In the Heart of the Storm: The Resilience of Culture

This post originally appeared on September 19, 2017 in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's blog. In honor of October being American Archives Month, we republish it here as an example of how the archival record can help us focus on the importance of cultural resilience in times of catastrophe. The photographs and audio used in this piece are all a part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records .

Young people of the U.S. Virgin Islands march along in a carnival parade, amid the destruction of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

When news started coming in about the catastrophic damage Hurricane Irma brought to the Caribbean, I happened to be filing materials from the 1990 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s program about the U.S. Virgin Islands. In my twenty-nine years at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, I’ve produced a healthy amount of research, but in going through those particular boxes, I felt odd reverberations.

On September 17, 1989, in the midst of ongoing research for the U.S. Virgin Islands program, Hurricane Hugo struck the islands, with the greatest damage occurring in St. Croix. As described in a Washington Post special report, “Not only was Christiansted strewn with uprooted trees, broken utility poles, shattered cars and tons of debris from buildings that looked bombed, but the verdant tropical island suddenly had turned brown. So strong were Hugo’s winds that most trees still standing were shorn of leaves.” While St. Croix suffered the brunt of the storm, St. Thomas and St. John were also significantly damaged.

We wondered if we should cancel or defer the Festival program to let the region recuperate, physically and financially. But our partners in the Virgin Islands responded with one voice: now, more than ever, the people of the Virgin Islands needed a cultural event to raise their spirits, remind them of their resilience, and tell the world they were recovering. It is particularly in times of disaster that people turn to culture not only for solace but for survival.

“The recent disaster of Hurricane Hugo made fieldwork a little more difficult than usual,” reported Mary Jane Soule, who was doing research on musicians in St. Croix. “I was unable to rent a car for the first five days I was there, which limited my mobility. Many phones were still not working, so getting in touch with informants was harder than usual. However, once I actually located the individuals I wanted to see, I found most of them willing to talk.”

Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

A local press announced that, regardless of the circumstances, the Three Kings Day Parade would not be canceled: “Neither rain or hurricane nor winds nor controversy will stop the Crucian Christmas Fiesta.” In her field research tape log, Soule lists the role of Hugo in the fiesta, adding that calypso bands had recorded songs about it.

“Eve’s Garden troop is depicting Hugo,” she wrote. “The No Nonsense (music and dance) troop is doing ‘The Hugo Family’ depicting the looting and tourists on the run. Mighty Pat’s song ‘Hurricane Hugo’ played from speakers on one of the numerous trucks. Sound Effex (band) can be heard playing ‘Hugo Gi Yo’ (Hugo Gives You).”

Several months later when staff returned to the islands, “Hugo Gi Yo” was still very popular, as were the black, monographed sailors’ caps that proclaimed “Stress Free Recovery for 1990, St. Thomas, V.I.” 

Songs about Hugo relieved anxiety. Many people had lost everything. But like all good calypso tunes, they comically contributed to the oral history of the islands. Look at the verses of “Hugo Gi Yo”:

It was the seventeenth of September 1989 Hugo take over.
Hey, that hurricane was a big surprise,
When it hit St. Croix from the southeast side.
Hey rantanantantan man the roof fall down.
Rantanantantan galvanize around…
No water, no power, no telephone a ring.
We people we dead; there’s nothing to drink….

The band Sound Effex plays for bystanders in a carnival parade in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Listen to "Hugo Gi Yo", played by Sound Effex at Children’s Parade in Christiansted, St. Croix, January 5, 1990:

Calypso songs are noted for their social commentary on events as well as on responses from mainstream society. The Washington Post reported on St. Croix following the hurricane: “The plunder started on the day after the Sunday night storm, as panicky islanders sought to stock up on food. It quickly degenerated into a free-for-all grab of all sorts of consumer goods that some witnesses likened to a ‘feeding frenzy.’ Three days of near-anarchy followed Hugo’s terrible passage during the night of Sept. 17-18 and prompted President Bush to dispatch about 1,100 Army military police and 170 federal law-enforcement officers, including 75 FBI and a ‘special operations group’ of U.S. Marshalls Service.”

In turn, “Hugo Gi Yo” responds:

You no broke nothing.
You no thief nothing.
You no take nothing.
Hugo give you. 

As program research advisor Gilbert Sprauve explained, calypsonians “lend themselves heartily to expressing the underclass’s frustrations and cynicism. They make their mark with lyrics that strike at the heart of the system’s dual standards.”

A parade goer prepares her sign, jokingly addressing the post-hurricane looting that plagued the island of St. Croix. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Another resident readies her sarcastic sign for the parade. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Mighty Pat’s parade float encourages fellow residents to “stay positive.” Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Soule transcribed existing racial and economic tensions in St. Croix expressed in Mighty Pat’s “Hurricane Hugo”:

After the hurricane pass, people telling me to sing a song quickly.
Sing about the looting, sing about the thiefing, black and white people doing.
Sing about them Arabs, up on the Plaza rooftop
With grenade and gun, threaten to shoot the old and the young.
Curfew a big problem, impose on only a few, poor people like me and you.
Rich man roaming nightly, poor man stop by army, getting bust__________
Brutality by marshal, send some to hospital,
Some break down you door, shoot down and plenty more.
When I looked around and saw the condition
of our Virgin Island.
I tell myself advantage can’t done.
One day you rich. Next day you poor.
One day you up the ladder. Next day you
crawling on the floor.
Beauty is skin deep; material things is for a time.
A corrupted soul will find no peace of mind
I think that is all our gale Hugo was trying to say
to all mankind.
Don’t blame me. Hugo did that.

