an amazing variety of documents. One box from the collection contains over 140 contracts of indenture (partially printed, and partially handwritten) from the Commissioners of the Alms-House and Bridewell, New York City, created between the years 1821 and 1823. These contracts record the apprenticeships of poor and abandoned children who were assigned to learn various trades under the supervision of established business owners. In return for room and board and a basic education, the indentured workers were supposed to provide several years of labor for their employers before being released from their contracts. Providing a grim window into both the diversity of trades and the depths of poverty in the growing city of New York, these indentures were a pragmatic measure taken by the government for the support of children who lacked parents or guardians. Here are two examples of these historic documents.

The first indenture, shown to the left, is for 14-year-old Henry Valentine, apprenticed to John Cochran, a "Mahogany Chair and Sopha [i.e. Sofa] Maker."

The second indenture, seen below, is for 14-year-old Clark Martin, apprenticed to John H. Metzler, a shoemaker. Both indentures are signed by the apprentice, the tradesman to whom the boy was assigned, and the government agent (John Hunter) who drew up the contract.

At the end of the indenture period, each boy was to be released from his apprenticeship with "a new suit of clothing in addition to his old, and a new Bible." And, if all went well, the young men would be able to go forth and establish their own businesses, benefitting from the hard years in service that they spent learning their trades. But not all situations necessarily turned out as planned; the contracts could be cancelled for a variety of reasons. The contract for Clark Martin, above, has a note written along the left side of the page that the agreement was "cancelled by consent of justice, Decem. 24th, 1825," with no further details.

More information on contracts of indenture from the city of New York can be found on the New-York Historical Society website, where a larger collection of these contracts is located.

New York (N.Y.). Alms-House and Bridewell Commission. Indentures of Apprenticeship, 1821-1823. Call number: MSS 001624 B SCDIRB Dibner Library

--Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Sydel Silverman: Preserving the Anthropological Record

2012-01-10T10:30:00.000-05:00

The National Anthropological Archives recently acquired the papers of Sydel Silverman, an anthropologist known for her work as a researcher, writer, academic administrator, and foundation executive. After receiving her PhD from Columbia University in 1963, she taught at Queens College in New York (1962-75) and became Executive Officer of the CUNY PhD Program in Anthropology (1975-86). She later served as president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation from 1987-1999.

While at the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Silverman’s interest in the history of anthropology led her to become heavily involved in an effort to preserve anthropological records. In 1991, along with Dr. Nancy Parezo, she began planning a conference that would deal with the preservation of anthropology’s historical record. The conference, called "Preserving the Anthropological Record: Issues and Strategies," was held in spring 1992. Anthropologists, archaeologists, archivists, librarians, museum specialists, and potential funders met to identify the issues associated with preserving anthropological records. The conference attendees discussed the issues of records creation and use, ethical concerns, and the necessity of educating stakeholders.

In "Preserving the Anthropological Record," an article written about the conference for the February 1993 issue of Current Anthropology, Silverman described the Resolution on Preserving Anthropological Records that the conference adopted. The Resolution stated that "anthropologists have a professional responsibility to serve as stewards" of their "unpublished anthropological materials" because they are "irreplaceable" and "unique resources" that are "essential for future research and education." Anthropological records contain cultural information that is valuable to many different parties: the anthropologist who gathered the data, the informants who supplied the anthropologist with that data, other members of the informants’ community, or those who wish to study that community.

Silverman Papers, Box 16, folder "Siena Notebooks [4 of 5]"
Silverman unpublished notebook, cover

Notes on Palio of Siena (a festival) Siena, Italy, 1980

Papers from the conference were published in a volume entitled Preserving the Anthropological Record, co-edited by Silverman and Parezo. This publication described why anthropological records should be kept, the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders, preservation issues, guidelines and strategies. In the book’s Introduction, Silverman expressed the core concern of the conference members: "For anthropology, the unpublished records of the past are of more than historical interest…They constitute the primary data of all research—data that are unique and unrecoverable." Silverman and the rest of the conference participants recognized that much of the anthropological record consisted of grey literature—field notes, interviews, data sets, and more—that could be of great value to future researchers.

In May 1993, a second Wenner-Gren conference, "Preserving the Anthropological Record II: Toward a Disciplinary Center," was held to define an action plan. This conference led to the creation of CoPAR, the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records. According to the statement on its homepage, CoPAR "sponsors programs that foster awareness of the importance of preserving anthropological records; provides consulting and technical support to archival repositories; provides information on records location and access; and fosters collaboration between archivists responsible for anthropological collections and tribal archivists." For more information on CoPAR, and Sydel Silverman’s involvement in the movement to preserve anthropological records, visit the National Anthropological Archives website http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/.

Sydel Silver Papers, Box 29, folder "April 1995, Reno, NV COPAR"
Silverman is third from right in the front row

Christy Fic, Contract Processing Archivist
National Anthropological Archives

RESEARCHER FINDS PAIN AND RELIEF IN THE ARCHIVES CENTER

2012-01-04T15:00:00.000-05:00

The Sterling Drug Company papers are held at the Smithsonian’s off-site facility, which turns out to be a great thing: you get to go right into the “stacks” because there’s no public reading room, and that means walking by noncommissioned items from the Museum of Natural History—it seemed like every time I went I noticed a new rhinoceros or whale peeking out from behind a tarpaulin. I felt a little guilty because one of the archivists had to commute out to the facility every day and work at a makeshift table in the stacks next to me, but she was cheerful good company and kept insisting that she didn’t mind.

Talwin advertisement, 1965

Sterling, a voracious grow-through-acquisitions drug company, ended up selling some of the early 20^th century’s most important medicines: aspirin; the sulfa drugs; neosalvarsan (the famed “magic bullet” for syphilis); the first barbiturate sedatives Veronal and Luminal; the first synthetic narcotic Demerol; and many more. The most significant of these drugs came into Sterling’s possession during the World Wars, when the U.S. government confiscated the patents and sometimes even factories of German pharmaceutical houses and gave or auctioned them off to American companies.

Talwin advertisement, 1969

One particularly fascinating drug saga I tracked through the archive was the rise and fall of a narcotic (pain reliever) named Talwin. Talwin debuted with much ballyhoo in 1967 as the first non-addictive narcotic—a holy grail of sorts for pharmaceuticals, and a discovery preceded by decades of dashed dreams. Sterling’s ads weren’t shy about the new miracle drug, as these examples show; note how they remind readers, repeatedly, that the drug requires no special narcotics licenses or prescription triplicates. Eventually, however, the occasional instances of abuse, dependence, and addiction grew into a genuine public health problem in Chicago and a few other cities by the late 1970s. Turned out that the drug by itself was barely addictive, but, if crushed up with a common antihistamine (Pyribenzamine) and injected, it was a passable substitute for heroin—something addicts were much desirous of in the late 1970s when heroin prices had risen. Eventually Talwin was put on the Schedule of Controlled Substances after all. (For more details on the Talwin story, see http://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/forgotten-drugs-of-abuse-part-1-ts-and-blues/)

Talwin advertisement, 1969

Talwin advertisement, 1972

The Sterling collection has plenty of interesting material, all of which is closely and, for the most part, accurately described in a 400+ page finding aid. Record Group 1, which I only peeked at, contains actual samples of Sterling Drug packaging, labels, products, &etc. I spent most of my time in Record Groups 2 and 3, which contain marketing materials: medical journal advertisements (of course), and a wide range of mailings to physicians, from research-heavy booklets to lighthearted Madison Avenue gimmickry.

Record Group 4 includes material about the company, and there’s a little something for everyone: for business historians there are many, many in-house newsletters from various aspects of the company (the factory, the sales force, etc.), which detail company life and corporate culture over the century. The annual reports to stock holders give a financial overview. Clipping files collect news coverage of the company. Unfortunately there is nothing on corporate decision making, policy discussions, and the like.

Overall, however, there is much here of value to historians of pharmaceuticals, of the pharmaceutical industry, and of advertising.

David Herzberg

Associate Professor

History Department

546 Park Hall

University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Buffalo, NY 14260

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~herzberg

Blog editor's note: We're very pleased to present this unsolicited report from Prof. Herzberg. The "cheerful" archivist mentioned in his first paragraph was an Archives Center stalwart, Cathy Keen.

Freer for All

2012-01-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

Charles Lang Freer, c. 1916
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Today, January 3, marks the 106th anniversary of Charles Lang Freer tremendous gift to the American public. On this day in 1905, Freer, a wealthy railroad car manufacturer, offered to donate his vast art collection of artworks from American, Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Near East artists to the Smithsonian. Freer’s collection consisted of over 2,250 objects, including James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room. In addition to his collections, Freer also offered $500,000 to build a museum to house the art and an endowment to care for works.

Though the Smithsonian was initially reluctant to agree to Freer’s gift, with help from President Theodore Roosevelt, the Smithsonian Board of Regents and US Congress formally accepted Freer’s gift on May 5, 1906. Freer’s main motive for sharing his collection was to make it available for the public and for scholars. As such, Freer’s will stated that only objects in his personal permanent collection could be exhibited in the Freer Gallery and that pieces of his collection could not be displayed elsewhere.

Whistler's Peacock Room, c. 1930
Smithsonian Institution Archives

The Freer Gallery of Art opened May 2, 1923. Within its first month of operation 32, 648 people visited the new museum. Freer’s vision of sharing his collections with the public has grown into reality over the years. The Gallery’s wonderful exhibits and website have broadened access to the museum’s collections. Additionally, the Smithsonian’s Collection Search Center connects collections across the Institution, allowing visitors to research about Freer and his artworks in more inclusive forum.

Courtney Esposito, Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives

Samarra 1911: The End of a Campaign

2011-12-30T08:00:00.016-05:00

As taken from Thomas Leisten's book Excavation of Samarra, Volume 1 Architecture. Final Report of the First Campaign, 1910-1912:

*Image Left: Excavation of Sāmarrā (Iraq): Qaṣr al-Āshiq, View of Barrel-Vaulted Serdab from Above, 1911-1913 [graphic]. The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

On December 3rd, after a long meeting, both [Friedrich] Sarre and Herzfeld decided to end the current campaign as soon as possible and to return in the following year. This decision changed the original plan, which had included a continuation of the campaign and a series of new excavations after Sarre's arrival. Various reasons can be suggested to explain why the first campaign was broken off prematurely: for on thing, Herzfeld needed some time off to prepare the excavation of the Dar al-Khilafa, the main project for next year. Furthermore, he recognized the necessity of reviewing the material recovered so far, to eliminate mistakes and to identify problems that could be dealt with during another visit to the site. Sarre and Herzfeld also agreed that the attempt the transport the stuccos would fail and thus jeopardize both the continuation of the first campaign and their chance at a second. The fragments temporarily stores in the excavation house were not yet in a condition to be transported, and there were no suitable materials in Iraq to produce sturdy and solid frames. Bartus had even stopped casting copies from stuccos that could not be removed because he lacked fine gypsum and glue, both of which had to be imported from Germany. Last but not least was Herzfeld's health, which had been constantly deteriorating under the pressure of exhausting work, quarrels with the authorities, and the full responsibility for the success of the project at Samarra.

According to Herzfeld and Sarre, the transportation of casts and originals to Germany had to wait until after the excavations were completely finished. But while an entirely new schedule of the whole project would undoubtedly have caused some trouble, the new plan was to confront Constantinople, i.e. the Directorate of the Imperial Ottoman Museums, with the fait accompli. Herzfeld therefore contacted Bedri Bey, whose role in this scheme would be either to convince the Director General, Halil Edhem Bey, to call a temporary halt to the campaign or, even better, to give the official order himself to the Germans to stop the current campaign and inform Constantinople of what had happened only afterward. Sarre, Herzfeld, and Bedri Bey came to the conclusion that it would be safer to follow the latter plan.

During the first week of December 1911, Herzfeld was still working on the western bank. He finished the leveling of Qasr al-Ashiq and made some test soundings within the palace to clear doors and to determine the extent of the main T-shaped hall. At the same time he had another clearing made on the riverbank below the palace. Pottery and debris there indicated large settlement connected with the palace. Subsequent to the final investigation at the Qasr al-Ashiq he conducted a reexamination of the central domed chamber of the Qabbat al-Sulaibiyya. Here, three burials were brought to light that he immediately interpreted as three of the 9th century A.D. caliphs of Samarra.

*Image Right: Excavation of Sāmarrā (Iraq): Unglazed Ceramic Vessel, Found in the Qaṣr al-Āshiq, 1911-1913 [graphic]. The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Only now, during the last two weeks of the first campaign in Samarra, were Viollet's finds examined. On the last day before he left on the "Astarabadi" steamer, Bartus by chance found a building on the wet side of the Shari al-A'zam that had been scavenged by the locals. The walls were covered with a set of frescoes showing human figures and various animals, the most interesting so far discovered in this campaign. On December 20th an excursion was made to al-Istabulat where Herzfeld sketched out a rough plan of the palace. [...]

On December 25th, Bedri Bey arrived at Samarra and drew up an official letter ending the campaign according to the proposal of both Sarre and Herzfeld. An inventory of all the finds and tools was made and they were prepared for storage.

*Image Above: Excavation of Sāmarrā (Iraq): Fragments of Ceramic Vessels with Decorative Motifs, Found in the Qaṣr al-Āshiq and in al-Quraina, House VI, West Room, 1911-1913 [graphic]. The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

From the Samarra-Archiv Pergamon Museum, Berlin; Ernst Herzfeld's incomplete report on the first campaign:

Considering the vast extent of the ruins, an excavation of Samarra would create a task that could not be brought to an end even within decades of work. But each excavation is an individual case. The different interests by which the site is approached and the local conditions determine the dimension and method of investigation. The latter are quite different when it comes to excavation on Islamic soil in comparison to Babylonian ruins. For my part, the issues of the first campaign appear to have been investigated sufficiently: the excavation in the mosque could be abandoned as soon as the problem with its pier system was solved; the same was true for the exavation of residential buildings as soon as it became clear that the classes of decorative patterns could not be augmented by new groups. The excavation of Balkuwara could be stopped as soon [as] the character of the structure became tangible.

As a task for the second campaign we have two other topics: to investigate the Bayt al-Khalifah, the ancient Djausaq al-Khaqani, the main palace of Samarra, founded by Mu'tasim, which remained the residence of the caliphs until the last days of Samarra. This palace is larger, richer, and more beautiful than any other ruin of Samarra. Based on previous soundings in the right places could reveal more wall paintings, ceramics, and small finds. Sketches of other ruins could be produced - some of them have been made already - that render the types of such structures more clearly.

The second, very work intensive but attractive topic is a meticulous topographic plan of the complete ruin. Its surface is of such quality that - perhaps with the exception of the immediate surroundings of today's city - the course of avenues, narrow streets, and even single hourses can be traced clearly. In addition to this we have in the work of Ya'qubi an ancient, veritable Baedeker of Samarra. The old chronicles recorded the dramatic events that happened in Samarra with so many topographical and cultural details that - if we only had an accurate plan of the ruin fields - we would be enabled to recreate the picture o the history and culture of this distant past with the liveliness that would not be matched anywhere else, and certainly not in the Islamic world.

Ernst Herzfeld (1879-1948)

Samarra 1911: Squeeze Making and Continued Resistance in Herzfeld's Samarra
Samarra 1911: The Life of an Alleged Spy: Guns, Kissing, and the Excavation of Balkuwara
Samarra 1911: Excavation of Shabbat al-Hawa, Qasr al-Ashiq, and Qubbat al-Sulaibiyya
Samarra 1911: Clashes with Authority led to Sabotage
Samarra 1911: Excavation of the Great Mosque Finishes, al-Quraina Begins

100th Anniversary of the Samarra Excavation by Ernst Herzfeld

Samarra Resource page.

