O Say Can You See?

Video games, Ralph Baer, and my first accession

Imagine that it’s your first day on the job and your new boss brings you into a storage area. It’s filled with boxes of papers and strange looking objects, all donated by Ralph Baer, the Father of the Video Game. These are the notes and prototypes that made playing games on your television possible. And now it’s your job to process them.

This is exactly what happened to me about three years ago. I started my work by separating out all the papers, which were then picked up by the Museum’s Archives Center. That left me with about ten objects to identify, without the benefit of a list. The Objects Processing Facility documented and assigned each object an accession number, a unique identifier that tells us the object is officially a part of the Museum’s collections. I created records for each object in our electronic collections catalog, gathered all the important documentation that proved that Ralph Baer had donated these objects and that we were now the official owners, and submitted everything to the Registrar. I found a space in the storage cabinets for the objects, updated the location records, and figured that I could consider my first accession to be a success. That was the end of the story… or so I thought.

The following spring, Smithsonian Networks approached the museum about a segment on the Brown Box, the video game prototype that led to the Magnavox Odyssey (the first video game system produced). They wanted to fly Ralph Baer down for the filming, which was to become part of their Stories from the Vaults series. I was excited to meet host Tom Cavanagh (who I would sometimes watch on Ed and Scrubs) and to see a television episode being filmed. But I was thrilled about meeting Ralph Baer.

Something highly unusual happened during that filming. We don’t run the objects in our video game collections. Ever. But since we had the inventor there, we felt like we could make a special exception. We decided to run the Brown Box one last time. You won’t see me in that episode, but I was just offscreen, sitting under a table as I watched Ralph Baer and Tom Cavanagh play Ping Pong on the Brown Box. (Definitely an unorthodox place to sit, but it gave me a very good view without being in anyone’s way.) It was incredible to see an inventor using his own invention right before my eyes! Things like that don’t happen… except at the Smithsonian.

The funniest thing about all this? I’m not a gamer. I rarely pick up a video game controller and, when I do, it’s usually at the request of one of my brothers. Strangely enough, this is something I have in common with Ralph Baer. He’s admitted that he is “not a game player. I don’t play any of these things. My kids do. I don’t. I’m not a game player. I’m a lousy game player.” For him, the fun was being able to figure out how to create the games, not in playing them. For me, the fun is being able to share the story of how video games got their start.

Petrina Foti works in the Computers Collection, part of the Division of Information Technology & Communications, at the National Museum of American History.

The importance of small things

In a museum chock-full of 3 million objects, it’s usually the showy ones that get the most attention—the ruby slippers, the Star-Spangled Banner, the entire 2 ½ story house from Ipswich, Massachusetts, the locomotives, the enormous half-naked statue of George Washington, Lincoln’s top hat.

Neonatal hospital bracelet, about 1995.

But sometimes the smallest, everyday objects hold the most amazing stories. This hospital bracelet is—in its function and form—identical to millions that are strapped around the wrists of adults and children alike every day. But this bracelet belonged to a baby named Taylor Dahley, who in 1995 was the recipient of the very first in-utero bone marrow transplant. Early in his mother’s pregnancy, it was discovered that Taylor had Severe Combined Immune Deficiency, an extremely rare blood disorder. By transplanting some of his father’s bone marrow cells into Taylor’s abdomen, doctors were able to save him from the disease that killed his older brother.

I’m currently seven months pregnant, so part of my attraction to this object is its relation to my own life. A month ago I was lying on a table in my doctor’s office, looking at the four chambers of my baby’s heart on the ultrasound screen, pumping away perfectly. My mother-in-law was with me and was astounded by what we could see in just a routine ultrasound. Just a generation ago, she didn’t know a thing about her babies before they were born. Science has now given us the ability not only to detect problems in utero, but to actually correct them with extremely sophisticated surgeries. The ways that medical advances have shaped American life are astounding.

I will always have a deep affection for our museum’s “greatest hits.” But it’s the small objects with big stories that often leave me in awe.

Megan Smith is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History

Printing history and the Intertype linotype machine

During my years as collections manager in the Graphic Arts Collection I’ve dusted many a linotype machine, but have never had the opportunity to actually use one. So I attended an intensive class that included letterpress printing, and was given the opportunity to use an Intertype linotype. The machine, a typecasting machine was manufactured in the United States in the 1910s. The model C was advertised as being a three-magazine model, capable of holding three different font sizes at once.

Here I am sitting at an Intertype Model C at the David Wolfe Studios in Portland, Maine.

On a linotype machine like the Intertype, you type out the letters on the keyboard that you want the machine to cast. The machine lines up the type matrices for each letter. You can then review the representative letters to determine if the line is typeset correctly.

Pressing a lever sends the group of matrices further into the machine where molten lead is sent into their casting parts. Then, by a miracle it would seem, the finished line of type is sent out of the machine to cool, where it can be checked again. When the lines are all cast they are removed to a proofing location in correct printing order.

The Gettysburg Address typeset in Baskerville 14.