The ubiquitous coal pot depicted on the side of a snack shack in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Photo by Mary Jane Soule, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Hurricane Hugo also came up in conversations about craft. Knowing the importance of charcoal making, especially in St. Croix, researcher Cassandra Dunn interviewed Gabriel Whitney St. Jules who had been making coal for at least forty years and was teaching his son the tradition. In Dunn’s summary report, thoughts of the hurricane are not far away.

“Cooking food by burning charcoal in a coal pot is a technique utilized in the West Indies and Caribbean from the mid-1800s,” she wrote. “Charcoal makers learned the techniques of using a wide variety of woods including that from mango, tibet, mahogany, and saman trees. After Hurricane Hugo, those in St. Croix who had lost access to gas or electricity reverted to charcoal and the coal pot.”

With similar stories from St. Thomas, it became clear that this quotidian cultural artifact that reconnected islanders with their heritage served as an essential item for survival with dignity. The image of the coal pot became central to the themes of the Festival program, both as a useful utensil and a symbol of resilience. To our surprise, the coal pot, which looks much like a cast iron Dutch oven, was identical to that used by participants in the Senegal program featured that same year and led to increased cultural interaction between the two groups. This prompted a re-staging of both programs in St. Croix a year later.

From St. Croix to Washington, D.C., Virgin Islanders bring their parade to the National Mall for the 1990 Folklife Festival. Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The cultural responses to Hurricane Hugo and those I suspect we’ll see following the calamitous hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria remind us that when disaster strikes, whether natural, social, political, or economic, communities often turn to shared cultural resources. Stories, experiences, and traditional skills prove useful, inspiring us to overcome obstacles and help our communities regain their footing.

Olivia Cadaval was the program curator for the U.S. Virgin Islands program at the 1990 Folklife Festival and is currently a curator and chair of cultural research and education at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

View the original post here.

Reference
Sprauve, Gilbert. “About Man Betta Man, fission and Fusion, and Creole, Calypso and Cultural Survival in the Virgin Islands, 1990 Festival of American Folklife, edited by Peter Seitel, Smithsonian, 1990.

"Whatever Follows the Age of the Dinosaurs": Lee Hays, Bob Dylan, and the Folk Revival

Given the theme for this month is transitions, it makes sense to note the ever-morphing artist, and the recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan. In a career noted for transitions, Dylan has adeptly moved across musical genres, from protest singer, to rock and roller, and country crooner. With a career spanning 56 years, it’s easy to forget Dylan’s early shift from topical protest music to rock and roll reflected not only a shift in his own artistic expression, but a generational shift that rocked the folk revival scene of the mid-twentieth century.

The generation of artists before Dylan were closely connected with the leftist politics of the 1930s and ‘40s. Groups such as the Almanac Singers saw their work not only as a revival of old time music, but as an instrument for social change. [1] With an amorphous membership that at various times included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White, Bess Lomax, and Lee Hays, the Almanac Singers performed music that was unabashedly topical and political. Performing at union halls, and leftist meetings, their repertoire included such songs as “Talking Union,” “Which Side Are You On,” and “Union Maid.” While not officially connected to the Communist Party, most of the members were at the very least sympathetic to its concerns, and counted friends among the party. [2] Though Pete Seeger and Lee Hays moved into a more radio friendly direction in the 1950s, forming the Weavers with Fred Hellerman and Ronnie Gilbert, these connections would later come to haunt them. Seeger and Hays were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the group was blacklisted and harassed. While the Weavers work was tame in comparison to the Almanac Singers, with a stronger focus on timeless lyrics and tight harmonies, the political element never left. Songs like “If I Had a Hammer,” and “Which Side are You On,” were still counter-cultural enough to provoke a reaction during the Red Scare.

The Weavers perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, January 13, 1968. Photograph by Robert C. Malone, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives.

One of the main intellectual forces behind the Almanac Singers and the Weavers, was the writer and singer, Lee Hays. The Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives is fortunate to house his works and papers, which have recently been digitized and are now available online. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1914 to a Methodist Minister, Hays rejected his father’s faith and politics after reading Upton Sinclair, and experiencing the hardships of the Great Depression. [3] In the 1930s, Hays joined Claude Williams, the leftist radical and preacher, and worked to help organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. While working for Williams, Hays discovered that art, and particularly music, could be enlisted in the struggle for social justice, and began to write what he called “zipper songs.” [4] Using hymns familiar to southern sharecroppers, Lee would “zip” in a few union phrases, transforming them into something subversive and powerful. For example, the refrain from “Old Ship of Zion,” a spiritual about the imminent Kingdom of God, was turned by Hays into a song of protest, replacing “old ship” with “union train”: “It’s that union train a-coming—coming—coming; It will carry us to freedom—freedom—.” [5] In the 1940s and ‘50s, Hays would find a home within a music scene which shared his political sensibilities, and his belief in the power of music to affect social change.