Rachael Cristine Woody
Freer|Sackler Archives

The People of India - The Khas

2011-12-29T09:56:00.007-05:00

The Khas

While the Bhurs were swept away by the torrential series of Muslim invasions, these very same endeavors strengthened the Khas. Indigenous to Central Asia, they settled in Nepal long before the British, or the Muslims, arrived in India. In the 12th century, the invasions pushed Hindu Brahmins out of their homelands in the plains, and sent them fleeing into the Himalayan foothills. There, they sought to convert the native populations, and did so with considerable success. By offering new converts status as members of the Khastriya order, the Brahmins were able to attract countless tribesmen, thus creating the Khas tribe. The Khas, fiercely loyal to the religion that favored them so, set about conquering neighboring tribes, until they were the dominant power throughout Nepal. The People of India asserts that they “gradually merged the greater part of their own habits, ideas, and language, but not physiognomy, with those of the Hindoos and the Khas language became a corrupt dialect of Hindi.” Their influence remained mighty and singular throughout the region, until 1816, when the British encroached upon their lands. The last king of the Khas was called Tirot Sing, and he led his people against the British in the Khasi-Anglo War, which lasted from 1829 to 1835. The conflict was the result of a territorial dispute between neighboring tribes, the British governor-general of North India, and the Khas, who attacked a British garrison on April 2nd, 1829, after the British failed to honor an agreement regarding the return of traditional Khas lands. Vastly outnumbered, and possessing inferior weaponry, the Khas soon resorted to guerrilla warfare, which finally ended in 1835, when Sing was captured by the British, and deported to a prison in modern day Bangladesh, where he died within a few months. The rest of the tribe was left largely intact, and became a valuable asset to the British military, until Independence. Currently, the vast majority of Khas descendents (numbering about 1.3 million) live in Meghalaya, an Indian state north of Bangladesh and south of Assam.

To see all text and images of the Khas as they are represented in the People of India, go to our catalog in the Collections Search Center.

The People of India series will be published once a month highlighting the various tribes as they're covered in the People of India.

Cal Berer, Intern

Freer|Sackler Archives

A Topiary Zoo

2011-12-27T10:00:00.002-05:00

Edward Scissorhands (played by Johnny Depp) creating topiaries

Photo credit: Twentieth Century Fox

Director Tim Burton’s film Edward Scissorhands may have popularized the art of topiary for the masses, but the art has been around for a very long time. Derived from the Greek word “topos” meaning place, and the Latin word “topiarius” which was used to signify an ornamental gardener, topiary may stretch back as far as 60 A.D. The “training or pruning of plant material into unnatural, geometric, or fantastic shapes” has been well known in Britain since the Middle Ages and became quite fashionable in formal gardens.

“William the lion” in winter at Topiary Fancies in

Connecticut with mane and tail

made of Carex “Evergold,” Nanette Burrows, photographer

In 1719 Alexander Pope wrote a very critical and satiric essay on the practice, stating that topiary was a “monument to perverted taste” and mocking the women who wanted “their own effigies in myrtle, or their husband’s in hornbeam.” Topiaries nearly vanished from the gardens of the aristocracy, but the tradition continued in smaller cottage gardens and topiaries eventually made their way to the United States.

Chickens at Newington in Pennsylvania, created using

wire frames and ivy, Diane Viall, photographer

Topiaries exist in all shapes and forms in the United States and are comprised of different plant materials. Boxwood is commonly used in the south while yew, spruce, and ilex are generally found in cooler climates. Before the advent of wire frames which are used to shape and direct the growth of the plant, gardeners had to rely on patience and constant pruning to achieve the desired shape. While all topiaries are interesting additions to a garden, larger-than-life animal topiary creations are particularly whimsical elements, despite what Alexander Pope may have thought about them.

Giraffe at Green Animals in Rhode Island,
unknown photographer

Some of the oldest animal topiaries in the United States can be found at Green Animals in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. These exquisite pieces created from California privet were sculpted by Jose N. Carreiro, the original gardener of the estate who “liked to clip” and was given creative freedom. On the seven-acre estate he created 80 pieces of topiary, a mix of geometric shapes and animals including an ostrich, a giraffe, a camel, and even a unicorn. When the estate was passed on to Alice Brayton from her father, she gave it the fitting name of ‘Green Animals’ in honor of all of Carreiro’s creations. Now cared for by The Preservation Society of Newport County, all of Green Animals’ beloved occupants are still painstakingly maintained.

Eleanor the Elephant at Bentley Garden in Arizona,
Nancy Swanson, photographer

Topiary animals are popular in private gardens as well. At Bentley Garden in Arizona, several topiary animals serve both a decorative and utilitarian purpose—the latter as a barrier between the house and the road. Citrus aurantium bushes were transformed into Eleanor the Elephant and Clyde the Camel. The owner cited a visit to Peter the Great’s Summer Palace in Russia as the inspiration for these unique topiaries. Joining Eleanor and Clyde are Fernando ze Bool, Berenstein Bear, Helen and Jill Javelina, and Petunia and Philip the Pigs, all made from oleander bushes.

View more topiary animals, shapes, and designs in the Collections Search Center.

The images above are from the Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of American Gardens.

Kayla Burns, Intern

Archives of American Gardens
Smithsonian Gardens

Peace on Earth

2011-12-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Participants at the start of the Poor People's March in Marks, Mississippi, 1968. Photograph by Diana Davies.

Take care of each other out there. Happy Holidays from the Ralph Rinzler Archives and Collections, we'll see you next year!

View more photographs and collection information:

Diana Davies Photographs, 1963-2004

-Cecilia Peterson, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Christmas Greetings in "Charlestonese"

2011-12-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

In the spirit of the holiday season, I would like to highlight a vintage Christmas greeting card in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives. Greeting cards are sent to family and friends for the emotion they express, to convey gratitude, or to note special events in our lives. Greeting cards card can also evoke memories of a special time or experience in our lives that we shared with our family, as in the case of the recently donated greeting card.

After reading about the Anacostia Community Museum’s recent exhibition on Lorenzo Dow Turner and his groundbreaking research on the Gullah dialect in her local Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper, the donor recalled a box of old Christmas greeting cards in her possession spoofing a dialect called “Charlestonese.”

Front view of Christmas card, n.d.

The cards belonged to her grandmother who was born in Walterboro, South Carolina, about 1936. The front of the card reads “Christmas Greetings in ‘Charlestonese’ . . . Language of the Lowcountry.” The inside includes a greeting in “Charelestonese” and a dictionary of “Charelestonese” words and their meanings. On the back of the card is the translation of the greeting card in Standard English.

"Charlestonese" greeting inside of card.

The donor wondered about the origins and purpose of the greeting cards. “Perhaps these cards were printed as a spoof of ‘Gullah’ by local white people calling the language ‘Charlestonese,’” she assumes. She believes her grandmother probably found the cards humorous and decided to purchase them but never used them since the family is Jewish.

Dictionary of "Charlestonese" words and their meanings also located inside card.

We are unable to confirm whether the cards were created to mock the language of Gullah people or were just a spoof of a local vernacular spoken by both blacks and whites. However, we do know that the speech patterns of the Gullah were dismissed as “baby talk” or simply “bad English” by some scholars before the research of Lorenzo Dow Turner established Gullah as a Creole language.

On the backside of the card is the translation of the "Charlestonese" greeting.

As an archivist, what I find most fascinating about this Christmas card is its power to evoke fond recollections of two distinct languages that the donor heard while growing up: the Gullah of her grandparents’ domestic help and the Yiddish of her paternal grandparents. During this holiday season how wonderful it is to know that a slightly humorous Christmas card can spark memories of other cultures and languages, all now part of the American experience.

Happy Holidays to All!

Jennifer Morris
Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

"I Am Your Most Humble Servant, Is. Newton"

2011-12-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

Portrait of Newton
engraved by James MacArdell
from a painting by
Enoch Seeman

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was one of the most remarkable figures in the history of science and mathematics. His Principia (first published in Latin as the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687) established the principle of universal gravitation and outlined the mathematical basis for the laws of motion. The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, one of the rare book collections of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, has a number of early publications by Newton, as well as several manuscripts written in his own hand. Shown here is the reply that the economically-minded Newton scrawled on the back of a letter that had been sent to him in 1687 by Gilbert Clerke, a Cambridge mathematician who had written to Newton asking for clarification on some of the points in the Principia. Newton's reply begins at the bottom of the column on the left side and continues down the right-hand side:

Dibner MSS 001008 B

S[i]r, I do not wonder that in reading a hard book you meet with some scruples & hope that the removal of those you propound may help you to understand it more easily ... I thank you for signifying your doubts to me in these things because they might have proved my mistakes. If there be any thing else you think material for me to know or stick much at in reading my book, pray do me the favour of another letter, or two. I am your most humble servant, Is. Newton.

This week, Cambridge University Library has launched its digital collection of Newton materials. Two multi-institutional collaborative websites that make reference to the Dibner Library's collection of Newton material include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton, an Indiana University-Bloomington project which focuses on Newton's alchemical writings, and The Newton Project, hosted by the University of Sussex. You can search the Smithsonian's Collections Search Center to see other works related to Newton that are owned by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Clerke, Gilbert, 1626-1697? Correspondence [manuscript], 1687. (The letter shown is dated 26 Sept. 1687).
MSS 001008 B SCDIRB Dibner Library

--Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Libraries, with assistance from Kirsten van der Veen, Technician, Dibner Library

Season's Greetings from the National Anthropological Archives!!!

2011-12-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

Acee Blue Eagle papers, 08778100n

The holidays are a great time to connect or even re-connect with family and friends. If getting together in person isn't always possible, a card can be a simple way to send best wishes for a new season and new year. Well, simple if you actually get those cards signed, sealed, stamped and to the post office. Staring at an unopened box with a 50% off sticker from the after-season sale when you decided you would finally become one of those people who sends out holiday cards, just isn’t as effective.

Whichever category you find yourself in, I hope you enjoy this selection of greeting cards from the papers of renowned Native American Artist, Acee Blue Eagle. In addition to the cards by Blue Eagle, the collection contains a few charming examples of those created by fellow artists such as Al Momaday, Brummett Echohawk and Fred Beaver. Exchanging handcrafted cards--now that really ups the ante, doesn't it?

Acee Blue Eagle Papers, 08777501 and 08777501b, front and inside of card

Acee Blue Eagle Papers, unnum 137 and unnum 137b, front and inside of card

So, to all of our readers, I'd like to say happy holidays and season's greetings (and this didn't even require a return address label)!

Acee Blue Eagle Papers, (L to R clockwise) unnum 123, 08778600, unnum 121, unnum 57

Jennifer Murray, National Anthropological Archives

Filming Imagination

2011-12-09T11:27:00.000-05:00

Ever since the arrival of motion picture film in the 1890's, the medium has been used not just to document the world around us but to convey the hidden, inner world of the imagination. Magician-turned-filmmaker Georges Méliès was an early pioneer of portraying fictional worlds through cinema. His 1902 film, Le voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), used elaborate sets, stop-motion animation, hand-coloring, and other special effects to transport audiences to the curious lunar surface.

Méliès and his films are enjoying a revival thanks to Martin Scorsese's Hugo (in which Méliès is a major character) and a recent restoration of the hand-colored version of Le voyage dans la Lune, long believed to be lost, complete with an original score by musical duo Air. Below is video of the black and white version, with an English narration and a more traditional film score.

At the Human Studies Film Archives, we deal mostly with documentary films. I was both delighted and intimidated when I wound into the original 16mm film rolls for Jorge Prelorán's experimental short, Claudia. Here I found extensive splicing due to unusually short shots, multiple soundtracks and credit rolls, and superimposed animation, some of which was scratched into the film's emulsion. In time I sorted out four versions of the film, each with a different musical score. Prelorán intended that all four versions be viewed in succession, to experience the different impressions given by the various soundtracks.

All four versions of Claudia have recently been preserved thanks to an Avant-Garde Masters grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The original film was faded and suffering from acetate deterioration. One set of credits had to be carefully re-created, using a mix of digital tools and film. The preservation work was done by Bill Brand of BB Optics and Colorlab. Here is video of Version I in its entirety:

Claudia (Version I) (1972), by Jorge Prelorán

Although he is primarily known as an ethnographic filmmaker, Prelorán made several experimental films and even a feature-length fiction film, Mi Tia Nora (1982). His very first film, Venganza (1951), is a noir crime story. The style and plot of Venganza make it easy to imagine that much of Prelorán's youth was spent in his local movie theater. His last film, Obsesivo (Obsessive) (1996), is an inquiry into the creative process itself. Claudia is one of several short, playful films Prelorán made during his long career as a filmmaker. He called these films 'bagatelles', or little songs. This bagatelle was filmed in Tucumán, Argentina in 1965, during an afternoon spent with the five-year old Claudia, the daughter of a friend. She was about the same age as Prelorán's own daughter, whom he saw little of and missed.

Méliès' work was the beginning of a long tradition of experimentation in film. Set design, special effects, and animation have evolved a great deal since his time and yet, there is still something magical and transporting about La voyage dans la Lune. The same is true of Claudia, with its hand-made animation and deceptively simple approach. Take a few minutes to watch the film (it is only six minutes long), and see if you don't break out in a smile. An ode to imagination, childhood, and the joy of play, Claudia was Prelorán's attempt to capture an inner world and portray an experience not visible to the eye, nor to the movie camera.

Karma Foley, Human Studies Film Archives

GIFT OF THE ARTIST: PHOTOGRAPHERS AS DONORS

2011-12-07T19:56:00.007-05:00

This blog is a virtual exhibition, based on the small exhibition of original photographs currently on view in the cases adjacent to the Archives Center entrance on the first floor, west wing, of the National Museum of American History. It is a "recent acquisitions" display which contains a small percentage of the contemporary documentary photographs which I have collected in the last few years. I sought to honor and thank the photographers who graciously donated their work, but the exhibition also suggests the variety of themes and subjects which interest me as a curator. The exhibition opened in November and will continue until February 29, 2012.

Many photographers are self-employed, whether they operate commercial photography businesses, travel the world as photojournalists, or function as artists—creating self-assigned projects for sale to collectors and museums. They may also teach photography, or supplement their incomes with print sales.

The photographs displayed here were created by such free-lance photographers and suggest the wide variety of subjects, approaches, and techniques which the documentary spirit embraces—from images of American politics to depictions of musicians and their instruments; from preserving family history to recording accidents and the horrors of natural disasters. The images also illustrate a broad range of contemporary photographic media and techniques, including panoramas and stereographs, digital prints, and traditional silver gelatin prints.

All the images are recent Archives Center acquisitions, kindly donated by public-spirited creators who believe in the mission of museums and archives to document history, to educate, and to inspire. The Archives Center gratefully acknowledges the generosity of these talented photographers.

JOSEPH VITONE

Vitone, a professor of photography at St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas, contributed annotated studies of members of his extended family, photographed with an 8” x 10” view camera. These photographs are from his portfolio, “Family Records,” created between 1998 and 2004.

JOSEPH VITONE
Mike Musgrave ready to butcher a snapping turtle, Ohio, 2003
Silver gelatin print.

JOSEPH VITONE
Sisters Angie Hummel and Missy Rudd by blackberry bushes, Norton, Ohio, 2000
Silver gelatin print

DYLAN VITONE

Dylan Vitone, the son of Joseph Vitone, whose work is shown above, is a professor of photography at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He often creates horizontal panoramas through multiple exposures, and an occasional vertical “panorama,” such as the one shown at the left.

DYLAN VITONE
Miami, 2009
Digital inkjet print

ANNABEL DUNSTONE

Annabel Dunstone is a student of Joseph Vitone at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. In early 2011 she participated in a class documentary project to photograph the small town of Lockhart near Austin. Twelve students, including Dunstone, were asked to donate their Lockhart photographs to the Archives Center because they represent a model for a focused, yet varied group documentary project. Shown below is an image from her untitled portfolio.

ANNABEL DUNSTONE
Lockhart Car Crash, February 8, 2011
Digital print

AARON REISSIG

Reissig is another of Joseph Vitone’s students. This image is from his Lockhart portfolio, “Lilly and Kirk.”

AARON REISSIG
Big Dog Neon Bar, Lockhart, Texas
Digital print: Epson K-3 ink on Ilford Gold Fibre Sile alpha-cellulose paper

NANCY SIRKIS

In recent years Nancy Sirkis has concentrated on two large continuing projects: “Five Boroughs,” a study of New York City, and “Small Towns,” for which she has traveled widely across America. Many of her images are panoramas, created by taking multiple incremental exposures rather than a single panoramic view.

Decker, Montana, 2007
Digital print (image to be added)

DAVID J. MARCOU

David Marcou is a free-lance photographer and writer who frequently photographs politicians and other celebrities.