My class project was to reproduce a version of the Gettysburg Address, a relatively difficult task for a first timer. The first day using the Intertype was painful. (Yes, I’m smiling in the photo, but it was taken the day after I successfully produced the central text of the Address.) The letters on the matrices are brightly colored to assist the type caster. The Baskerville 14 point font that I used the first day was not marked well. (Note: Other styles of linotype machines include a reading lamp!)

To print the colophon (the production notes below the Address) I needed to cast from smaller size type matrices from a different Intertype magazine. The bright colors on that set of matrices were much more legible or, who knows, I also could have become more skilled in the art of typecasting. 

Linotype matrices (right), and lines of type (left and back).

After casting all the type I was able to lay out the design for the final document to be printed and lock up the lines of type with larger wood type (for the title) and the cuts (engraved illustrations) of the stars and lobster, for decoration. (I was unable to resist the temptation to include the lobster – we were printing the document in Maine after all!)

All told, my typecasting and letterpress press printing training was a trial-by-fire (or lead) experience which allowed me to feel the pain and suffering, and the pride and joy of the printer. Long live the printer!

Joan Boudreau is a curator in the Graphic Arts printing and printmaking collections at the National Museum of American History.

Inspired by brownies

I look forward to coming to work on Thursdays. One of my responsibilities is to change the featured object that appears on the homepage of the Smithsonian’s History Explorer Web site. Thursday is the day that I do this, and it is actually more complicated than it seems.

I face challenges trying to connect an object with an important anniversary, event, or program. For example, during the month of February, I picked objects that related to Black History Month: a rare Pullman porter’s blanket, Muhammad Ali’s robe and gloves, and a pair of slave shackles. In March, I chose a mourning picture and World War II era liquid stockings for Women’s History Month. These were relatively easy to do, but what about the weeks when there are no obvious connections to be made? I know that on many Thursdays, I have a distinct challenge awaiting me.

Today was one of those days. Last week I chose to feature a Louisville Slugger baseball bat in order to celebrate the beginning of the baseball season. This week, I knew I was going to have to do some thinking. Then, I received an email from a colleague inviting me to partake in a batch of brownies that she had baked. She jokingly said that they were in honor of the last day of the Civil War, April 9, 1865. And there it was…my connection for the week! I checked the online collections database and found a surgical set that was used by surgeons to treat battlefield wounds during the Civil War. A great object for an important anniversary, and it was all inspired by brownies!

If you are interested in seeing what inspires me next, you can subscribe to our featured artifacts RSS feed on Smithsonian’s History Explorer. It’s a great way to get a glimpse into our vast collections and learn a little bit of history every week.

Paul Molholm is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History.

Why should we care about Lincoln?

I learned a lot about World War II from my father, who served in the Philippines. Being from the Motor City and often driving past the Highland Park Ford plant—which produced the Model T—I was familiar with the technological and industrial revolution of the 20th century too. I grew up inspired by the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and knew a good deal about the related people and events. But when it came to learning about the Civil War in high school, I found myself constantly surprised.

First, there were the battles—they were terribly destructive to life and property and the numbers of dead and wounded dwarfed every other American war. Then, there were the great men and powerfully independent women who made clear to me that the struggle for civil rights didn’t start with Rosa Parks and the women’s movement hadn’t begun with Betty Friedan. There was the technology, too—rifles that could kill at a quarter mile; railroad artillery; and the telegraph sending instant messages. Not all that long before the war no human thought, order, message, or idea ever moved any faster than a horse could run or pigeon could fly! It seemed to me that everything about the period was surprisingly ahead of its time.

When we started planning programs to support our new exhibition, "Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life," I wanted to relate the Civil War and President Lincoln’s leadership to the challenges our nation faces today. Lincoln first met with Frederick Douglass in 1863. It wasn’t for another hundred years that a president would meet in the White House as near equals with an African American to discuss improving the nation (LBJ and MLK in 1963). The first program in our series, held March 26, explored these intriguing relationships between presidents and civil rights leaders.

Before there was a National Academy of Sciences or Office of Science and Technology Policy set up to inform the president, Lincoln needed advice on science. He also needed help evaluating the countless and sometimes crazy inventions people presented to him to assist the war effort. Our next discussion (April 23), "Lincoln, the Smithsonian, and Science," focuses on Lincoln’s use of the Smithsonian Secretary as one of his science advisors. President Obama’s science advisor, John P. Holdren, will shed light on today’s challenges to presidential science advising.  (If you can't make it to this discussion in person, we'll be webcasting it live.  Submit your questions and comments here during or before the event.)

As the old saying goes, “if you think it’s new, think again.” The bicentennial year of Lincoln’s birth is a good time to reflect and to learn some surprising things about what our ancestors were thinking, doing, and confronting 150 years ago. Because so many issues are still major challenges today, studying the past offers a great opportunity to better understand the 21st century world in which we live. I hope you’ll join us for the upcoming discussions in the series, when we’ll discuss issues like presidential powers during wartime, civil rights, emancipation, and African Americans in the military. I’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to discuss—why do you think we should care about Lincoln?

Christopher Wilson is the Director of Daily Programs and the Program in African American Culture at the National Museum of American History.