Lee Hays and Pete Seeger. Lee Hays Papers, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. 

As the folk revival exploded in popularity in 1958, with the hit single “Tom Dooley” by the Kingston Trio, a new generation of revival artists had arrived. While some artists affected a “folk” aesthetic, hoping to profit on a new fad, others shared their forebears’ counter-cultural concerns, seeking an authenticity in a post-war boom that seemed only to offer a vacuous consumerism. In 1961, Bob Dylan arrived in New York looking every bit the part of a new Woody Guthrie, with a constructed biography mirroring his idol. Dylan’s first two albums were much a piece with the earlier generation, comprised of folk standards and protest songs. However, by 1965 Dylan was moving in another direction. Dubbed “the voice of a generation,” Dylan was restricted, and unnerved by such heightened expectations. [6] Feeling used and constrained, Dylan was increasingly suspicious of institutions, movements, and parties, with a growing sense of the naiveté surrounding protest music. At the height of the folk revival, in a perceived betrayal of its aims and sensibilities, Dylan debuted at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with an electric set, stunning the crowd into angry taunts and jeers. In a story that that is largely apocryphal, it was said that Pete Seeger was so incensed that he threatened to take an axe to the speaker cables, whether out of protest over the music’s volume or content, will forever be in dispute. [8] Regardless of what actually happened that day, what was clear was that what had been that generation’s best and brightest star, carrying the mantle of Guthrie and Seeger, had become a type of “Judas,” as one concert-goer famously shouted.

Shots of Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Photographs by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.

Lee Hays’ correspondence offers a fascinating window into this transition, as the older artists attempted to get a handle on this new generation. In an open letter from February 1964, Hays writes:

The question of the day is, what do you think of Bob Dylan? I’d be more sure if I knew what he thinks of himself. There is a lot of cynicism in his songs; but if he contradicts himself, he is entitled to it. There’s a lot of desert ground in many a young artist before you get to the occasional mountain peak. In whatever follows the age of dinosaurs, the ones who give thought to meanings and origins and who sing with respect for the songs will do the most. I am impressed by the songs of Ian and Sylvia for those reasons.

Coming just on the heels of Dylan’s album, The Times They Are a-Changin’, Hays is likely reacting to the more introspective and darker material, though much of his songs remains topical and political. Even before Highway 61’, Dylan’s concerns were already departing from the parent generation, with more introspective and existential themes. [9]

While Dylan may have left the topical protest songs behind, it’s not clear that Hays and Dylan moved apart on a more fundamental level. While Hays hoped for “people’s songs” that would serve as “battle hymns” against “the powers of evil,” he also felt that above all it should be “true.” [10] Moreover, Hays was wary of those who would see folk music as a “static” genre, relegated to fiddles, banjos, and old country melodies:

Who am I, or who is anyone, to say that the music of the juke box, the beetle organ, which the millions of Americans listen to, and drink their beer to, and dance to, and argue by, and make love by, and relax by, and make up their minds who to vote for by, is trash? […] if the only real music were the pure ‘folk music,’ this would be a darn dead country, and I for one would have to leave it and go back to Arkansas […] I believe in creativeness and experiment, in Picasso as in Woody Guthrie, in Bach as in Pete Johnson, in Verdi as in Blitzstein. [11]

While Dylan’s career moved beyond the topical protests of Hay’s generation, there’s no denying that in drawing from “the jukebox” of American song, he has written songs that are true. It is Dylan’s “respect for the songs,” as Hays writes, that continues to bind him to the previous generation, and earned him the rightful place as one of America’s greatest songwriters.

Adrian Vaagenes, Intern

Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

[1] Cohen, Ronald D., and Dave Samuelson. Songs For Political Action: Folkmusic, Topical Songs and the American Left 1926-1953. Bear Family Records, 1996. (pgs. 9-11);

[2]  Ibid. (pgs. 15-20).

[3] Willens, Doris. Lonesome Traveler: The Life of Lee Hays. W.W. Norton 7 Company, 1988, (pgs. 9; 20-21)

[4] Ibid, pgs. 56-59

[5] Hays, Lee. “Sing Out, Warning! Sing Out, Love!”: The Writings of Lee Hays. Edited by Robert S. Koppelman, University of Massachusetts Press, 2003, (pgs. 63-64).

[6] Petrus, Stephen and Ronald Cohen. Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival. Oxford University Press, 2015. (pgs. 286, 289). 

[7] Ibid. (pgs. 288-289); Dunaway, David King, and Molly Beer. Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals. Oxford University Press, 2010. (pg. 151).

[8] Dunaway, David King. How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad of Pete Seeger. Villard Books, 2008. (pgs. 306-308).

[9] Folk City. (pg. 288).

[10] “Sing Out, Warning! Sing Out, Love!” (pgs 89-90).

[11] Ibid. (pgs. 148-149).

Collecting Katrina at the National Museum of American History

This week marks the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the major devastation it wreaked.  It formed as Tropical Depression Twelve over the southeastern Bahamas on August 23, 2005, but became Tropical Storm Katrina the following morning, then a full-fledged hurricane on August 25. Katrina gained Category 5 status on August 28, although it weakened to a Category 3 by its second landfall on August 29.  Continuing as a Category 3 hurricane for its third landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border, its winds were measured at 120 mph.