DAVID J. MARCOU
Mike Huckabee’s wife takes his photograph with fans, La Crosse (Wisconsin) Center, February 14, 2008
Digital print

DAVID J. MARCOU
Obama’s Army with their Commander-in-Chief, 2nd and Pearl Streets, La Crosse, Wisconsin, October 1, 2008.
Digital inkjet print

EMILE WAAGENAAR

Waagenaar, who lives in Breda in the Netherlands, has been an enthusiastic fan of the Cajun music of Louisiana and nearby regions. He has been visiting the United States to interview and photograph Cajun musicians of all ages and circumstances for over twenty years.

EMILE WAAGENAAR
D’Jalma Garnier, Carencro [Louisiana], 2008
Digital inkjet print

EMILE WAAGENAAR
Don Montoucet, Scott [Louisiana], 2001
Digital inkjet print

FERNANDO SANDOVAL. Washington, D.C. native Fernando Sandoval has documented the streets, entertainers, and events of his home town for decades.

FERNANDO SANDOVAL
Mr. Lee’s Guitar, Downtown [Washington] D.C, early 1980s
Silver gelatin print

FERNANDO SANDOVAL
Underground Night Club, 11th St., N.W. [Washington, D.C.], mid-1990s
Silver gelatin print

MELODY GOLDING

Melody Golding spent a year photographing the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina and recovery efforts in her home state of Mississippi.

MELODY GOLDING
See Through House, Gulf Coast, Mississippi, 2005
Silver gelatin print

MELODY GOLDING
Smashed House, Gulf Coast, Mississippi, 2005
Silver gelatin print

ROBERT COVINGTON

Covington makes stereoscopic (three-dimensional) images during his travels. Shown here is his untitled portfolio of these images, complete with viewing glasses, and two prints from the group.

ROBERT COVINGTON

Looking South from North Tower, WTC [World Trade Center, New York City], 1999

Silver gelatin print

ROBERT COVINGTON

Brooklyn Bridge Walkway, 1990

Digital inkjet print

PAT AND CHUCK BRESS

The husband-wife team of Pat and Chuck Bress photographed renowned jazz musicians performing at two important Washington, D.C., night clubs in the late 1980s--Charlie’s Place, which closed years ago, and Blues Alley, still a significant venue for jazz.

PAT AND CHUCK BRESS

Dizzy Gillespie, 1980s

Silver gelatin print

PAT AND CHUCK BRESS

Ernestine Anderson, 1980s

Silver gelatin print (image to be added)

JONATHAN SINGER

Singer is a podiatrist who pursued a second career as a photographic artist, receiving notoriety in national magazines for his images of orchids. He has since turned his attention to guitars.

JONATHAN SINGER

Gibson ES-5, 1951, SN AS7321, 3 P-90 pickups; Gibson Es-5 Switchmaster, 1959, SN A27764, 3 PAF pickups

Digital inkjet print, 2011

JAKE JACOBSON

Jacobson photographed musical instrument makers across the United States for his project, “Heart and Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America,” resulting in a book and a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service exhibition by the same title.

Lloyd “Butch” Heidt, Henegar [Alabama], ca. 1996-1998

Inkjet digital print from 35mm film transparency (image to be added)

David Haberstich, Curator of Photography, Archives Center

A Book With Some Very Unusual Leaves: Martin Hering's Minen-Herbarium (1929-1938)

2011-12-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

Larix Decidua Mill. (European Larch) specimen no. 121
with contents sheet for Lfg. 7

It's late autumn in the Washington, D.C. area, and the pathways are strewn with crunchy dried leaves that whisk about in the breeze. The distinctive shapes and colors of the leaves makes their trees of origin easily identifiable: elm; oak; maple; and tulip poplar. As a child, I liked to collect some of the prettiest leaves and press them flat between the pages of books, and in my work as a cataloger I occasionally come across a few dried leaves and blossoms that have been preserved in books as seasonal mementos by their former owners.

However, seeing a dried sprig or two tucked away in a book hardly prepared me for the surprise that awaited when I saw the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' set of Minen-Herbarium. Here were 22 portfolios containing 440 mounted specimens of dried plant leaves and stems. As I looked more closely at the specimens, it became clear that the plant samples had been carefully selected by the compiler of the collection to illustrate specific plant and insect relationships through traces of damage caused by the larvae of various species of leaf-mining insects.

Portfolio cover for Lfg. 4 of Minen-Herbarium,
with contents list

The portfolios (or Lieferungen) of Minen-Herbarium have very little textual information. There is a printed contents guide mounted on the front of each portfolio, with another copy of the contents guide laid inside. Otherwise, the only explanatory information is stamped on the folded pieces of paper that contains the mounted specimens. Each sheet of paper records the species of plant, the species of leaf-mining insect that attacked the plant, the place the specimen was collected (usually in Germany or Spain), and the month and year of collection. The insect species featured in the specimens generally come from the orders of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), Diptera (true flies), or Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, bees and ants). One of the delights of browsing through these specimens is seeing the various German terms that have been used to describe the different categories of leaf-mining insects based on the type of damage they create, such as: Faltenmine; Jugendmine; Fleckmine; Blasenmine; Jugendgangmine; Gangplatzmine; Platzmine; Gangmine; and Spiralmine.

Acer Plantanoides L.
(Norway Maple) specimen
no. 221

Minen-Herbarium was issued one portfolio at a time between the years 1929 and 1938, with each portfolio containing a printed contents page and twenty numbered specimens. The editor who oversaw the project, Erich Martin Hering (1893-1967), was a noted German entomologist who worked as a curator at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where he specialized in the study of leaf-mining insects. In researching this publication online, I occasionally found references to the set in articles and specialized bibliographies, but I did not see any other copies of the work listed in the various national libraries and union catalogs. Since it was such a massive undertaking to collect hundreds of specimens from various plants --especially to find samples showing the presence of leaf-mining insects -- few complete copies of the set were probably issued. Did the compilers finish the project as they had envisioned it, or did the untimely approach of World War II force an early end before all the specimens could be collected? If anyone has more information about the circumstances of the production of Minen-Herbarium, I hope he or she will share it in the comments section of this blog.

Text for Acer Plantanoides L. (Norway
Maple), specimen no. 221,
collected in Berlin, May, 1932

The portfolios of Minen-Herbarium in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History complement the United States National Herbarium, which is part of the collections of the Botany Department in the National Museum of Natural History, containing over 4.5 million botanical specimens. Minen-Herbarium is also a helpful resource for researchers in the Department of Entomology of the National Museum of Natural History who are interested in the historical range and variety of insect pests and their host plants. The plant specimens that were selected and preserved so carefully by the compilers of the Minen-Herbarium nearly 100 years ago have a perfect home here at the Smithsonian, where the grand challenge of "understanding and sustaining a biodiverse planet" puts the spotlight on treasures such as these for the stories they can tell (even without words) about the complex interrelationships found among species on Earth. More information on leafminers can be found in the Smithsonian's Collections Search Center, including publications by researchers on the staff of the National Museum of Natural History, as well as links to specimens in the Department of Entomology's collections.

Minen-Herbarium, herausgegeben von M. Hering. [probably privately published at Berlin by M. Hering], 1929-1983. Cullman Library call number SB945.L55H47 1929 Lfg. 1-22 SCNHRB

Diane Shaw

Special Collections Cataloger

Smithsonian Institution Libraries

The People of India - The Bhurs

2011-11-28T08:00:00.003-05:00

The Bhurs

Unlike many of the tribes discussed in the People of India, the Bhurs, at least in the context in which they are discussed by the British, seem to have all but disappeared from India. However, before their diaspora, they were one of the most long settled tribes on the subcontinent. In fact, the British surmised that, in all likelihood, the Bhurs were an aboriginal tribe. They founded the town of Baraitch, and had significant influence in central Oude for quite some time. Their time in the sun came to an abrupt end when they were scattered by the then Emperor of the Delhi Sultanate. POI identifies their conqueror as “Alla-hoo-deen Ghazee of Delhi”, and remarks that the Bhurs “appear to have been systematically extirpated by Mahomedon conquerors in the early part of the 14th century.” Their last stand before submission appears to have been at the Sultanpur (a name given by Muslim conquerors. The original Bhur designation has been lost) fort town, where Ghazee laid siege to them. They put up strong resistance at first, but, according to historians, were defeated during the Holi festival, as a result of excessive drinking and festivities, and the inevitable carelessness that ensues. After this defeat, Baraitch was more or less deserted, and fell into dereliction. The following decades saw a similar scattering of the tribe all throughout Oude, until, by the time of POI’s publication, the region was something of an unmarked graveyard. “Brick ruins of forts, houses, and wells” filled the countryside, but none of the current inhabitants seemed to have any knowledge of their unfortunate predecessors. Those who managed to remain were forced to accept menial positions, and occupied a very low echelon in society. The Bhurs, and their devastating fall, are yet another example of India’s endless cultural, political, and religious revolutions; its constant, all encompassing samsara.

To see all text and images of the Bhurs as they are represented in the People of India, go to our catalog in the Collections Search Center.

The People of India series will be published once a month highlighting the various tribes as they're covered in the People of India.

Cal Berer, Intern

Freer|Sackler Archives

Image of the Day: Robert R. Moton

2011-11-23T08:00:00.001-05:00

Robert Russa Moton (1867 – 1940) was an educator and the second president of Tuskegee Institute, perhaps lesser known in comparison to the school’s founder and first principal, Booker T. Washington, or the Institute’s third president, Frederick Douglass Patterson. However, Dr. Moton, as did his predecessor, dedicated his life to educating African Americans and shared Washington’s philosophy towards industrial education as a means of advancement for the recently emancipated population.

Dr. Moton, the great-great-great-grandson of an “African slave merchant”, who after selling his fellow countrymen to slavers found himself on a ship chained to an African he recently sold to slave traders. The merchant was purchased and taken to Amelia County, Virginia, by a tobacco planter, where some hundred years later his descendant Robert Russa Moton was born on August 26, 1867. Dr. Moton recounts this story and the events that shaped his life in his1920 autobiography, Finding a Way Out.

This image was taken about the time Robert R. Moton graduated from Hampton Institute in 1890. It was given to Dr. Wilson Bruce Evans, principal of Armstrong Manual Training School in Washington, D.C. Evans-Tibbs Collection, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.

A graduate of Hampton Institute, Moton also taught at the school and was the administrator for the Native American students attending the Institute. He later served for twenty-five years as Commandant of Cadets, overseeing the discipline of all the students. In 1915, Moton was appointed principal of Tuskegee Institute after the death of Booker T. Washington. To the trustees of Tuskegee, Moton’s ability to get along with both black and white southerners and his potential to solicit funding support from northern philanthropists made him the perfect candidate to further the work of Washington.

Moton served as principal of Tuskegee for twenty years. Under his administration, Tuskegee expanded its academic program, added more buildings for the Institute to carry out its training, and strengthen the school’s reputation. Dr. Moton retired in 1935 and died in 1940.

Jennifer Morris
Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

The Art and Craft of Green Gables: A California Estate

2011-11-22T10:00:00.076-05:00

The Arts and Crafts movement gained momentum in Britain during the 1880s and was focused on uniting the natural landscape to architecture, the garden, and the home. Those at the forefront of the movement in England included architect Philip Webb (1831-1915) who was commissioned by the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement William Morris (1834-1896) to design Red House and its surrounding gardens in 1859. Red House became one of the most influential designs in the Arts and Crafts movement because of its incorporation of nature into daily life.

In America, Arts and Crafts gardens were marked by their regional diversity and use of native species and locally historic styles, which created a national Arts and Crafts style much less cohesive than its British counterpart. Seamless transitions between the design of homes and gardens in America grew from the practice of well-known Arts and Crafts architects like Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) who popularly fused architectural and garden principles in houses like his Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania.

Green Gables was one of the few house-and-garden estates designed by Greene & Greene.

It was built c.1911 as the summer home for Mortimer and Bella Fleishhacker and remains in the family today.

(D. Regnery, An Enduring Heritage: Historic Buildings of the San Francisco Peninsula, Stanford, 1976, p.104, 106.)

On the West Coast, the Arts and Crafts movement took the form of the California Mission Revival style and the bungalow style of architecture that brothers Charles (1868-1957) and Henry Greene (1870-1954), also known as Greene & Greene, popularized through their designs. Charles Greene’s commission in the early twentieth century for Mortimer and Bella Fleishhacker to create a seventy-five acre garden called Green Gables in Woodside, California, is one of the largest gardens created by an Arts and Crafts designer. While Green Gables features strong European influences, including an Italianate arcade and design, Greene’s composition remains true to the Arts and Crafts sensibilities of native plantings, regional style, and natural, organic designs. In addition to designing the gardens, exterior walkways and pools over the course of twenty years, Greene also personally designed tables, chairs, and doors for the house.

The gardens of Green Gables include a 300 foot-long Roman pool that captures a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The stairway and arcade were constructed by hand out of regional stone to enhance the natural aesthetic of the garden. Louise H. Hooker, photographer.

For more information about Arts and Crafts gardens, see Wendy Hitchmough, Arts and Crafts Gardens (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1998)

Find out more information about the Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of American Gardens.

Lucy Shirley, 2011 Katzenberger Art History Intern

Archives of American Gardens
Smithsonian Gardens

Radio Days: Moe Asch Before Folkways

2011-11-21T12:13:00.001-05:00

Radio Laboratories business card

The Moses and Frances Asch Collection is a treasure trove ofmaterials and information about the Folkways label, its albums and artists, andthe man who made it all possible. A researcher could spend years in the Production Filesseries alone, learning how iconic albums like Music of the Ituri Forest and Woody Guthrie’s Struggle were conceptualized, recorded, and produced. As archive interns, we have the opportunityto examine these interesting artifacts up close, and we’ve come across morethan just tax forms and royalty statements: World War II ration books, a 1950sphotographers’ light meter, and a military document from 1811 are just a few of our more unusualfinds.

As someone who has been up to theelbows in Asch material for almost three months, I’m not ashamed to admit thatI have a favorite part of the collection. But it isn’t the Production Filesseries with its beautiful artwork, or even the Correspondence series with itsletters from artists, managers, and fans from all over the world. No, myfavorite part is the early Biographical series, which chronicles the personaland pre-Folkways life of Moe Asch. Though it can be overshadowed by theaccomplishments of his later years, the story of Moe Asch the young radiopioneer is one that deserves to be told as well. Before Folkways, Moe Asch wasbringing sound to the masses in a different way, over P.A. systems and radiosets. The documents and other materials found in the Asch Biographical seriesgive insight into the nascent field of radio technology, life in Depression-eraNew York City, and the early career of the man who would be Moe.

Beforehe was recording the world of sound, Moe Asch was immersed in the world ofradio electronics. He worked as labengineer in charge of repairs at Walthal’s Electric Company in Manhattan forfive years. During and after his timethere, Moe was an avid scholar and innovator in the field of electronicscience. In 1929, he documented “equipment for aerial installation” that hehimself had invented; three years later he wrote to a potential client as aninventor offering his product for sale. He also submitted articles on equipmentand technique to trade publications like RadioEngineering and Radio Retailingin the early ‘30s.

Letter to Virgil Graham from Moses Asch, regarding radio receivers in automobiles, undated

Moe became known throughout thecommunity as a skilled radio man who was up-to-date with the latest technology,a reputation that led to some surprising interactions. In an undated letterfrom the 1930s, he warns a colleague about those who might want to exploit hisknowledge for nefarious purposes: “… the police department in New Yorkofficially opened its Police Radio network, and I’ve been approached bybootleggers and (so called) gangsters to install radio receivers in theirautomobiles for reception of these signals.”

Throughoutthe Great Depression, Moe remained active in the field, attending conferencesand joining several professional organizations. He was a member of theInstitute of Radio Engineers and the United Electrical and Radio Workers of theWorld, and became secretary of the Brooklyn chapter of the Institute of RadioService Men. In 1936, he served as the chairman of the Standards Committee andthe head of the Educational Committee for the International Brotherhood ofElectrical Workers.

It was during this time that Moeand his partner, Harry Mearns, started their own business that focused on radio andpublic address system repair, rentals, and installation. Radio Laboratories didbusiness with individuals, theaters, professional organizations, and politicalgroups all over New York City as well as in neighboring states. Although the partnership ended in 1940, theelectronics expertise and client contacts Moe gained during the Radio Labsyears would serve him well when he entered the realm of commercial recording.

The Biographical series of theMoses and Frances Asch Collection provides a glimpse into an era of excitingtechnological innovations and the life of an enterprising young businessman inthe midst of a tumultuous period in American history. For this and otherreasons (who can resist the charm of vintage ads singing the praises ofnewly-minted FM radio?), this series ranks as one of the most fascinating partsof the Archives. Anyone looking toexamine the life of Moe Asch before Folkways would do well to start here.

- Aja Bain, Intern, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Television Art

2011-11-17T10:40:00.008-05:00

Next week is Thanksgiving, but on Monday, November 21 we give thanks to the TV! The United Nations declared World Television Day back in 1996. Since I’m at work and I don’t have a TV on hand to celebrate, I thought I’d share some artwork symbolizing this communication technology.

Sculptor Friedlander standing on the unfinished RCA building marquee under his Television relief sculptures, ca. 1934

In this Peter A. Juley & Son photo, sculptor Leo Friedlander (1890-1966) stands with a boy on the unfinished iconic marquee of the RCA Building (now GE Building) at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Above them at 15 ft. tall and 10 ft. wide are Friedlander’s Television sculpture reliefs. The group on the left, called Production, depict a female figure dancing while another figure films her movement. On the right side of the marquee, Reception receives this transmission of the dancing girl and displays it in her hands for the audience (or viewers) represented by mother and child figures.

Leo Friedlander standing in front of a scale model of Television

Commissioned to design the sculpture relief (and its sister relief Radio) in 1933, Friedlander created these stone carvings when television itself was still in its infancy. This was long before TV was broadcast 24 hours a day and there were thousands of channels and shows to choose from to get information or entertainment. Friedlander’s reliefs remind me of that simple concept of transmitting images in order to bring people and ideas together.

Check out other television related items through the Smithsonian Collections Search. Have a good World Television Day!

Emily Moazami, Photograph Archivist, Research & Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Turkeys, Fort Marion, and Making Medicine

2011-11-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

Images of turkeys can be found in artwork at the National Anthropological Archives. One type of art in the NAA's collection containing turkeys are drawings that were created by American Indian prisoners at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, such as this graphite and colored pencil drawing depicting a turkey hunt by an anonymous Cheyenne artist.

The above illustration was part of a book of drawings transferred to the U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian) in 1877 by the U.S. War Department that had collected it in 1875 from an unidentified Cheyenne prisoner at Fort Marion. This was the original War Department label for the book.

Click here to see the complete set of drawings contained in the 1875 anonymous Cheyenne drawing book (MS 39A) in the National Anthropological Archives.

In 1875, following the Southern Plains Indian war, 72 Native Americans, primarily Kiowas, Cheyennes and Araphoes, were captured by the U.S. Army and imprisoned and held hostage to ensure the peaceful conduct of their tribes.

Stereograph of "Indians at Fort Marion"
Photo Lot 90-1, number 336, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt, a Civil War veteran, supervised the prisoners and attempted to organize educational activities for the men in an effort to foster assimilation. Pratt later went on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first off-reservation boarding school in the United States.

"Captain Pratt and Indian boys posed in front of building, Fort Marion, Florida, 1878"
Negative 54546, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

In addition to teaching the Indian prisoners English, Christian religion, and military drills, the prisoners were provided with art supplies to make art depicting their experiences. Pratt encouraged prisoners to make art that they could sell as souvenirs to tourists who came to St. Augustine.

Stereograph of Indian prisoners at Fort Marion posing with visitors
Photo Lot 90-1, number 334, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

One of the prisoner artists at Fort Marion was Making Medicine (later known as David Pendleton Oakerhater), a warrior and leader amongst the Cheyenne Tribe of Oklahoma.

Making Medicine or David Pendleton Oakerhater, May 1881
Photo courtesy of Oklahoma State University Library

In 1923 the Bureau of American Ethnology, whose collection later became part of the National Anthropological Archives, received a donation of one of Making Medicine's Fort Marion sketchbooks (MS 39B), seen here.

The donor's brother had been given the sketchbook by his cousin, George Fox, who worked as an interpreter at Fort Marion between1875 to 1878. This is the donor's description of how she acquired the drawing book.

Making Medicine's sketchbook depicts his experiences as a prisoner at Fort Marion, including participating in drills with fellow prisoners, being photographed and giving archery lessons to ladies.

Making Medicine also created scenes of life before prison, including village life and hunting scenes, which of course included turkeys.

To see the rest of Making Medicine's drawings contained in the sketch book (MS 39B) at the National Anthropological Archives click here.

Whitney Hopkins, Reference Intern
National Anthropological Archives

Human Studies Film Archives' Mystery Film Reel Bonus

2011-11-03T15:33:00.000-04:00

Missed parts I and II? You can read them here and here.

For those of you who followed HSFA’s posts during October’s Archives Month, we are offering a bonus for November readers. Perhaps the most mysterious clip of all on the mystery film reel—and clearly the most enchanting—is the following. Although we understand nothing of the tradition, if there is one, behind this film footage, there is some resemblance to the acrobatic performances of Japanese firefighters atop tall extension ladders.

93.25.2 Japan: Promotional and Theatrical Footage, ca. 1927

And, as an extra added bonus, this film clip resonated with other early 20th century film footage screened as part of the first presentation by University of Maryland professor Oliver Gaycken at Northeast Historic Film’s Summer Film Symposium, “A Modern Cabinet of Curiosity: The George Kleine Educational Film Catalogue.” The wonder is: which is more amazing, the man and the boy or the flies (who are trained and not glued or otherwise affixed to the surface)?

Pamela Wintle
Human Studies Film Archives

As Always, Adina: A Perspective of a Life through Letters

2011-11-02T16:22:00.002-04:00

“If we are successful as archivists, the historical record will speak for this [the nation’s] past, in a full and truthful voice. And, as a society, we will be wiser for understanding who and where we have been.”
--John Fleckner

Adina Via, 1955

As an intern in the Archives Center, I have the opportunity to watch archivists hard at work preserving the documentary evidence of the past and the present. Through my program, Smith at the Smithsonian, I am conducting independent research. For my project, I am using a collection of over five hundred letters that Adina Mae Via wrote to her boyfriend, Franklin

Letter from Adina Via to Frank Robinson,
January 15, 1951

Robinson, from 1951 to 1960. They are part of the Robinson-Via Family Papers, 1845-2001.

Adina’s letters are a consistent record of how she presents herself to Franklin during her transitions from high school to the workforce in 1950s rural Maryland. As I delve deeper into her letters, I learn about the details of her everyday life; from how often she washes her hair, to the cost of her long distance phone bill, to how long she spent planting tobacco, to how much she enjoys her newfound independence from her job. Yet, there is just as much to discover from what is left unwritten.

Adina Via, 1955

To my surprise, Adina explicitly mentions race only once in her letters writing, “they had four colored people down [at the farm] today” on August 27, 1956. Furthermore, once I learned she attended a segregated high school, I began to wonder how she saw the world in terms of the racial inequalities that existed. I am in the process of researching the demographics of the area where she lived in an effort to learn what Adina’s environment physically looked like, whether on her drive to work, in church, or shopping in downtown D.C. As I scrutinize Adina’s life from my twenty-first century perspective, I realize that I must try to see the world from her viewpoint. In doing so I am better able to learn from her and share the multiple truths and complexities of her life. Through Adina’s letters I am able to reflect on Fleckner’s words by examining “who and where we have been” as an American society. But to truly learn from her, I must recognize our similarities and reflect upon how I too am sometimes immune to the inequalities before me.

Rachel Dean, Smith College Intern
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Wild Goose Chase

2011-11-02T10:39:00.000-04:00

"The Spruce Goose" landing on November 2, 1947.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives
Record Unit 371, Box 2, Folder: March 1975

On November 2, 1947 Howard Hughes, famed businessman, philanthropist, director, and aviator, flew the HK-4 Flying Boat for its first and only flight. “The Spruce Goose” now lives at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. But did you know that for a brief moment the plane was a part of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s collections?

Before the “The Spruce Goose” moved around the country in search of a permanent home, the plane had an interesting history of its own. Hughes designed and built the HK-4 during World War II under a contract with the Defense Production Corp. Hughes’ company, Hughes Tool Company, built the plane with a 320-foot wingspan, sixty percent longer than a Boeing 747, and large enough to transport about 700 soldiers into battle. The plane made of birch, poplar spruce, maple and balsa wood, because of wartime restrictions on metal, was given the nickname “The Spruce Goose”, even though birch was the primary material used. However, the plane’s astonishing twenty-three million dollar cost and years of slow progress set the project back. It was completed in 1946 after the war had ended and despite its successful maiden journey, fears about the strength of a wooden plane devalued its worth and the plane was never put into production. Hughes, who called the plane “Hercules”, maintained a crew for his beloved plane’s prototype until his death in 1976.

In 1975, the Summa Corporation (a Hughes Company) owned Hughes’ H-1 Racer, the fastest landplane of its time. The Smithsonian wanted this plane for its exhibits, while the Summa Corporation wanted to purchase “The Spruce Goose.” However, since “The Goose” was built under a government contract and held by the US General Services Administration, it could not be directly sold to the private Summa Corporation. Thus, the plane was transferred to the Smithsonian and shortly thereafter sent to the Summa Cooperation in exchange for the H-1 Racer. The H-1 Racer was placed on display in the National Air and Space Museum’s “Golden Age of Flight” exhibit.

“The Spruce Goose’s” tale does not end there. After Hughes’ death in 1976 the Wrather Cooperation bought the plane and housed it in a hanger in Long Beach, California. In 1988, the Walt Disney Company bought the plane. Finally, in 1992 co-founders of the Evergreen Aviation Museum submitted a proposal to Disney, who were soliciting a permanent home for “The Spruce Goose.” The proposal stated that the new museum would design a state-of-the-art exhibition space around the plane. Disney accepted the proposal and in 1993 Hughes’ plane finally landed for the final time. “The Spruce Goose” underwent a full restoration and in 2001 made its debut in a new exhibit.

Courtney Esposito, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Institutional History Division

Closing American Archives Month Activities

2011-10-31T14:07:00.000-04:00

As American Archives Month comes to a close, we hope our participation in a pan-Smithsonian blogathon throughout October have raised awareness about Smithsonian’s vast archival collections, historical records, and online resources. The archival collections highlighted, current issues discussed; and spotlight on special projects blogged about this month is just one of the various activities held in celebration of Archives Month.

Rachael Cristine Woody (Archivist/FSA), Sarah Stauderman (Collections Care Manager/SIA), and Nora Lockshin (Paper Conservator/SIA) examine a treasure at the “Ask the Smithsonian” portion of the Archives Fair. Courtesy of Michael Barnes, photographer, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

In addition to the blogathon, a Facebook Q & A with Smithsonian experts was held on October 12th. The event included Riccardo Ferrante, Information Technology Archivist and director of the Smithsonian Institution Archives' Digital Services Division; Nora Lockshin, a Paper Conservator at the Smithsonian Institution Archives; Michael Pahn, a Media Archivist at the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, and Gina Rappaport the archivist for historical photograph collections at the National Anthropological Archives. We also hosted our 2nd annual Archives Fair at the S. Dillon Ripley Center on the National Mall where attendees with free tickets were able to consult with Smithsonian archivists and conservators about caring for their treasures, during the “Ask the Smithsonian” portion of the event.

All Smithsonian archival units, Smithsonian Institution Archives, and Smithsonian Institution Libraries set up information tables during the fair to share their resources. They provided brochures, bookmarks, posters, and other materials describing their collections, and answered questions pertaining to their repository. The public was also treated to demonstrations on successfully searching the Collections Search Center database for archival collections.

This year, a special Archives Month page was created and hosted by Smithsonian Archives of American Art, which streamed our Lecture Series live. If you are just learning of our month long activities, we encourage you to visit the Archives Month page, and other blogs from across the Smithsonian to learn about and explore our amazing and diverse collections.

Jennifer Morris
Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

At the Heart of the Invention: Development of the Holter Monitor

2011-10-30T08:00:00.025-04:00

Model 445 Mini-Holter Recorder, illustration from a brochure, 1976

You probably know someone with a heart condition or someone who had a heart attack or even heart surgery. I know I do. According to the Center for Disease Control, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States and the most common type of heart disease is coronary artery disease (CAD), which can lead to a heart attack. Sobering data. There are ways to prevent heart disease such as embracing a healthy lifestyle and there are diagnostic tools to monitor our hearts too, thanks to the work of two creative and persistent men, Norman “Jeff” Holter (1914-1983) and Bruce Del Mar (b. 1913-). Their collaboration, which spanned two decades, produced a commercially viable heart monitor known as the Holter Monitor Test. The Holter Monitor is a portable device for continuously monitoring heart activity for an extended period of time, typically twenty-four hours. The monitor records electrical signals from the heart that are sent via a series of electrodes attached to the chest. The data is then analyzed for different sorts of heart beats and rhythms.

Norman J. Holter

Holter's business card

Norman “Jeff” Holter, a native of Helena, Montana, was a biophysicist and inventor whose interests were not confined solely to physics. In the 1940s, Holter organized Applied Micro Sciences, a scientific photography business, and began working with Dr. Joseph A. Gengerelli (1905-2000) of UCLA on nerve stimulation in frogs and brain stimulation in rats. Holter’s interest in studying electrical activity in humans during their daily activities without touching them spawned his lifelong pursuit to develop the Holter Monitor. In 1947, Holter formed the Holter Research Foundation in Montana, with a laboratory to pursue his research interests. Holter continued his collaboration with Dr. Gengerelli of UCLA in attempting to transmit biological information, primarily brain waves, by radio. Holter turned his attention from the brain to the heart because the heart's greater voltage made the electronics easier, and because heart disease was far more prevalent than brain disease. Holter’s introduction to Dr. Paul Dudley White (1886-1973), a renowned physician and cardiologist, also helped convince him to focus his research on recording electrical activity from the heart. Holter's goal was to radio broadcast and record the more obvious electrophysiological phenomena occurring in humans while carrying on their normal activities, rather than having them be inactive.

Patient attached to heart monitoring equipment: slide of a cartoon, undated

Holter’s first broadcast of a radioelectrocardiogram (RECG) took place circa 1947 and required 80 to 85 pounds of equipment, which Holter wore on his back while riding a stationary bicycle. This was not practical and in no way could be worn by a patient for a sustained period of time. The initial transmitter and receiver required that the subject remain in the general area of the laboratory, so a more portable and lighter receiver-recorder had to be developed. Holter responded by creating a briefcase-like device that could be carried by a patient. Holter noted in 1982 that “The 85 lb. RECG, while not practical, represented a major breakthrough since before that time a patient had to lie quietly. Out greatest contribution was a radical one and was the beginning of an era where one could take ECG’s on skiers, parachute jumpers, runners, and just about any other type of vigorous physical activity.” Holter’s other contribution was to bring the overall size down to less than cigarette package size to be worn inside a man’s jacket handkerchief pocket.

With the development of transistors, radioelectrocardiography was made obsolete and it became possible for the amplifier, tape recorder, temperature-control circuits, motor speed control circuits, and batteries to be placed in a single unit small enough for a coat pocket or purse. In 1952, Holter succeeded in creating a small unit that weighed approximately 1 kg. Wilford R. Glassock, a senior engineer working with Holter, traveled to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital (now Cedars-Sinai Hospital of Los Angeles) in 1962 to demonstrate the Holter monitor system and discuss making it more practical. At Cedars, Dr. Eliot Corday, a cardiologist, observed the practicality of the system, embracing the technology and becoming an early promoter of the technology to both industry and physicians. Holter and Glassock were issued US Patent 3,215,136 on November 2, 1965 for the Electrocardiographic Means. The Holter Research Foundation ultimately sold exclusive rights to the patent to Del Mar Engineering Laboratories, who became the acknowledged leader in Holter monitoring technology for over 40 years.