Many deaths and catastrophic flooding occurred in New Orleans due to the notorious failure of the levee system, in addition to the damage caused by the hurricane itself.  National Museum of American History curator David Shayt visited Louisiana after the storm to collect objects for the Museum that helped tell the human story of the disaster.  (See Erin Blasco’s blog about his collecting activity.)  He and his team concentrated not only on New Orleans, but the entire Gulf Coast area.

Hurricane Katrina’s horrendous legacy could be seen along the Gulf Coast from central Florida to Texas.  Severe property damage occurred along the coast, especially Mississippi beachfront areas, where more than 90% of the towns were flooded.  Vicksburg resident and free-lance photographer Melody Golding served as a Red Cross volunteer in the aftermath of the hurricane.  Transporting relief supplies as well as her camera to the battered Mississippi Gulf Coast, she began keeping a photographic journal of the days following the storm.  After her initial wrenching exposure to the ruined buildings and landscapes and suffering storm victims, and concerned that the New Orleans catastrophe was becoming the primary symbol of Katrina, she set out to document the devastation in her home state thoroughly, and ended up devoting a full year to her self-assigned project.

Melody Golding.  See-Through House, Katrina, Gulf Coast, Mississippi, 2005.  Gift of the artist.  From the Melody Golding Katrina Photographic Documentation Project, 2005, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Although Ms. Golding photographed all aspects of the disaster in both still photographs and video, some special themes emerged.  She was particularly attuned to the sufferings of women whose homes and lives were directly affected by Katrina, and interviewed and photographed them in their deeply altered circumstances.  From these photographs an exhibition and a book were developed, both entitled “Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember.”  The exhibition was shown at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, and as a national traveling exhibition sponsored in part by the Mississippi Humanities Council.  Among the women she met during her project, she took a special interest in artists, and royalties from the sale of her book are aiding artists from the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Photographic prints from the Katrina project have been acquired by private and institutional collectors, but by 2008 Ms. Golding was anxious to place her entire Katrina archive, including original negatives, in a public repository in order to focus her energies on other photographic projects.  She invited me to meet her and see her exhibition in November 2008, while it was on display at Mississippi College.  I was deeply impressed with her artistry, sensitivity, and humanity, and the quality of the photographs both as documentary evidence and as works of art.  I have to resist the urge to say I was “blown away,” but I thought this project well deserved to be collected in its entirety.

Fortuitously, my Archives Center colleague Craig Orr was able to pick up the exhibition photographs from her home in Vicksburg while he was already on official travel for other purposes, and she later delivered her original negatives, contact prints, and other components of the project, including visitor comments from people who viewed her exhibition.  This remarkable, comprehensive archive, combined with the objects collected by David Shayt and others, gives the Museum a rich record of this monumental event, which will undoubtedly remain one of the most significant natural disasters in twenty-first century American history.  We hope it will never be exceeded in power and scope.

Melody Golding.  Smashed House, Katrina, Gulf Coast, Mississippi, 2005.  Silver gelatin print.  Gift of the artist.  From the Melody Golding Katrina Photographic Documentation Project, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

The Archives Center remains indebted to Ms. Golding for her thoughtful and important gift, and I certainly concur with her rationale for selecting us as the repository for her Katrina photographs and documents.  On one hand, she reasoned that Katrina was far more than a regional event: it was national and international news that captivated Americans for days and weeks, then months, so she felt that the collection deserved a national institution for its home—although a Mississippi institution also would have been appropriate.  In addition, as an advocate for her home state, she suggested that Mississippi might not be adequately represented in the national collections and that her coverage of Katrina would partially remedy that.  I don’t intend to establish anything resembling a state or regional quota system for representation in Archives Center photographic collections, but her point was well taken. We do need to strive for regional and state diversity in our collecting if we are truly a museum of American History.  Melody Golding’s most recent gift portrays a fascinating and far more pleasant aspect of Mississippi history—to be described later.

David Haberstich
Curator of Photography
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Heartland Activists

The Bil Browning and Jerame Davis Papers (Collection AC1334) are among some of the newer acquisitions of the Archives Center in the National Museum of American History. Mostly unassuming and full of things that would not look out of place pinned up to a corkboard above a desk, it will indubitably become a valuable resource to historians of the LGBT rights movement.

When we think of LGBT activism, our thoughts turn to the overcrowded streets where televised Pride parades and festivals are held in cities along the east and west coasts. Yet, Bil Browning and Jerame Davis both hail from two small, largely obscure towns in rural Indiana. Their collection – which is comprised of various documents, photographs, home videos, and even a scrapbook – provides a rare glimpse into LGBT activism as it unfolded in the Midwestern United States and the struggles that accompanied it.

Photograph by Perry Bidelf.  Left to right: Phil Reese, Anthony Niedwiecki, Wayman Hudson, Bil Browning, and Jerame Davis at National Equality March, 11 October 2009.
From the Bil Browning and Jerame Davis Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

I had the rare opportunity to speak with Browning and Davis about the materials they had donated to the Archives Center. While my primary objective was to have them identify photographs that were lacking names or dates, I was also able to talk to them about the events depicted in their collection. It was one thing to spend my day processing the photos and documents, pulling individual papers out of their messy arrangements in cardboard boxes and then sorting them into crisp legal folders. It was another thing entirely to sit down and talk face-to-face with the people who lived the events that I was merely a spectator to, ten or twenty-some-odd years after they took place.

It’s impossible for thoughts to be conveyed through static items, so my interview managed to add a distinctly human element to a process that evokes, at some times, a sense of disconnect. In our discussion, I heard about the discrimination lawsuit that catapulted Davis into activism, and in his own words, “changed the course of [his] life”, listened to Browning discuss his experience running his blog, The Bilerico Project, and learned about why the two of them wanted to include anti-LGBT materials in their collection (the answer to that, as I learned from Davis, was that “future generations need to know all the nasty, horrible things those [expletive deleted] said about us”).

My conversation with the two LGBT activists was truly an incredible experience and helped to flesh out the collection more so than it had already been. I hope that future historians, researchers, and even the general public, will one day take advantage of the rich materials within it and educate themselves about the struggles that members of the LGBT community have faced and continue to face on their journey to achieve equality.

Sara Dorfman, Intern, NMAH Archives Center

ALL-STAR ARCHIVES

Fifth Annual All-Star Game program, 1937.
Eleanor Linkous Washington, D.C. Sports Memorabilia
Collection, 1925-1956, Archives Center,
National Museum of American History

It has been 45 years since the city of Washington, D.C. hosted Major League Baseball’s annual mid-summer classic, the All-Star Game.  With a recently built stadium to show off, Washington fans want their turn.  Unfortunately, several other cities also want the All Star Game and some of them have new ballparks too, including Cincinnati (which will host in 2015), Philadelphia, Miami and San Diego.  It might be several years before Washington hosts, but I hope that the city’s 33 years without baseball will count for something to baseball’s selection committee, possibly as early as 2017.  Washington has hosted the All-Star Game four times, twice (1937 and 1956) at Griffith Stadium and twice (1962 and 1969) at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.  The Archives Center is fortunate to have the programs from two of these games, those of 1937 and 1956.  They were donated to us by SI volunteer Eleanor Linkous.

The 1937 program features President Franklin Roosevelt on the cover, throwing out the first pitch, a ceremonial baseball tradition begun by President Taft in 1910 on that season’s Opening Day.  1937’s All-Star game was the first attended by a president.

The game’s roster on both sides contained an impressive number of future Hall of Famers.  For the American League, this included both Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig in one of the only two years their careers as Yankees overlapped.  Also in the game were Joe Cronin and Jimmie Foxx of the Red Sox, and Charlie Gehringer of the Tigers.  For the visiting National League, the list was just as impressive, including starting pitcher Dizzy Dean and Ducky Medwick of the Cardinals, Carl Hubbell and Mel Ott of the Giants, and Paul Waner and Arky Vaughan from the Pirates.  Ironically, even though the home town Washington Senators had three members of its team elected to the All Star Game, Yankee manager Joe McCarthy, who was managing the game for the American League, never put any of them in to play.  Instead, the game was dominated by his Yankees.  The American League won the game 8-3.

Clark C. Griffith Memorial All-Star Game program.
Eleanor Linkous Washington, D.C. Sports Memorabilia
Collection, 1925-1956, Archives Center,
National Museum of American History. 

The 1956 program featured an image of “the Old Fox,” Clark Griffith, a former player and owner of the Senators, who had died the previous autumn.  The game was dedicated to him.  Only five years later, his son would relocate his beloved team to the Twin Cities.

Like 19 years earlier, the 1956 All-Star Game was full of future Hall of Famers.  For the American League, there were sluggers Ted Williams of the Red Sox, Al Kaline of the Tigers, and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees.  The National League fielded a team that included Stan Musial from the Cardinals, Willie Mays of the Giants and Hank Aaron of the Braves.  Pitchers in the game included the Braves’ Warren Spahn for the National League and the Yankees’ Whitey Ford for the American League.  The result was quite different from that of the game 19 years earlier, when the Yankee sluggers had dominated.  This time it was the National League dominating, with help from home runs by Mays and Musial.  The final score was 7-3. 

This year’s All-Star Game will, almost certainly, feature some future Hall of Famers.  It is fun to speculate which players on this year’s ballot will one day be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Cathy Keen, Archivist
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

ARCHIVES PRIDE: LGBT-Related Collections at the Archives Center, National Museum of American History

President Obama has proclaimed June 2014 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, and many cities and towns throughout the United States will celebrate LGBT Pride.  An outgrowth of the gay rights movement, the creation of Pride was sparked by the Stonewall riots in June 1969.  The first Pride parade was held in New York City in June 1970.

Promotional advertisement for DC Cowboys with photographs by Julian Vankim, 1994-2012: front and verso shown.
From the DC Cowboys Dance Company Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Smithsonian secretary Wayne Clough, in his recent Message from the Secretary, stated in part, “We continue to strengthen our collections so that we may more fully present LBGT contributions to American history, art, science, and culture, and be a welcoming resource to scholars studying LGBT contributions to American society.”  The secretary ended his message affirming, “The LGBT story is an important part of the American experience, and the Smithsonian is committed to making sure that story is told.”