Advertisement for Del Mar
Engineering Laboratories, 1965

As articles describing the foundation's invention of these devices began to appear in the professional literature, there was considerable demand from doctors and hospitals for the equipment. Dr. Corday was acquainted with Bruce Del Mar from previous work on a flow meter which Corday put in coronary arteries to register the rate of blood flow. Corday introduced Holter to Bruce Del Mar in 1962. Holter was seeking a partner to manufacture his monitor. In a March 1, 1962 letter to Dr. Wallace Chan, Special Assistant to the Deputy Surgeon General, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Holter writes why Del Mar Avionics was selected to manufacture the Holter Monitor.

“After visiting several plants and talking with qualified people, we became aware that many interested manufacturers were not qualified to make an adequate instrument. Out of these meetings evolved a set of ground rules to assist me in selecting a manufacturer who could produce our equipment. 1) A dependable high quality trouble free system; 2) as low a sale price as possible to encourage wide distribution; 3) as rapidly as possible through the use of a team of experienced production and marketing people; 4) with adequate financial backing to avoid company failure during the course of bringing the instrument to market; and 5) last, but very important, with youthful aggressive enthusiasm for the technical ideas involved and an understanding of the revolutionary approach to what I consider obsolete present methods for electrocardiography.”

Del Mar Avionics fit Holter’s “ground rules.” Not surprisingly, Del Mar employed a youthful, aggressive, and enthusiastic staff. The company strove to create an environment “for creativity and growth opportunities.” It would be a mutually beneficial partnership for both parties.

Bruce Del Mar’s role as an innovator and collaborator with Holter is especially important because his work spurred the development of an entire diagnostic industry. In November of 1963 Holter wrote to Del Mar, “Do not be too discouraged; careful evaluated clinical research goes even slower than R & D. My visits around the country convince me that you will encounter a chain reaction in time. Physicians have to be especially conservative in evaluating the results of such a revolutionary approach but once they have, interest will develop by geometric progression.”

Bruce Del Mar

Holter and Del Mar had their hearts in the right place. The Del Mar Avionics Holter Monitor Records, 1951-2011, held at the Archives Center, document through correspondence, engineering notebooks, operator’s manuals more than just the invention of a heart monitor. The records reflect the successful collaboration of an independent inventor and a manufacturing firm to problem-solve, develop a solution, and bring to market a diagnostic technology. Del Mar wrote in February of 1965, ”We have continually improved circuitry and mechanical details to obtain greater service fidelity, accuracy, response and reliability. The instruments we are now delivering are performing very well in the field. We should, however, be thinking and actively working ahead on new model improvements for 1966. Can I have your suggestions in this respect? That would be very much appreciated.” The correspondence reveals a deep level of commitment and investment from both parties to work out technical details, successfully market the monitor, and in general keep the project moving forward.

References:

Corday, Eliot. “Historical Vignette Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Diagnostic Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Monitoring and Data Reduction Systems,” American Journal of Cardiology. 1991, pp. 286-292.

Del Mar, Bruce Eugene. Ready for Takeoff: An Autobiography. 2010.

Kennedy, Harold L. “The History, Science, and Innovation of Holter Technology,” Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology, January 2006, pp. 85-94.

Roberts, William C. and Marc A. Silver. “Norman Jefferis Holter and Ambulatory ECG Monitoring,” American Journal of Cardiology, 1983, pp. 903-906.

By Alison Oswald, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

The Catalog of American Portraits: A Land of Little Discoveries

2011-10-29T09:00:00.001-04:00

When I began working for the Catalog of American Portraits ten years ago, the first lesson was that the CAP is not a catalog, so much as it is a taxonomy—a way of organizing information—of American Portraiture. While we call it a catalog, it is really more of a library. Sometimes, individuals call on our inquiry line and wish to order a copy of the Catalog of American Portraits and we have to explain to them that it is a large file room which in no way resembles either a card catalog (except that the archive is in drawers) or the Sears Catalog and Wishbook many of us remember from our youth.   The Catalog of American Portraits is, simply put, fifty-plus years of research on American portraits which is comprised of a survey of every portrait that a team of researchers has located in public and private collections, either featuring the portrait of an American, or featuring a portrait painted or sculpted by an American artist. It contains upwards of 200,000 files and it is an ongoing survey.

Interesting works fill the collection, and occasionally, a work of some distinction will surface due to an inquiry or scholarly research. Years ago, a local writer named Elizabeth Brownstein was working on a book called Lincoln’s Other White House. While we were unable to locate the particular portrait of Lincoln she was seeking—an image of Lincoln in a nightgown writing the Emancipation Proclamation by candlelight—we were able to show her an interesting array of other works featuring our sixteenth president. Among those works was a hand carved Native American totem from the Tongass tribe of the Tlingit Indians in Alaska, a totem featuring an image of President Lincoln and thought to be the only work in that form featuring an American President. The totem is several feet tall and kept at the State Museum of Alaska in Anchorage; it is called Proud Raven. The author, Ms. Brownstein, was so taken by the image she published it in her work.

Another image I found in the files during this period was from a Smithsonian collection, though not our own at the NPG. It was also an image of President Lincoln—it was a naïve drawing of the president executed by no less than folk singer Woody Guthrie.

For Abraham Lincoln alone the catalog reflects that there are dozens of images in collections in the Washington DC area and hundreds of images of him in collections throughout the United States in every medium possible—painted on canvas, painted on wood, life masks, death masks, sculptures, textiles—and yes, even a carved Native American totem.

In scope, the goal of the creation of the CAP was to build a body of information about portraits of “historically important figures” in collections everywhere, public and private, using a team of researchers who would photograph, measure, and record available information on a portrait-by-portrait basis.

Warren Perry
Writer
National Portrait Gallery

Moses Asch in the 21st Century: A Digitization Project is Born

2011-10-28T15:14:00.001-04:00

Moses Asch and Folkways Records Booth
at a Convention, early 1950s,
Photographby David Jackson

The Ralph Rinzler Archives and Collections recently received a Save America’s Treasures grant to support the digitization of the Moses and Frances Asch Collection. Comprised of a diverse range of materials--papers, sound recordings, photographs and artwork-- the collection includes content spanning the record labels that Asch founded.

Moses Asch was born in Poland in 1905, the son of the renowned Yiddish author Sholem Asch. His childhood was spent in Poland, France, Germany and New York, the latter being where he eventually settled. Moses Asch’s early career was in radio electronics, and through his interest in high-quality sound reproduction, he began to record music. Asch went on to establish several record companies, Asch Recordings and Disc Records being among his earliest. Asch co-founded Folkways Records in 1948 with Marian Distler, and it became one of the most important independent record companies in the United States in the 20th century, releasing 2,168 recordings. With his passing in 1986, the Smithsonian Institution received Asch’s papers in 1987, where it remains one of the most historically significant collections in the Ralph Rinzler Archives.

We decided to focus our first large-scale digitization project on the Asch Collection for a few reasons. Parts of the collection are threatened by physical degradation. Intervention is absolutely necessary for the audio recordings, where some formats are succumbing to “sticky shed” syndrome and flaking acetate. The papers, products of an era of poor paper quality, are not faring much better-- some materials are brittle or very fragile, crumbling or tearing when handled. Other materials are exhibiting mold damage as a result of poor storage conditions. We’ve flagged some of the materials in poor condition to ensure their prioritization in the digitization process; broad digitization will help identify and address these issues in the rest of the collection.

The Asch collection also has high research value. Digitization will help reduce “hand traffic” in the materials by making it possible to do most research with digital surrogates. Since the collection spans so many boxes, digitization will help researchers locate and utilize relevant materials without having to navigate their way through a sea of paper.

Asch Recordings 78rpm, Woody Guthrie, “Jesus Christ”

Over the course of the coming year, our goal for the Save America’s Treasures project is to scan about 196 linear feet of papers, photographs, artwork and scrapbooks, in addition to digitizing 500 glass acetate discs and 1000 reel-to-reel tapes. In the process, we will establish standards and implement workflow that will be sustainable beyond the life of the grant.

Of course, it’s one thing to talk about digitization and quite another to actually do it, and do it well. So much of making a project like this work has to do with the preparation stage. We can’t digitize every single item in the collection, so what will our selection criteria look like?

As the project archivist for the paper component of the collection, much of my time is focused on the quality of the digital images we will be producing. How important is imaging accuracy versus project advancement? How can we maintain consistent results across a high volume of materials? Achieving balance between “best practices” and our resource constraints is really what it all comes down to, but even that seemed like an insurmountable task when I first started thinking about how to plan a digitization project.

I’ve spent the past few months doing research and visiting other repositories that already have digitization programs, combining what I’ve learned to nail down what sustainable digitization looks like for the Ralph Rinzler Archives and Collections. You might say I’ve gone down the rabbit hole when it comes to gathering and highlighting and taking notes on digitization standards, project reports, and various in-house guidelines. There seem to be a million different ways to scan something, depending on your equipment, software, time, staff, and intent for the material, and every time I learn something new, it leads me to something else I want to read. Site visits have been extremely valuable for this reason, not only to help contextualize everything I’ve read, but to see what digitization looks like in the real world.

The most important thing we have learned during the planning stages of this project has been that every repository tailors the process to its own needs and available resources. We’ve also learned not to panic if everything isn’t perfect—our aim is to produce as many reasonably accurate images and increase the visibility of this unique and fascinating collection.

Welcome to the future, Mr. Asch!

-Cecilia Peterson, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Helpful Resources:

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI)

In addition to the standards, be sure to check out the glossary (a lifesaver) and the Project Planning paper.

The Library of Congress Technical Standards for Digital Conversion Of Text and Graphic Materials

National Archives Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Materials for Electronic Access

Both the LoC and NARA technical guidelines are precursors to the FADGI standards, but they still offer very useful information.

Scanning Specifications for the National Agricultural Library

The NAL based their guidelines on the FADGI standards; this page is a great way to see them distilled.

Ten Tips for Maintaining Digital Image Quality, by Peter D. Burns and Don Williams, Eastman Kodak Company

Common Imaging Problems, by Steven Puglia, Jeffrey A. Reed, Erin Rhodes,National Archives and Records Administration

Digitization: Five Minutes of Tips, Hints, and Clues, by Marcia Segal, Processing Archivist, American FolklifeCenter

The Signal, the Library of Congress' Digital Preservation Blog

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Catalog of American Portraits Research Treasures

2011-10-27T09:04:00.002-04:00

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery founded in 1966 the Catalog of American Portraits (CAP), a national portrait archives of historically important subjects and artists from the colonial period to contemporary times. The public can access the online portrait search program from the museum website of over 100,000 records. However, the public might not be aware that the Catalog of American Portraits research center holds over 200,000 files of paper documents and photographs on portraiture and biography and is continually expanding. Scholars have chosen to house at the CAP archives their primary research papers from past publications and exhibitions. The CAP also has a unique set of costume notebooks of historical portraits which the museum staff can review for dating art works. The general public and representatives of institutions are welcome to refer to the CAP research service as well as send images and documentation for new portrait collections or updates to survey records. The CAP program can be accessed at the following National Portrait Gallery website link http://www.npg.si.edu/research/ceros.html.

Mary Cassatt, by Edgar Degas, oil on canvas, c. 1800-1884, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.84.34, Washington, DC

In 1971, the Catalog of American Portraits commenced a national portrait survey of public and private collections throughout the United States. However, the CAP has developed a broader international program, which includes American artists portraying foreign figures as well as foreign artists depicting Americans in the United States and abroad. American artists were drawn to Europe to attend art schools, study masterworks at museums, and interact with their foreign contemporaries. Many American artists visited or resided in Europe, including George Catlin, John Singleton Copley, Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Duveneck, George Peter Alexander Healy, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, John Singer Sargent, Benjamin West, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who became influential leaders abroad. The greatest interaction between American and European artists took place in the cities of London, Paris, Munich, and Rome. Benjamin West was appointed historical painter to King George III in 1772 and he served as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 1792 until his death in 1820. Benjamin West’s influence drew a circle of American artists to England as his students, including Mather Brown, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and John Trumbull. From 1831-1833, the artist and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse created the famous painting, Gallery of the Louvre, which featured portraits of his contemporaries at the Salon Carré gallery of the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Memorable portraits were created of George Catlin by William Fisk; Mary Cassatt by Edgar Degas; Auguste Rodin and Claude Monet by John Singer Sargent; Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso; Josephine Baker, Joán Miró, and Jean-Paul Sartre by Alexander Calder. It is particularly interesting when artists exchanged portraits of each other, as in the cases of Angelica Kauffmann and Benjamin West in the 18th century; as well as Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) and Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Ernestine Prin) in the 20th century. In 1839, the artist George Catlin created a public sensation in Europe when he brought his American Indian performing group along with his portrait exhibitions of Native Americans to London and Paris. Catlin’s portraits of Native Americans are currently held at many institutions, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC; the British Museum in London; the Museum of Man in Paris; and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. George Peter Alexander Healy, a leading 19th century artist, was commissioned by American and European leaders to create portraits, including the US presidential series, examples of which are held at the National Portrait Gallery and the White House in Washington, DC, and the National Museum of the Château of Versailles in France. Healy was also the first American artist honored by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, to present his 1875 self-portrait to the international self-portrait collection. The Uffizi Gallery now holds more than twenty self-portraits of Americans, including Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Dwight David Eisenhower, Robert Rauschenberg, John Singer Sargent, and Andy Warhol. In the 20th century, a number of young American artists came to study and work in Paris, including Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Sam Francis, and Paul Jenkins.

George Catlin, by William Fisk, oil on canvas, 1849, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.70.14, Washington, DC

From the colonial period onwards, European artists in turn visited America, exploring the different regions, including Auguste Edouart, Jean Antoine Houdon, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, James Sharples and his artistic family, Pavel Petrovitch Svin̕in, and Adolph Ulrich Wertmüller. New York City, New Orleans, and Washington, DC have drawn a continuous stream of foreign visitors. In 1873, the artist Edgar Degas created the Portraits in a New Orleans Cotton Office painting now held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Pau, France, and another 1873 version Cotton Dealers in New Orleans at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. In New York City, such European artists as Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Willem de Kooning, Piet Mondrian, and Mark Rothko were leading members of the modern art scene. In 1920, Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray founded the Société Anonyme (Society Anonymous), which exhibited contemporary art works of over one hundred international artists in New York City. In 1918, Katherine Dreier created the compelling Abstract Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, who has inspired a myriad of progressive portraits by fellow artists in his life time and after his death.

European public collections have a wealth of portraits related to American interest, with the greatest concentration in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy. Among the public collections of American origin are the American Museum in Britain, Bath; the National Museum of Franco-American Cooperation at the Château of Blérancourt; the American Academy in Rome; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; the Guggenheim Collections in Bilboa, and Berlin; and the Terra Foundation for American Art in Giverny, and Paris. However, American portrait collections abroad are also situated within the national collections of foreign countries, including the Tate Collection and the National Portrait Gallery in London; the Louvre Museum and the Orsay Museum in Paris; the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome; and the State Russian Museum in Saint-Petersburg.

Abraham Lincoln, by George Peter Alexander Healy, oil on canvas, 1887, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, NPG.65.50, Washington, DC

For the Catalog of American Portraits, I have surveyed on-site numerous public and private collections in America and abroad. My portrait surveys have stretched across the United States on the East coast from the island of Nantucket, MA to Key West, FL; and on the West Coast from Seattle, WA to San Diego, CA. In Europe, I have met with representatives of museums, universities, archives, and libraries in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. Aside from planned meetings with professional colleagues abroad, I have sometimes discovered American portraits in unexpected locations, such as the 1906 bronze statue of George Washington by Gyula Julius Bezerédi in the Budapest City Park (Városliget). It was a moving experience to find this Washington memorial, proudly inscribed and presented by the Americans of Hungarian Origin society to their former homeland. One feels a greater sense of national identity following the historic legacy of American portraiture abroad, which highlights the fascinating exchange of American cultural values with their foreign contemporaries. One also establishes valuable ties with private collectors and colleagues of public institutions in the United States and abroad by documenting the global reach of American portraiture for the Smithsonian Institution’s mandate of the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

Patricia H. Svoboda, Research Coordinator
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Catalog of American Portraits

Websites:

Gallery of the Louvre, by Samuel Finley Breese Morse, 1831-1833, oil on canvas, Terra Foundation for American Art, 1992.51, Chicago, IL

Portraits in a New Orleans Cotton Office, by Edgar Degas, 1873, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, 878.1.2, Pau, FR

Benjamin West (Probably), by Kauffmann, Angelica, 1762-1766, chalk drawing in sketch book, Victoria and Albert Museum, E.395-1927, London, UK

Gertrude Stein, by Pablo Picasso, 1906, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 47.106, New York, NY

Josephine Baker, by Alexander Calder, c. 1929, wire sculpture, Calder Foundation, A00250, New York, NY

2011-10-26T11:37:00.001-04:00

Landscape Architecture Roots in Garden Design

2011-10-25T10:00:00.025-04:00

Landscape architecture is a vast discipline dealing with design from the regional scale down to individual garden design, and everything in between. Landscape architects are the professionals behind the design of our nation’s Capital, the urban Eden of Central Park, and yes even many backyards. Although many of them would dispute the common perception that all landscape architects do is design backyards, residential clients do account for a large portion of their market, as much as 40%.