The Archives Center at the National Museum of American History is actively collecting records that tell those stories.  Recently the Archives Center received a donation of the DC Cowboys Dance Company Records, an all-male, gay, non-profit dance company based in Washington, D.C. that was active from 1994-2012. They performed nationally and internationally, "celebrating diversity through dance." Typical performance venues included: Pride Festivals, the Gay Rodeo circuit, and charity events for numerous local and national charities.  The Cowboys also performed on: NBC’s America's Got Talent (2008); Closing Ceremonies of the Gay Games VII at Wrigley Field in Chicago (2006); The Sziget Festival, Budapest, Hungary (2009–2012); ITV’s Dales’ Great Getaway, London, England (2012), and RTE’s The Podge and Rodge show, Dublin, Ireland (2010).  The collection includes correspondence, advertisement, financial records, photographs, and ephemera.

The DC Cowboys Dance Records join over 68 cubic feet of LGBT-related collections currently held by the Archives Center.  The Archives Center’s growing LGBT collections include: The Shamrock Bar: Photographs and Interviews by Carol Burch-Brown; John-Manuel Andriote VICTORY DEFFERRED Collection; Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Collection; the Joan E. Biren Queer Film Museum Collection; and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network Records.  For more information visit the Archives Center website. 

Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., Archives Specialist 
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

A Century of Cherry Blossom Watches

Cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin, circa 1920s. J. Horace McFarland, photographer. (AAG# DC001)
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, J. Horace McFarland Collection 

The first day of spring has already come and gone, but spring in Washington, D.C., still feels like it has yet to arrive. We will know when winter’s grip has finally loosened when the cherry trees are blooming around the Tidal Basin. Many of these trees are over a century old. Originally planted between 1912 and 1920, the image above shows the cherry trees in all their glory roughly 80 or 90 years ago. It was likely photographed by J. Horace McFarland --or possibly someone employed by his company Mount Pleasant Press-- and is preserved in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Gardens. McFarland was a horticulturist, educator, promoter of the City Beautiful movement and early advocate for the National Park Service. He also frequently used lantern slides like this one to illustrate his many lectures on civic improvement and city beautification projects.

Learn more about the history, care, and preservation of Washington's cherry trees on the National Park Service website: http://www.nps.gov/cherry/cherry-trees.htm

Browse more digitized photographs from the J. Horace McFarland Collection on Pinterest.

Kelly Crawford
Museum Specialist
Archives of American Gardens

Searching for Sharks

Shark Laying on Barrels, SIA, SIA2013-08815

August is here and so is Shark Week! Facebook pages, tweets and memes are celebrating one of America’s favorite theme weeks. Being married to an avid Shark Week lover, I have tried to get enthusiastic about Megalodon and Jaws, but really struggled to understand all the hype—That is, until I took the Shark Week quiz to find out what shark I am most like.

White-Tipped Shark, SIA, SIA2013-08818

I started out answering all the questions and wondered what shark am I: bull shark, blue shark?  When the questions were complete, I hit the send button and bam there it was, my shark persona.....the Hammerhead. I was slightly surprised until I read the description and realized that both the Hammerhead and I are social, quick tempered and most importantly, passionate about our food! After I stopped wondering if I should be offended or not when people’s response was “Oh, that sounds right” when they heard I was a Hammerhead, I became interested in learning more about the shark. I decided to try and find out any information about Hammerheads that may be in the Smithsonian’s collections.

Shark Caught on a Line, SIA,
SIA2013-08819

Since I work for the Smithsonian Institution Archives, I started going through our collections. To my dismay I could not find anything about Hammerheads, which then raised the question, did we have any materials about sharks? Well, thanks to the wonderful item level records from the Field Book Registry, I was able to track down images of sharks. The collections contained: Whitetip Reef Sharks (which my husband likes to laud over me since reef sharks are his ilk), tiger sharks, and unidentified sharks, but alas, no Hammerheads.

I then turned to the Collections Search Center and to my delight there are over five hundred records relating to the hammerheads, including some great pictures of hammerhead teeth! The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s ocean portal also has a great number of hammerhead images to see.

Watson Perrygo Poses with Shark,
SIA, SIA2013-08824

So what did diving through the collections teach me? Well, I learned that taking a quiz about sharks can pique my curiosity about the amazing creatures sharks are and that the Smithsonian has a vast amount of shark knowledge.  I encourage both fans and non-fans alike to take the quiz and if you get bit by the Shark Week bug, check out the Smithsonian's collections to find out more about your shark.

Courtney Bellizzi
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Journey Through the Panama Canal

The 48 mile long Panama Canal that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, opened in 1914, changed ocean voyage. In June 2015, just a little over 100 years later, a new canal lane with bigger locks will open to accommodate massive cargo ships coming from Asia to ports in the eastern United States. This canal expansion will significantly change ocean transport of people and goods (see National Public Radio news story on the widening of the Panama Canal, Port of Baltimore Seeks Boost From Panama Canal Expansion).  Whether by ship, train (see this blog post by Mark White), plane or automobile, modes of transportation have always symbolized the wanderlust of the traveler and, hence, the travel-filmmaker.  The following three silent film clips, from Thayer Soule's travel film, Rainbow Lands of Central America, capture the wonder and beauty of passing through the Canal. (For information on Thayer Soule see here). Excerpts from Soule's transcript of his accompanying lecture are included below the clips.