It turns out that many of the best landscape architects got their start designing backyards. Residential projects are the perfect laboratory for quickly testing and evolving design ideas where many landscape architects (and architects) develop their unique style before becoming heavily involved with larger, more public projects. As Smithsonian Gardens’ 2011 Enid A. Haupt Fellow , I am researching the aesthetics of planting design in landscape architecture; of particular interest to me is how contemporary designers are using plant materials in innovative ways.

Michael Van Valkenburgh is one such designer who uses plant materials not just as compositional elements, but indeed in the very process of creating a garden’s structure. Early in his career while teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the 1980’s, he maintained a normal practice with a largely residential client base. Birch Tree Garden in Brookline, Massachusetts, is one of three residential gardens Van Valkenburgh designed for the same couple.

BirchTree Garden, Brookline, Massachusetts, May 1988, Corliss Engle, photographer. Garden Club of America Collection, Archives of American Gardens.

In this garden we can see examples of how Van Valkenburgh tested new ideas in the conventional garden, juxtaposing common design elements in new ways and creating exaggerated effects with plant materials. The back entrance of the residence leads out to a stone patio for outdoor entertaining, off of which Van Valkenburgh created a grove of birch trees to serve as both focal point and destination to meander through. This is an element of the natural landscape, the birch tree stand, which he has taken and simplified to fit in a much smaller landscape.

Among the earliest examples of this planting style, its evolution has led to now emblematic planting regimes by Van Valkenburgh including Allegheny Riverfront Park in Pittsburgh, Vera List Courtyard in Manhattan, and Teardrop Park in Battery Park City. Indeed, the projects which sustain Van Valkenburgh’s fame as a contemporary master of landscape architecture rest on the foundation of residential planting design.

The Archives of American Gardens includes documentation for over 6,350 gardens across the United States illustrating the work of notable landscape designers such as Marian Coffin, Beatrix Farrand, Lawrence Halprin, Hare & Hare, Umberto Innocenti, Gertrude Jekyll, Jens Jensen, Warren Manning, the Olmsted Brothers, Charles Platt, Ellen Biddle Shipman and Fletcher Steele as well as many new and emerging landscape designers of today.

Nicholas Serrano
2010-2011 Enid A. Haupt Fellow
Smithsonian Gardens

A Sacred Trust: Church and Congregational Archives

2011-10-23T07:00:00.001-04:00

Community residents and family historians are always on the search for repositories that have materials and hard evidence that will help them tell the full stories of their family members and neighborhoods. A wonderful place for researchers to start is the local or family church. Many churches and congregations, of differing communities of faith, maintain church bulletins, photographs, parish meeting notes, and other records that contain valuable information not only about the congregation, but also about congregational members and the communities in which church outreach activities take place. Churches, mosques, temples, and other religious institutions may not have formal archival programs in place, but the materials they store—often in boxes, file cabinets, and back rooms—constitute the beginnings of significant church archives and history centers.

Participants in a church history workshop, c. 1989. The workshop developed into a long-lived program, Friends for the Preservation of African American History and Culture, sponsored by ACM. Photograph by Harold Dorwin.

Ben Ross, church historian for Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, Richmond, VA, in the church’s John Jasper Room and Museum. Photograph by Steven M. Cummings.

Throughout its history, the Anacostia Community Museum has explored, collected, and preserved evidence of religious expression and experience in communities. One of the museum’s signature programs has been an ongoing informational and training initiative to identify and encourage local church historians and archivists to establish, maintain, and make accessible the archival records of their congregations and religious institutions. Originally called “The Unbroken Circle,” the initiative now known as “A Sacred Trust” periodically holds workshops, answers queries, and is preparing a church archives manual for broad distribution.

Preserving and making family and community history through church and congregational archives is indeed—A Sacred Trust!

Gail S. Lowe, PhD
Historian
Anacostia Community Museum

HSFA Detectives Solve Mystery Film Reel (or Almost) - Part 2 of 2

2011-10-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

Join us for the exciting conclusion of our archival mystery: Who created the unusual roll of film known as "Japan: Promotional and Theatrical Footage, ca. 1927" — and why? Missed Part One of the story? You can read it here.

Frame grab from "Japan: Promotional and Theatrical
Footage, ca. 1927", our mystery roll of film.

After gaining some insights from the contents of the film and from the film itself, we returned to the questions surrounding the film's former owner, Theodore Richards, in hopes of determining why our mystery film was made. Although we had Richards' biographical information from books, our summer intern, the insatiably curious Adrianna Link, was not satisfied so she engaged in her favorite activity — Internet detective work. What she found was indeed important for providing our first glimmer into a possible why. Richards, who worked as the Field Secretary for the Hawaiian Board of Missions, began publishing a periodical in 1903, “The Friend”, where he promoted his idea to make Hawaii a multi-cultural or interracial “Christian” society. He emphasized outreach to newly arrived Asian peoples, particularly those arriving from Japan. In 1912 he wrote an article for The Journal of Race Development titled “The Future of the Japanese in Hawaii: Things Problematic, Things Probable, Things Potential.” By 1930 he was setting up a multi-racial community named Kokokahi, meaning “one blood” in Hawaiian. Houselots were distributed and raffled based on a racial quota that reflected the island’s general ethnic makeup, but the Great Depression and then World War II halted Richard’s utopian idea before it could really begin. Ah, could Richards have screened this film as part of his efforts to educate and encourage cultural understanding in many of the island’s Christian organizations?

Who would have guessed that in small-town Maine on the Kennebec River I would meet someone who would use just the right words to pull this all together? At Northeast Historic Film's annual symposium, I screened the film in its entirety to an audience of archivists, scholars, filmmakers, and film lovers. Filmmaker Artemis Willis, who has worked extensively in Japan, commented that most of the film was a collection of stereotypical views of Japan at that time — a collection of pretty picture postcards as it were. She added that it was also typical for missionaries of the time to promote their mission work at home using similar moving images. Dino Everett, archivist in the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive, USC, commented that they had several early 20th century travelogues on Japan with very similar type of content. Hurrah! These comments supported our supposition that Richards very likely screened this film footage to educate Christian audiences about Japanese culture. (Among other things, Richards' audience would have learned about the complicated process of styling a Geisha's hair, as shown in the clip below.)

But this still leaves the mystery which will always nag me — how did it come to pass that these bits and pieces of film were assembled — where did they come from? But that is my obsession. What is intellectually intriguing now is how missionaries used film to promote their work and, more specifically, Richards' work in promoting interracial harmony—a timely topic for our time.

My sincere thanks to Michele Mason, Assistant Professor of Japanese, Department of Asian and East European Language and Cultures, University of Maryland; Brian Real, PhD student at University of Maryland; Adrianna Link, PhD student at Johns Hopkins; Karma Foley, moving image archivist at HSFA; and Daisy Njoku, media resource specialist at HSFA.

Pamela Wintle, Human Studies Film Archives

Fighting for Freedom and Equality: African American Soldiers of the American Civil War (1861-1865)

2011-10-21T08:30:00.027-04:00

African American Civil War soldier, tintype, circa 1865, 2011.51.12, Liljenquist Family Collection, Photograph by Michael Barnes, SI Photographer, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution

In this image of a mid-19^th century encased tintype selected by Lonnie Bunch III, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, an unknown young African American man in military dress stares solemnly into the camera while holding a Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver across his chest. He represents one of the nearly 180,000 African American men who courageously fought in the American Civil War. Although the war officially began on July 12, 1861 with a historical bombardment led by Confederate soldiers at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, African American soldiers were prohibited from participating in combat until years later. The tide began to turn in July of 1862 when the United States Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed enslaved African Americans owned by wealthy planters who had challenged the United States. This was coupled with a militia act that allowed President Abraham Lincoln to then use the men of the newly freed population in the Union army, and employment initially took the form of civilian labor away from the battlefields.[1] However, after several devastating Union defeats, Lincoln issued forth the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all enslaved African Americans of rebel states would be released from bondage on January 1, 1863. This single and yet powerful act became the impetus for a tremendous surge of African American soldiers joining the fight on treacherous battlegrounds.

We do not know a great deal about the man in this treasured photograph. However, we do know that this man witnessed and participated in historical events that altered the livelihoods of all Americans. His enlistment signaled the metamorphosis from enslaved to liberated, as much as it played a role in the trajectory that involves the ongoing struggle for respect and social equality. Although millions of African Americans were now free from physical bondage, many discovered that they were forced to prove they were worthy of citizenship and be granted the same constitutional rights as their fellow Americans. This man and other soldiers like him fought for acceptance – not only for themselves, but for African Americans living in communities across the young and war-torn country.

The delicate care and preservation applied to this historical object can successfully maximize its life span, whether in a museum setting or within the home as a family heirloom passed down through the generations. For an encased tintype such as this one, an ideal method of storage would be to house it within an acid-free, drop-front box with a lid measured to fit the individual case. The lid works to protect the object from pollutants transported by dust particles, fluctuations in temperature and humidity, and photochemical damage. The box can also be lined with an archival polyethylene foam such as Ethafoam® to offer additional protection. The preferred temperature for photographic collections that do not require cold storage is 65°F with a relative humidity (RH) between 30-40%. As tintypes are mainly composed of iron, corrosion is a definite concern that can be addressed by closely monitoring humidity levels. The tintype should be assessed regularly, especially if it has been incorporated into a composite case. The case depicted above helps to illustrate this environment as it is composed of a copper alloy, glass, thermoplastic, and fabric. Loose tintypes can be housed in acid-free paper enclosures with additional backing and stored flat. Cotton or nitrile gloves should always be used when handling these fragile items. Tintypes can also be exhibited under low light levels with very minimal ultraviolet radiation for several weeks.

This tintype will be on view in an upcoming pre-building exhibition at our gallery within the National Museum of American History. The exhibition, slated to open on January 1, 2013 and curated by Lonnie Bunch III and Harry Rubenstein (NMAH), will center on the social and historical connections between the significant era that gave birth to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights movement that was instrumental in producing the memorable March on Washington. It is only one of the many objects with a fascinating story that will be introduced to the public before the National Museum of African American History and Culture officially opens in the year 2015. We warmly welcome you and look forward to seeing you there.

Kareen Morrison, Collections Manager

National Museum of African American History and Culture

[1] Geier and Winter, Look to the earth : historical archaeology and the American Civil War (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1994)

Collaboration Expands Access to Archival Resources

2011-10-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

American Archives Month is a perfect time to provide an update on the Frederick Douglass Dwellings Collection. Since my previous post, our museum partnered with the Community Voice Project of American University’s School of Communication to create a short film by students that documents the memories of residents of the former Frederick Douglass Dwellings housing project. The film, The Only People in Town, was filmed partly in our archives and incorporates archival materials from two collections which visually capture the social activities in the community sponsored by the local recreation center during the 1940s. As an archivist, I am excited to see the resources of our archives used to recall detailed memories and instill a sense of pride in the residents about their former community. Archives helped tell this story of life in a World War II-era housing development built for African Americans. I also believed exposure to our resources helped the anthropology students from the American University College of Arts and Sciences and film students from the School of Communication realize the value of archives and the archivist’s role in providing access to research and film-worthy materials.

Jennifer Morris
Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

Archival Issues, Banjo History Connections, and Public Outreach in the Rinzler Archives

2011-10-18T15:23:00.001-04:00

Tommy Jarrell (left) and Fred Cockerham,
Cockerham's house in Low Gap, N.C., 1966,
photo by J. Scott Odell

Archival issues, banjo history, and public outreach have become increasingly important parts of my life ever since I first became entranced by the banjo in the spring of 1994. Hoping to elevate my involvement in banjo-related initiatives and before beginning my graduate studies in library and information sciences, I came to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections (RRFA&C) as an intern in January 2002. Working for Jeff Place and Michael Pahn on the Save Our Sounds Project, I was fresh out of undergrad with a music history degree where I studied classical guitar because I couldn’t major in banjo. Having been immersed for several years in the music of Pete Seeger and The Weavers and following a penchant for 19th century popular music, the banjo was at the center of my musical universe.

Working for several months as an intern in the Rinzler Archives, I digitized open reel tapes and consumed as much information as I could, especially about the banjo. In the fall, I returned as an archives-track graduate student in the University of Maryland’s library school program and worked with the Ralph Rinzler Papers as part of a 60-hour practicum. Feeling valued as an intern and as a graduate student worker at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage inspired me to develop a detail-oriented archival work ethic, maintain my passion for music, and pursue a personal mission to better understand the banjo and its complex history.

Nine years later I am back in the Rinzler Archives, this time as a contract archivist assisting in the processing of archival collections that were foundational in my professional and personal life. As an archivist, researcher, musician, and, more recently, a master’s candidate in the University of Maryland’s ethnomusicology program, I am still focused on the cross-sections between archival issues, the vitality of establishing deeper connections with banjo history, and outreach that helps connect the public with archival materials.

Archival Issues: For the time that I am here in the archives, my primary work plan is to focus on the continued processing of the Moses and Frances Asch Collection (the business records), the Ralph Rinzler Papers, and the J. Scott Odell Folk Music Collection. While I am delighted to be making notable progress on the Asch and Rinzler materials, one of the most gratifying interactive experiences has been to meet Scott Odell during his recent visits to the Rinzler Archives. Working with Odell, archivist Stephanie Smith, and archives intern Joydita Sarkar, we created a preliminary inventory of the latest accruals to the collection. While the collection reflects many of the important chapters in Odell’s career, I was, of course, immediately attracted to his banjo-related materials.

Joydita Sarkar, J. Scott Odell, and Greg C. Adams (left to right)
discussing the Odell Collection (photo by Stephanie Smith)

Banjo History Connections: Scott Odell is part of a generation of scholars and fieldworkers who continue to transform how we think about the banjo, the musicians who play it, and the traditions they represent. For example, the latest materials to now be included in the Odell Collection consist of images, documents, audio, and video associated with Cece Conway and Scott Odell’s 1998 Smithsonian Folkways release Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia. I feel privileged to work with these materials because they bring us closer to some of the most important and increasingly appreciated banjo players of the twentieth century—musicians like Leonard Bowles, John Jackson, Rufus Kasey, John Tyree, Homer Walker, and other names closely aligned with banjo history. Collections like this help make the Rinzler Archives an essential research spot for anyone hoping to better understand the banjo’s African American and multicultural history.

Public Outreach: Like many other aspects of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Scott Odell’s collection is an important access point for researchers developing a vital awareness of musicians, music, and memories linked to our shared cultural heritage. Returning to the Rinzler Archives after all these years reminds me that archival collections and the archivists who maintain them are an important part of the life cycle of records, especially as it relates to outreach. As an archivist, I am in a position to make tangible contributions to the Institution and the people it serves. As a banjo researcher, I am closer to some of the most important evidence surrounding the banjo’s function and use throughout the twentieth century. As an advocate for greater public outreach, I feel empowered by the quality of new research and greater digital access coming to our documentary heritage.

-Greg C. Adams, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

Five Years as a Photograph Archivist

2011-10-17T10:35:00.002-04:00

Yesterday marked my 5th year anniversary working as a Smithsonian photo archivist. My love affair with photographs started at a much younger age, though. As a kid, my family’s photo albums were like treasure chests for me. I spent hours digging through photos and discovered many priceless images of my relatives, summer vacations, and birthday parties. I studied each print to such an extent that if I closed my eyes I could still describe every detail of it. I was also a big fan of slideshows. My father regularly attached a white sheet to the living room wall and projected our family photos so that they appeared larger than life. I loved running up to the wall and letting the beautiful and vibrant colors engulf me until I became part of the image, too.

At this early age, I was quite vocal about photo preservation and research too. I was known to yell at anyone who got fingerprints on the images. And I would always pepper my parents with questions like: Who’s that? When and where was this photo taken? Why does that person have such a funny hairdo?

As a professional photo archivist, I ask many of the same questions when working with images at the Smithsonian Institution. I always try to figure out and document the ‘who, what, where, when, and why’ of a photo. I’m still a great proponent of preserving and properly handling images (no fingerprints please!), but also take the time to examine and enjoy the beauty of each image itself. So, in short, my passion for photographs has not diminished.

In honor of my 5 years at the Smithsonian and my lifelong affair with photographs, I share with you images I recently discovered in the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection that I manage at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. These photos give me the same thrill I felt as a child looking through family photos.

I love mistakes in photos. A finger in the frame or the blur caused by someone turning their head always makes a photo more interesting. Something about imperfection in the photo can make the moment captured seem unique and authentic.

This photograph of painter Ruth G. Durlacher working outdoors is imperfect in a different way, and yet, I find it so beautifully perfect. The image is a copy print, i.e. a photograph of a photograph. When Juley photographed this existing image, he did not line it up properly within the camera’s frame and so the inner image is crooked. The composition of the inner photo, as well as the repeating rectangles in both images reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I feel like I’m peering into another, slightly skewed and artistic world.

I find beauty in deterioration. I can hear the collective gasp from my fellow archivists across the world. Of course, I’m not advocating for folks to purposely let their collections deteriorate. What I mean is that there can be beauty in deterioration that has already happened. Like a beautiful patina on an old brass statue, photographs with deterioration show the age of the object and the journey it has traveled.

This B&W negative of painter Francis Vandeveer Kughler suffered from deterioration before the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired it in 1975. The lines resembling a spider web are what’s called ‘channeling’ and it usually occurs when film negatives have been exposed over a period of time to a high and often fluctuating temperature and relative humidity.

On the flip side to deterioration, I love well preserved photographs as well as the act of preserving them. In order to combat deterioration as described above, there are a variety of steps that photo archivists take to ensure the longevity of images, including rehousing images in archival enclosures, controlling light, and maintaining an appropriate storage climate. For film and color based photographic materials, it’s usually recommended to keep images in cold storage. ‘How cold?,’ you ask?

Me bundled up and shivering while working in cold storage.

This Cold! Temperature gauge I photographed while in a cold storage facility.

Despite my dislike of cold temperatures, I have always enjoyed working in the cold room at the National Museum of the American Indian. Even though I usually couldn’t feel my fingers after a few minutes, I knew that my actions were helping preserve the images so that others in the future may enjoy them as well. I have to admit, I also enjoyed the strange looks I would get from coworkers when I would walk down the hall in the middle of July with my thick winter coat, hat, scarf, and gloves.

This Juley photograph of French painter Bernard Boutet de Monvel shows what cold storage can do to help preserve film materials. The image is in such good condition, that it looks like it could have been shot yesterday. I love the stripes in his outfit contrasted with the lines of the building behind him.

While I know that five years isn't that long and that I can still be considered a newbie in the profession, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working with photographs at the Smithsonian. I’ve seen many incredible photographs in person and through the SI Collections Search. I have learned so much and I hope I never stop learning.

Emily Moazami, Photograph Archivist, Research & Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum

The People of India - An Introduction

2011-10-15T08:00:00.042-04:00

When I first encountered the People of India collection a few months ago, I was astounded and impressed. I remember thinking to myself, "what an enormous undertaking this must have been, and how eagerly it must have been received." Well, I was right and I was wrong. It was a truly herculean task, a massive expenditure of money and manpower, and the actualization of over twenty years of documentary ambitions within British India. It had its stops and its starts, frustrations and triumphs, and at times it seemed as if the project was doomed to remain forever suspended in the limbo between commencement and completion. Furthermore, POI was, like most long-term endeavors, constantly shifting and evolving; it was shaped by the times and the climate (both literally and figuratively), which were, as always, highly liquid. The final volume published in 1875 bore almost no resemblance to its younger, 1861 self. But, for all the excitements of the publication process, the People of India was a failure in nearly every sense of the word. It was not eagerly received, not at all. This made almost no sense to me, since clearly the Empire was in dire need of such a tome. However, upon reflection (and after reading John Falconer's invaluable "A Publishing History of The People of India”), its commercial, scientific, and artistic bellyflop can be explained. Over the course of this article, I will discuss the historical background surrounding the project, and summarize the publication process,. In doing so I hope to partially explain why one of the greatest photographic efforts of the 19th century went unappreciated. So, without further ado, I present The People of India (Abridged!)

The first step in understanding a piece of art is placing it in the proper context, and in the case of POI that happens to be India, 1861. India, 1861. Not exactly the picture of tranquility. Four years earlier, the Sepoy Uprising had torn the subcontinent asunder. Close to a century of mutual misunderstanding, acts of imperial barbarism, and the pursuit of what one might call British Manifest Destiny all found an outlet in the Great Mutiny. Both sides committed atrocities. An entire British army surrendered, only to be slaughtered without mercy. The English decimated Mughal Delhi, in an act of cultural (and, in some cases, literal) genocide. In short, the context we’re dealing with is not pleasant, and from this we can construe the actual motivation for the project. Lord Canning, the newly appointed, post-war Governor-General, expressed a desire for a “private collection” that might help recall the “the peculiarities of Indian life.” It is relatively clear that his impetus was almost exclusively the product of a strong interest, perhaps even a love, of India. However, the final product was anything but the small, private collection he initially wished for. It mushroomed into a nationwide, government-wide, and in the words of John Falconer, “almost biblical” undertaking. The reason for this massive expansion? As the saying goes, the proof is in the context.

The most immediate and lasting consequence of the Rebellion was the deposition of the British East India Company, and its subsequent replacement by direct English governance. The new regime was eager to assert its dominance, and many scholars call the project a perfect example of how “the Victorian mind attempted-both avowedly and implicitly – to accumulate, organize, and use ethnological information in ways which both justified and reinforced notions of dominance.” Depressing though it may be, this ugly Victorian habit was certainly one of the primary impetai (I know impetai isn’t a word, but it should be) for the project. Each photo series is accompanied by text explaining the tribe or individual pictured, and quite often these descriptions include sweeping generalizations about the alcoholism practiced by one tribe, or the stupidity and laziness of another. Only in a few cases do the photographers express respect for their subjects, and even then it is tinged with that special brand of pedantic arrogance reserved for the Angrezi. It should be noted that the collection of this information was meant to do more than simply justify British dominance in India. POI was, in many ways, an attempt by the English to understand the land they had come to rule. After all, the catalyst for the Sepoy Mutiny was a gross misunderstanding of indigenous culture. Perhaps if the government became more aware of its people, future conflicts could be avoided. The rising popularity of photography as an instrument of science certainly facilitated this process.

The daguerreotype was announced in 1839, but it took some time to gain traction in India. The early 1850s saw the beginning of widespread photographic enterprises on the subcontinent, both amateur and professional. Many of these pioneers were employed by the government, which saw photography as a way to document the land, both ethnically and topographically. POI was certainly influenced by earlier projects, such as Richard King’s Queries Respecting the Human Races, to be Addressed to Travelers and Others, an 1844 photo-accompanied document. King sought to raise awareness about the many tribes being unintentionally driven to extinction by British colonial practices. A few members of each featured tribe would be photographed in profile, to emphasize the physical differences among various groups, and the final product was organized geographically. This is almost exactly the same procedure used in the making of POI, the only difference is the scope and the purpose, POI encompassing much more, and representing a more utilitarian agenda. Ten years later, The East India Company directed the Bombay Government to begin utilizing photography to document the cave temples of western India. Until 1854, Bombay had been having artists produce painstaking sketches of the temples, but the advent of photography, as well as the Company’s provision of the necessary equipment, greatly expedited the process. And such sanctions were not unique to Bombay; by 1856, all three presidencies of British India were home to their own photographic studios. More and more authorities on the subject began advocating the marriage of photography and ethnography. The final prefiguration of POI occurred, once more, in Bombay, spearheaded by two men, William Johnson and William Henderson. The two Williams ran The Indian Amateurs Photographic Album, a journal intended to document the various races, castes, and occupations among the indigenous peoples. The journal ran from 1856 until 1859, each issue containing three original prints, and a series of written articles to accompany them. Enter The People of India.

In June, 1861, Lord Canning sent out a memorandum to every provincial administrator in country, containing a list of interesting tribes, with the request to enlist photographers to document each tribe. He also asked for a "brief written description of the tribe represented, their origin, physical characteristics, and general habits." Even in these early stages, the project quickly took on a much more official bearing than Canning had originally intended. In fact, within a few months it was decided that the collection would be displayed at the International Exhibition, held in London the following year. The project was so poorly managed, however, that only a few prints ever ended up being sent, and even fewer arrived in time to be put on public display. This lack of efficiency was consistent throughout the years spent working on POI. It took seven years to publish the first volume, and an additional eight to publish the next seven. This had partly to do with the slowness of the photographers themselves, and partly with the high cost of printing. At any rate, such a tremendous gap had much to do with the collection's failure. According to Falconer, "public interest in India may have been high in the years immediately after the Mutiny, but by the time the final volume appeared in the mid 1870s, popular interest in an arcane topic had no doubt largely dissipated." Another factor may have been the quality of the photographs. The artists employed were, for the most part, not artists at all. They were amateur photographs, government employees, and soldiers. As such, they had great difficulty coping with the trying climate, unwilling subjects, and geographical obstacles that a classically trained photographer might have been able to overcome. One might think that any and all aesthetic shortcomings would be compensated for by scientific merit, but with POI, this was not so. One of the editors himself, John Forbes Watson, admitted that the work lacked the "scientific character, such as would attend a similar collection of an Ethnological Survey were carried out." This lack manifested itself in two ways. First, the descriptions of the tribes themselves were often far from scientific. Many dealt with the character of the individual represented. For instance, volume seven contains "over forty portraits from Central India by James Waterhouse, with the Begum of Bhopal, her family and her court, represented by no fewer than eight studies." This surplus of portraits corresponds with the second manifestation: the coverage of the subcontinent was by no means proportional, with particular attention given to particular regions for the sake of convenience and available materials. Because the Mutiny took place largely in the north, that's where most of the photographers operated, the end result being a seriously imbalanced representation of the country.

Despite all its failures, Falconer maintains that "the work remains a landmark of nineteenth century Indian photography and its interface with ethnology and issues of colonial control." And this has certainly proved to be POI's legacy. Now more than ever, it would be preposterous to attempt to glean scientific knowledge from the collection. It was racist, considerably inaccurate, and infected by the biases of the times. But, it does tell us quite a bit about the development of photography as a tool of science and an instrument of art. It also sheds some light on the science of ethnology as it was in the 19th century. In the end, I believe that The People of India has proved to be a tremendous success. It just didn't seem that way at the time.

The People of India series will be published once a month highlighting the various tribes as they're covered in the People of India.

Cal Berer, Intern
Freer|Sackler Archives

The Papers of John P. Harrington

2011-10-14T10:51:00.010-04:00

The Papers of John P. Harrington (1907-1959) is an amazingly large collection, both in size and scope. The Harrington collection includes language material, photographs, audio recordings, and even some botanical samples. The language material alone contains almost a million pages worth of notes from more than ninety languages spoken in North America in the first half of the twentieth century, filling over a thousand archival boxes! This material is as varied as a single box containing a grammar of the Klamath language to 168 boxes of Chumash language material.

JP Harrington and his assistant Marta Herrera ca. 1930

Harrington holds one of the large, aluminum disks on which

he recorded many California languages.

Papers of J.P. Harrington, neg. 91-35222

Harrington was relentless in his pursuit of linguistic data, devoting his entire life to his work. By the end of his life, he spoke 9 different international languages and 18 different Native American languages, all fluently. Harrington was also known to disappear entirely in the field, telling no one where he was going and directing any mail to a post office for him to collect at a later date. He was quite paranoid about other anthropologists working in the same area and kept the names of his informants a secret, instead using codes in his notes, most of which have since been decoded. Harrington would go to great lengths to record the languages of his informants, on a mission to save languages that he believed were on the verge of extinction. In one instance of such single-minded focus, Harrington instructed his field assistant to pester an elderly informant who had had a stroke and refused to dictate to them to such a point where it would be easier for this man, who was the last fluent speaker of Lower Chinook, to dictate than not.

Accuracy was a key factor for Harrington: in all of his work, he was very intent on obtaining accuracy, particularly regarding the pronunciation of the language. He was known to conduct rehearings with his informants where he would check the accuracy of existing grammars and vocabularies of an individual language, taking care to denote the phonetic pronunciation. On occasion, he would even return to a grammar that he had already checked and conduct a second rehearing!

Two of Harrington’s assistants display chart mapping the various special symbols

Harrington used. Note typewriter’s very long carriage for all the extra typebars.

Papers of J.P. Harrington, neg. 91-35464

An unusual testament to Harrington’s careful accuracy comes in the form of the typewriter he used: Harrington was intent on having a typewriter that could write Native American languages with the high degree of phonetic accuracy he demanded in his work. This would require a typewriter that could type many more characters than English-language typewriters could handle. It took Harrington years of correspondence before he finally found a company that manufactured Russian-language typewriters that was willing to replace the Cyrillic characters with a combination of English letters and the phonetic symbols Harrington required to write the languages he documented. The resulting typewriter was oversized and had two shift keys, tripling the number of keys available for these phonetic characters. Having said that, Harrington persisted in using a phonetic orthography of his own devising in his work – this notation changed over time and was known to vary from language to language.

As a result of his relentless pursuit of recording these languages, Harrington was at times one of the last to document some languages. In the 1930s, for example, he collected data on the Californian language Esselen from non-native speakers, as no native speakers had survived to the twentieth century. For some languages, some of the only existing records and grammars come from Harrington’s field notes and thanks to the sheer volume of the notes and the careful phonetic accuracy, reviving these extinct languages is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

Cassidy Foxcroft - Reference Intern
National Anthropological Archives

Sources:

·   Laird, Carobeth. (1975). Encounter with an Angry God: Recollections of My Life with John Peabody Harrington. Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press.
·   Stirling, M. W. (1963). Obituary. American Anthropologist, 65, 370-381.
·   Hinton, Leanne. (1992/1993). The House is Afire! John Peabody Harrington – Then and Now. News from Native California, Winter, 9-13.
·   Newsletter of the J. P. Harrington Conference, 1992
·   Marr, Jack. (March 14, 1984). Presentation for the American Indian Languages Group at Berkeley.
· Esselen - Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/languages/esselen.php

The Museums of the Peaceful Arts: A Timeless Dream Detailed in a Curious Set of Scrapbooks

2011-10-13T12:08:00.001-04:00

The charter for the Museums of the Peaceful Arts, 1914

It’s a familiar scenario: the United States, Canada and Europe are experiencing a persistent economic downturn, widespread unemployment, labor troubles, and a general sense of restlessness and lost opportunities. What remedy exists for this bleak situation? Perhaps a major stimulus plan, with the costs being shared equally by state and local governments and a group of public-minded industrialists, bankers, and other influential members of society who firmly believe that state-of-the-art industrial education, more efficient practices, and American ingenuity can launch the nation into a new era of lasting peace and prosperity. So, are we talking about 2011? Um, no …!