The Canal runs diagonally, about 50 miles, from the Pacific to the Caribbean. The most dramatic section is Gaillard Cut. Here the continental divide is less than 400 feet high. Ships cross at the level of the canal, 90 feet above the sea -- up to 40 ships a day, up to 11,000 ships a year. The canal is fresh water, obtained by damming up the Chagres River.  During construction, one of the biggest jobs was the building of Gatun Dam....Water not required for the operation of the canal bypasses the dam at the spillway and follows the old course of the river to the sea. Gatun Lake is separated from the Caribbean by Gatun Locks. Above Gatun Lake, there is an additional reservoir of fresh water, used when traffic is heavy, called Madden Lake.

On the Pacific side, two sets of locks, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores; and on the Pacific side, too, the administrative headquarters at Balboa...From the top of a high hill, we look out on the Pacific entrance to the canal-- the islands that guard the bay, and directly below us...We can also see a corner of Balboa. That ship is in salt water, going inland 6 miles to the first set of locks at Miraflores, which you can see on the extreme right, in the far background. As each ship enters the lock there are attached to it, depending upon its size, from 2 to 8 electric engines, or mules, as they are called. They are used in the locks because they can start and stop the ship much more quickly, much more accurately than can the ship's own engines. Incidentally, they are the original equipment, installed when the canal was built, 60 years ago, and still in use today...The lock chambers have a useable length of 1,000 feet, and can accommodate virtually all the world's shipping. Very few vessels are so large they cannot negotiate the Panama Canal . At each end of the lock is a double set of gates. Each gate weighs 700 tons, and is driven by an electric motor, again, the original equipment. When the gates are closed, fresh water comes down from up above, and the ship is raised 30 feet. It's all controlled by a man high in the tower, who has in front of him, among other things, a miniature set of gates that shows the exact position of the main gates outside...One of the largest passenger ships to use the canal on a regular schedule is the "Reina del Mar," which runs between England and Australia. Notice how close we are to it, and how rapidly it's moving. It is still inside the lock...Ordinarily it takes about an hour for a ship to got through Miraflores, but I'm going to condense the whole operation for you into just one minute...it shows very plainly what happens. The mules pull the ship in, the gates close, the fresh water comes down from up above, and the ship is raised 30 feet. Then the gates open, the ship moves into the next chamber, and the process is repeated...

Next come Cucaracha Narrows and Gaillard Cut, 300 feet wide, 8 miles long. The grassland is entirely natural...8 hours later [we] arrive at Gatun, where there are three 30-ft. steps down to sea level...Here's a Japanese ship going through...The red and white flag tells us the pilot is onboard. He will be on the  bridge during the entire transit. For each ship that goes through, 52 million gallons of fresh water are required...the canal is carrying far more traffic now than was originally planned. It's an engineering masterpiece...

Many thanks to Angela Forest, University of Maryland intern, for her invaluable work in researching and preparing these video clips (and others) for HSFA's YouTube channel.

Pamela Wintle
Human Studies Film Archives

Perseverance in Preservation

“…let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.” 

― Thomas Jefferson

This April 21^st through the 27^th is Preservation Week, a national movement working to increase awareness of the importance and scope of preservation needs of cultural institutions.  

While museums, libraries and other archives are dedicatedly working to protect historical artifacts and documents, the combined conservation needs still greatly exceed available resources.  In 2004 the first comprehensive assessment of the preservation needs of national collections was conducted by Heritage Preservation and the findings were staggering.  Over fourteen thousand organizations were surveyed, including 450 of the 500 largest cultural repositories in the U.S.  Eighty percent had no paid staff for collections care, and 71% indicated that caring for collections would require more training.  One hundred and ninety million artifacts are already in need of conservation treatment. Of the estimated 4.8 billion artifacts held by institutions, 1.3 billion are in danger of being lost.  

When Joni Mitchell sang “Don’t it always seem to go / that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” she was sounding a concern shared by people across the globe.  While the need for preservation will never disappear, the options for protecting treasured assets are far greater than they were in the recent past.  With the dawning of the digital age, preservation options for most artifacts now include virtual representations.   As technology continues to improve the process of creating digital copies or surrogates, efforts toward the digitization of cultural artifacts continue to expand.

With the launching of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), the electronic records of state and regional digital libraries will be searchable and accessible from a single online point.  In addition to bringing information access to an unheralded level in the U.S., DPLA also aims to encourage community digital preservation efforts.  Planned services include assisting local communities in the digitization of cultural artifacts.  One possibility is a “mobile scan-van” service that would allow local residents to scan their old photographs and other personal paraphernalia (which is especially exciting to someone whose childhood is currently archived in a shoebox). 

Thomas W. Sears,circa 1900-1910. 

Image from the Thomas Warren Sears Collection, Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian Institution.