Actually it was nearly 100 years ago, in June 1912, that George Frederick Kunz (1856-1932), the president of the Association for the Establishment and Maintenance for the People in the City of New York of Museums of the Peaceful Arts, stood before the attendees of the seventh annual meeting of the American Association of Museums and floated an astonishing proposal, so bold in its vision that his audience must have felt a mixture of strong hope and skepticism. Make no small plans, as the saying goes. What Kunz was proposing was the establishment in New York City of a group of twenty new museums devoted to various categories of industry and learning (for example: aviation, agriculture, health and hygiene, and architecture), clustered around a large stadium for public events, with meeting rooms and a library to serve the educational needs of children and working adults. The project was to be called the Museums of the Peaceful Arts, in acknowledgement of the long period of relative peace that existed between North America and Europe following the end of the war of 1812. As Kunz envisioned it, factories that had been devoted to armaments could be converted instead to manufacture new consumer products like laundry machines, and the garbage that accumulated in a city as large as New York could be recycled or used as fertilizer for growing crops nearby in the fields of Long Island and New Jersey. How could the world be made anew? By making it convenient for people to study examples of all kinds of industrial machinery and practices gathered together in one place, in a location tentatively set in Riverside Park, Manhattan, or near the Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx.

Newsclippings with portrait of Kunz

Kunz and the other members of the Association, which included inventors Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla and Arctic explorer Robert Peary, had put a lot of thought and research into their plans for the Museums of the Peaceful Arts. A ten-volume set of scrapbooks compiled by Kunz between 1912 and 1930, and housed today in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, is practically a gold mine for anyone interested in the methods of American museum management during this period. Kunz, a mineralogist and authority on gems who worked with Tiffany & Company and the United States Geological Survey and who had been actively involved with the programs for several world’s fairs and industrial expositions, gathered together information from the American Museum of Natural History, the Heye Foundation (Museum of the American Indian), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Newark Museum, the American Museum of Safety, and the United States National Museum (the predecessor to the museums of the Smithsonian Institution). His scrapbooks document all aspects of creating and running a museum, from the design and construction of buildings and exhibition cases, to the acquisition and cataloging of collections, to staffing (which, as he noted, “need not be extravagant”), to educational programs and publicity materials. The scrapbooks are filled with newsclippings, photographs, blueprints, ephemera, and typed documents on all sorts of topics related to museums and industrial education.

Early 20th century children viewing a
painting,from v. 8 of the scrapbook.
Note the roller skatesdraped
over their shoulders!

The Museums of the Peaceful Arts project was conceived as a bold vision to help solve current economic problems and boost the education level, skill, and prosperity of inhabitants in the New York City region, with the hope that the new inventions and creative synergy inspired by the Museums would lead the United States to dominance in international trade and power. But what happened to it? For a few years, a core operation to support the project, with administrative offices and a few exhibitions, was based at 24 West 40th Street in Manhattan, near the main branch of the New York Public Library and the Engineers Club. A few million dollars were raised from bequests and endowments, but nowhere near the $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 that Kunz estimated would be necessary to bring the complete vision to reality. In the 1930s, the grand plans for a 20-museum complex were finally scrapped, and for awhile, the collections that had been acquired for the Museums of the Peaceful Arts were housed at the New York Museum of Science and Industry. Eventually, the remaining endowment funds were apparently divided up between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. And Kunz’s vision, so optimistic, so magnificent, for the establishment of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts withered away, leaving hardly a trace other than these scrapbooks.

In 1997, when I formally cataloged these volumes which the Smithsonian had acquired in the 1950s from New York City bookseller Dauber & Pine, I remember posting an inquiry on the Museums-L listserv asking whether anyone knew what happened to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts. The only response I received was from Steve Lubar, a fellow Smithsonian employee who was Chair of the Division of the History of Technology at the National Museum of American History. He said he recalled that the Smithsonian (or rather, the U.S. National Museum at the time) had lent some artifacts to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts which had never been returned, and he wondered what had happened to them. It’s a mystery, still.

Diagram for the Marine and Hydrographic Building

The daring plans of Kunz and his supporters to launch a massive museum complex as a way to spur economic growth, industrial progress, and the re-training and education of American workers for a golden age of peace and prosperity were dashed by a lack of funding and two world wars characterized by increasingly lethal technological innovations. However, it seems harsh to sneer at the naïveté and optimism of the project. The sense of creativity and hope inherent in the enterprise, so scrupulously detailed in these scrapbooks, are characteristic of a spirit which so many people would like to recapture today. The typescript and handwritten notes, the black and white photographs, and other materials that document the dreams, fresh ideas, and best practices of American museums in the early years of the 20th century, might perhaps be considered a forerunner of collaborative efforts in the 21st century to create a virtual community of museums, libraries and archives, accomplished not with bricks and mortar but with websites, linked data, and cross-searchable collections online (like the SIRIS and SI Collections Search catalogs!). How will our efforts look a hundred years from now? Not as fantastic as the grand design of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts, if we're lucky.

Collection of Reports, Photographs, and Other Materials Related to the Museums of the Peaceful Arts, 1912-1930 (MSS 001736 B v. 1-10 SCDIRB, Dibner Library)

Materials by and about George Frederick Kunz in the SI Collections Search Center

George Frederick Kunz Papers in the Smithsonian Institution Archives, ca. 1880-1932 and undated (a related collection)

--Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Life in the Stacks: A Summer Intern's Experience at the NMAI Archive Center

2011-10-12T14:45:00.003-04:00

Sheltered from the overly bright sun and the suffocating humidity, I spent the summer huddled in a cardigan and archival standard hand warmers within the NMAI Archives Center stacks. My internship was spent arranging, preserving and describing the papers of the National Congress of the American Indian and the Gertrude Litto Collection. One set of papers was from a national organization designed to advocate for the needs of Native Americans and the other the personal papers of an elementary school art teacher Gertrude Litto, who in 1971-1972 traveled through South America to study native pottery.

The papers of the National Congress of the American Indian had a dizzying number of boxes and a 189 page finding aid of already processed materials. My mission, as I chose to accept it, was to process a second accession of materials from NCAI. I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of boxes filled to the brim with papers and the nonsensical organization of the folders that were often labeled “Miscellaneous” or “Folder 1.” However, poor labeling of folders and disorganization were also an invitation to explore what was inside and I found myself drawn to spirited correspondence, draft after draft of reports and materials from conventions past. These are the materials of an organization that is run by and has served the interests of Native Americans since 1944 to the present. The force of NCAI’s advocacy over a wide range of issues, from agriculture to veterans affairs, is a powerful demonstration of Native American activities in the present. The strength of this collection comes from how current it is, and the papers speak to a very visible presence of Native Americans who are tackling a large breadth of issues working with the US government, native communities and other national and international organizations. Going through these papers I found my mind wandering to issues of heritage, advocacy and agency – concepts that I have often written about for essays but now I have stared them in the face and saw them for myself.

Trumpet, Collected in Ecuador by Gertrude Litto (26/3564)

The boxes that Gertrude Litto’s papers came in were blissfully limited. Her papers documented her adventure through Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, and were the raw materials from which her 1976 book, South American Folk Pottery, was crafted. Her collection is one that crosses over into different formats – photos, physical objects, and published and unpublished materials. Her papers bring together and put into context what a ceramic bowl or photo cannot and the manuscript shows the process of publication that isn’t often seen. The papers show Litto’s travels, the places she went, what she learned, how it translated into a book and the methods used to create the pottery she purchased. The interesting part of this collection is that despite the fact that the objects are housed in the collections stacks, the books are in the library and the papers are in the archives, they are all interconnected, pieces of a whole story. I enjoyed flipping through her notes and manuscript with red inked scribbles upon it, knowing that this eventually became a published book. The photos of South American native peoples showed the process in which the pottery she wrote about and collected was made. Everything relates to each other in this museum world in a way I never really thought about within the classroom.

Processing archival materials is a labor of love to which I have found myself endeared during my time at NMAI. Many of the activities I’ve done and the manuscript collections I encountered have been different from what I have experienced in my past work and has captivated me to the extent that I almost don’t mind that it’s over 90 degrees outside my world of papers and Hollinger boxes. Friend and archivist , Samantha Cross, wrote to me about my internship, “I imagine you’ll return a changed woman. Far too civilized to associate with childish friends, you’ll form superficial bonds with those of the upper echelons. You’ll go to fancy parties and regale them with your wit and social commentary, whilst the rest of us look on in wonder.” Changed woman? Yes. Regale people with my wit and social commentary? Always. Superficial bonds with the upper echelons? Hardly. I have been more than pleased to work with Jennifer O’Neal, Michael Pahn, Rachel Menyuk and fellow intern, Camille Tyndall, who have all guided and helped me in these beginnings of my archival career. I hope to always encounter them as esteemed colleagues and friends. And beyond the practical experience in processing archival collections, interning at NMAI has gotten me thinking about the connection between paper archives and object collections, the connection between heritage and scholarship, and that hand crank shelves are far superior to automatic ones.

Cara Bertram, NMAI Archive Center Intern (Summer 2011)

Garden Time Travel

2011-10-11T10:00:00.002-04:00

While October is American Archives Month, the behind-the-scenes work needed to keep an archives running smoothly happens all year long. This past summer was a whirlwind for me as I completed an internship at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens (AAG). Among the many projects I worked on, I helped process a portion of a recently donated collection.

Rudy J. Favretti, a noted landscape architect and author who specialized in the restoration of historic gardens, indicated his desire some years ago to AAG to find a permanent home for his design files where they would be accessible to future researchers. The time was finally right this past spring; amidst working in his own garden in Connecticut, Professor Favretti packed up several boxes of file folders, images, and landscape plans to donate to AAG.

Very fortunately for AAG staff, the design files were meticulously organized by project-- beginning in 1955 with photos from Favretti’s Master’s thesis work--and include contracts, correspondence, research notes, clippings, and landscape plans that show how an original design or restoration project comes to fruition. For an intern with a library science background, it was a dream to see the work of someone who understands the importance of having an effective organizational system in place!

When Favretti began his career in the 1950s, there were few people involved with historic landscape restoration. In the book Landscapes and Gardens for Historic Buildings, co-authored by Professor Favretti and his wife Joy, and considered by many to be the reference for historic landscape restoration, they state that “grounds do not usually show the same degree of care and thoroughness in restoration that the buildings do, and the two do not work in unison to present a total picture.” We expect historic houses and buildings to take us back in time, and it only makes sense that the outdoor landscape should offer the same time travel experience.

Mount Vernon, parterre, c. 1930s. Hand-colored glass lantern slide.

Mount Vernon, parterre, 2011. Kayla Burns, photographer.

As I worked my way through Professor Favretti’s files it was fascinating to discover how many times the same landscape might be reworked, and by many different landscape architects. This point further emphasizes the importance of the resources included in the Archives of American Gardens. While studying historic images of George Washington’s Mount Vernon from the Garden Club of America Collection, one of the hundreds of old and new sites that Favretti worked on, I was struck by the similarities (and differences) between them and the ones I had taken on a recent trip to Mount Vernon. With images, be they illustrations or photographs, it is much easier to recreate a garden’s layout and style and to understand what it was like to have stood in that particular garden, whether it was a century ago or just yesterday.

Kayla Burns, Intern
Archives of American Gardens
Smithsonian Gardens

Samarra 1911: Squeeze Making and Continued Resistance in Herzfeld's Samarra

2011-10-10T08:00:00.018-04:00

Trouble continues to follow Ernst Herzfeld's 1911 excavation of Samarra. Even after he negotiates the spy allegations from the last Samarra 1911 segment, he continues to run into resistance from the police, administrative offices, and locals of the area.

On October 5th and for two weeks following in Manqur, the removal of stuccos from the main iwan at Balkuwara and squeeze making took place for the Jubairiyya (House XVII, later House XIV) and Sur Isa (House IX). Unfortunately his documentation later in Qatun could not go forward as the earth that had been placed to protect the stuccos against weather and sabotage had been removed by the locals for their plantations. This left the stuccos almost complete ruined from the winter rains.

In early November Herzfeld took measurements of Qubbat al Sulaibiyya and continued to document Qasr al-Ashiq. Unfortunately trouble continued to plague him in the second week of November when Herzfeld traveled to Imam al-Dur to copy the inscriptions and facades. Thomas Leisten describes the scene in his book Excavation of Samarra, Volume 1 Architecture. Final Report of the First Campaign, 1910-1912: "standing on a ladder 4.5 m above the ground in almost complete darkness, he [Herzfeld] continued copying the characters while and angry crowd yelled at him from below and rattled his ladder. Apparently he had neglected to show the credentials that would have explained and authorized his mission to those in charge." Herzfeld had been shaken by this encounter and spent only two more days making squeezes with police protection.

However, his troubles did not end there, as Leisten continues to describe: "[e]ach morning there were new little obstacles: one day the keys for the mausoleum vanished and the next a mob assembled at the mausoleum, incited by a person who would call upon the others to kick the "Christian" out of the shrine." Leisten continues to explain the police men assigned to protect Herzfeld "wrote secret reports to the Qaimmaqam that they then used to fuel the hostility" of the local crowds. Herzfeld had to cancel gathering more information on al-Mutawakkiliyya and returned to Samarra to await reinforcements. On November 20th, Fredrich Sarre and Dr. M. Hesse assembled with a committee to investigate the schemes of the Qaimmaqam and two saiyids of al-Dur.

Image: Excavation of Samarra (Iraq): Jubairiyya, House XVI (Bartus House), View of Wall Decoration, 1911-1913 [graphic]. The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Related Posts:
Samarra 1911: The Life of an Alleged Spy: Guns, Kissing, and the Excavation of Balkuwara Samarra 1911: Excavation of Shabbat al-Hawa, Qasr al-Ashiq, and Qubbat al-Sulaibiyya
Samarra 1911: Clashes with Authority led to Sabotage
Samarra 1911: Excavation of the Great Mosque Finishes, al-Quraina Begins

100th Anniversary of the Samarra Excavation by Ernst Herzfeld

Samarra Resource

Rachael Cristine Woody
Freer|Sackler Archives

Finding Family in Finding Aids

2011-10-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

In a conversation about complacency, a good friend shared a common word used in her country that changed my worldview about life: heimskur. The word heimskur, which means “stupid” in Icelandic, carries a negative connotation to describe a person who is narrow-minded in his/her thinking because of one’s failure to venture outside of his/her comfort zone to explore the ways of non-Icelandic Islanders, a mindset that counters cultural practice. Reflecting upon my personal experiences of traveling abroad and teaching in different countries, I am reminded of how heimskur could hinder one from exploring opportunities that may create personal and business enhancements.

A lot of Americans, including myself, have experienced lay-offs that have resulted in personal setbacks and financial challenges because of the state of the economy. Some people decide to stay at home, while others venture to discover ways to improve professional skills that are already in place. Thus, I chose the latter course. Dissatisfied with my current unemployment situation, I began to seek volunteer jobs to complement my educational objectives, passion for fine arts, and fascination for history.

My break came when I applied for a behind-the-scenes volunteer position at the Smithsonian, where I now assist with projects in the Anacostia Community Museum Archives. And now that I reflect upon my capacity at the museum, I clearly see how my recent discussion about the word heimskur is relevant to my life going forward, yet in a positive connotation. I am now better informed about world views as seen through the eyes of a researcher and the work of archivists.

Upon discovery of this position, I immediately saw the advantage of my joining the institution because it complemented my 15 years of research and compilation of genealogy work that was conducted on my maternal relatives, resulting in tracing ancestors to the 14th century. Thus, my passion for lineage and my research experience are skill sets that will be applied to my educational goals as I aspire to be a historian once I complete my graduate degree. Therefore, I share my anecdote to attest that achieving a personal goal is possible with determination, commitment, and sacrifice.

My first project consisted of audio reviews of Langston Hughes' lectures present in the Lorenzo Dow Turner papers; I compiled content descriptions so that information can be accessed by researchers by way of electronic media. Occasionally I assist researchers in the reading room with queries on where to locate additional resources in support of their professional or personal objectives. I have also become familiar with arranging and describing archival materials through finding aids. Through this process I made a surprising discovery in the John H. Pye papers.

White House retirement card,John H. Pye papers.

Stumbling across a document presented to John H. Pye that commemorated his job well done as a White House chauffeur led me to a recent discovery of a relative who was a colleague of Mr. Pye in the early 1950s. This finding was different than that of my own; it was a pleasant surprise for me to locate ancestral literature almost at my finger tips in an archival repository instead of only finding materials through traditional methods of months and months of library searching and courthouse visits. Through this volunteer position, I have gained an understanding of the benefits in consulting archival resources, whether it is for personal or business use. Knowledge about archival materials may assist you in locating the correct information or you just might find a piece of your family puzzle in a finding aid!

Antony Arnold
Behind-the-scenes Volunteer