At the national level, cultural institutes like the Smithsonian will continue to create and preserve digital representations of unique collections.  One example is the Thomas Warren Sears Collection. Thomas W. Sears was a prolific landscape architect – during nearly 60 years of practice he designed landscapes for playgrounds, parks, and private residences as well as urban housing developments, army camps, and cemeteries.  His zeal for his profession was equally matched by his passion for his hobby – photography.   Operating nearly a century before the ease of the digital camera, he photographed a collection of over 4,600 black and white glass negatives and lantern slides.   His images cross continents and eras with subjects ranging from street scenes to countrysides, private gardens to public parks, and from grinning children to somber adults.

Unidentified woman in Annapolis, Maryland, circa 1900-1901. Thomas Warren Sears, photographer.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, Thomas Warren Sears Collection

Orchards (designed by Gertrude Jekyll), 1906. Thomas Warren Sears, photographer.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, Thomas Warren Sears Collection

Some negatives from this fascinating collection had the misfortune of being composed of nitrate, an unstable, toxic and highly flammable material (its use as movie film led to multiple deadly cinema fires in the 1920s).  In the 1990s, these negatives were copied and the nitrate negatives destroyed for safety considerations.  Preservation efforts such as this may be unglamorous, but the reward of protecting the past is priceless.

- Jessica Hemphill, Archives of American Gardens, Intern, Winter 2013

 

 

 

BBYO Teens Day of Service in ACM Archives

The weekend of February 15, 2013, approximately 1200 exceptional teens from all around the world converged in Washington, DC, to participate in B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s (BBYO) annual International Convention.  An organization for Jewish teens, BBYO is based around community service and teen empowerment.  The convention began with a day of service, in which the teens went to various businesses and organizations in the DC area and accumulated over 6,000 community service hours for the city.  The Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) hosted forty teens, and of those forty Daniel Meade from San Francisco, Kira Altman from Colorado Springs, and Yoel Yakobi from Toronto, Canada, were selected to assist in the archives division.

Frontispiece portrait of Phillis Wheatley from
Poems on Various Subjects... 1773

The teens began their day of service with a tour of the archives and survey of ACM’s archival treasures and special collections including the earliest publication in the collection, Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley.  Next, the students were provided with an introduction to archival principles and instructed on how to handle archive materials.  Last, the teens were given an opportunity to put their new knowledge to work and help with rehousing collections, numbering folders and boxes, and spot-checking collections. 

Here’s what the young adults thought of their experience as archivists:       

Dan: “It was really cool to see the old photographs and posters.  I felt like I was helping keep history preserved with my work.”

Yoel:  “It was very interesting. I liked it a lot. I liked doing the photographs because it was fun creating a family tree of all the portraits.”

Kira:  “It was really fascinating to see the old history and put together a family tree. I felt like I helped make the museum be organized. I’m happy I had the experience.”

The BBYO Teens day of service in the ACM archives successfully contributed to bringing unprocessed hidden collections to light and in making them more accessible and ready for public use. The museum looks forward to hosting BBYO teens and other student volunteers in the future.  

Jennifer Morris
Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

Why the Chicken Really Crossed the Road: An Inaugural Tale

President Nixon’s 1973 Inaugural ball at the Museum
of History and Technology, January 20, 1973,
by Richard K. Hofmeister, Smithsonian Institution
Archives, Record Unit 285, Box 10,
Folder: 11, 73-518-14A or SIA73-518-14A.

This weekend DC plays host to the presidential inauguration. As visitors flock to the area, the Smithsonian will open its doors to museum goers and inaugural ball guests alike. The buildings are no stranger to inaugural events. As early as 1881, the Smithsonian’s  National Museum (now the Arts and Industries Building) hosted its first Inaugural Ball for President James Garfield, even before the building was completed.  The museums provide a fascinating backdrop for such festivities, and Garfield’s ball began a trend that has continued to this day.

One particularly memorable experience occurred on January 20, 1973, as President Richard Nixon attended several official inaugural balls, including one at the Smithsonian’s Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History). Over seven thousand people, dressed in fine feather, filled the museum to celebrate. Lines were out the door, and the crowds had nowhere to dance. Despite the confusion and heat the room had a celebratory air and guests were excited to see the man of the hour.

Chicken that disrupted President Nixon’s 1973 Inaugural ball,
January 20, 1973, by Unknown, Smithsonian Institution Archives,
Record Unit 285, Box 10, Folder 12, SIA2009-0415 and 73-688-22A.

It seems, however, that people were not the only spectators anxious to catch a glimpse of the President. While guests danced the night away, a female participant became quite ruffled when a chicken flew into her one thousand dollar VIP box and began to assault her. Fortunately, then Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, an ornithologist, came to the disgruntled socialite’s rescue. He captured the bird and began to smooth the chicken’s feathers until it calmed down. He then returned the culprit to its home in the colonial barnyard exhibit of the Growth of the United States Hall.

The chicken, along with a few other fellow fowls, took up residence in the museum in 1969 to give a sense of realism to the American farm life exhibit.  The birds lived in the exhibit and according to museum staff, were usually quite docile. However, this little chicken must have had political ambitions and decided crossing the exhibit road to participate in the inaugural ball would be a fun adventure. Secretary Ripley remarked that the incident was “a real chicken caper” that certainly added to the excitement of the night.  Once again, a visit to the Smithsonian, whether a school trip or an inaugural ball, proved to be a unique adventure. 

Courtney Bellizzi, Smithsonian Institution Archives