O Say Can You See?

From Kiyosato to Kiyo Sato

Kiyosato. At first, that name meant to me the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan. Its director is Eikoh Hosoe, a renowned photographer whose controversial exhibition, “Man and Woman,” I curated for the National Museum of American History many years ago. These art photographs of nudes were displayed in a museum which then, paradoxically, emphasized the history of technology. Five photographs from my exhibition remain in the museum’s photographic history collections.

But Kiyo Sato is the name of a woman. This delightful Japanese American came to the museum’s Archives Center in early 2009 with her daughter, Cia, and friends, to view a letter she had written to her teacher, Mary Aline Cox, during World War II. Kiyo and her family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans, had been removed from her home and placed in an internment camp. Kiyo and other former students at the Edward Kelly School in Sacramento wrote from internment camps and schools to Miss Cox, a kind, beloved figure who had tried to protect her Japanese American students during the evacuations mandated by Executive Order 9066. Internees were permitted to leave the camps if they had jobs, attended a college, or agreed to join the U.S. military, and passed investigations which certified their loyalty to the United States. E. Gerald Lamboley, a U.S. military intelligence officer, was tasked with investigating these young evacuees. One source of information was Miss Cox, who gave him letters from her former Japanese American students. He kept some letters, which over the years dwindled to only six, including one from Kiyo Sato, dated December 26, 1942. In 1992 Mr. Lamboley donated these letters to the Archives Center, where they were archived and catalogued.

In January 2009 Colleen Zoller wrote to us after seeing the description of the Lamboley Collection of Japanese-American Letters in the SIRIS (Smithsonian Institution Research Information System) online database. She provided Miss Cox’s full name, obituary, and other information, and identified Kiyo Sato as the author of the letter signed “Kiyo.” She mentioned Ms. Sato’s memoir, which centers on the internment experience and its aftermath. The memoir has been republished as Kiyo’s Story: A Japanese Family’s Quest for the American Dream. Since she was scheduled to speak at a Smithsonian program, with the help of Noriko Sanefuji in the museum’s Division of Home and Community Life, I invited her to visit the Archives Center during her Washington visit.

Ms. Sato was the first woman to be released from her desert internment camp to attend college. Her letter was written from Garrett, Indiana, where she spent Christmas vacation with the Nicholson family. She described her academic struggles, but said she was happy with college life; she said other students and professors were kind, but townspeople stared at her when she went shopping. She said she had been asked to speak to a women’s group about her internment experiences and had surprised herself by accepting, despite her discomfort with public speaking. She hoped her talk might promote understanding.

John Fleckner, founding director of the Archives Center, jokes that archivists basically “read dead people’s mail.” Miss Cox is gone but Kiyo Sato is very much alive. She was astounded that these letters had survived and were available to Archives Center researchers. At her request, I wrote to Mr. Lamboley, who is still living in Washington, and asked permission to give her his address and phone number. I was uncertain how he would react, since the letters had once served as evidence in a loyalty investigation; the need to prove their patriotism and loyalty was a sensitive subject for Japanese Americans who had suffered the internment nightmare. Mr. Lamboley quickly wrote that he would be delighted to speak to Ms. Sato about their shared history. I can imagine her questions! Archivists and curators often consider their collections as resources for dispassionate scholarly research, but also are keenly aware of the real-life, emotionally charged human experiences which they embody. I was deeply moved to see Ms. Sato,her daughter, and friends eagerly poring over these war letters and to sense the traumatic stories behind them.

I saw Eikoh Hosoe last November. I’ve meant to write to him about photography and museums. I may also ask about the war, when he was a teenager, and its impact on his photography. I’m eager to tell him about meeting Kiyo and how “Kiyosato” has taken on a dual meaning for me.

David Haberstich is Associate Curator in the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History.

The future of digital artifacts

At a recent professional conference, I came across the idea of “anticipatory democracy.” The context was a discussion on “Society and Museums in 2034,” which was also the subject of a recent study commissioned by the American Association of Museums. The idea of anticipatory democracy is that as organizations like the Smithsonian think out to the future , we do so in an inclusive way, allowing the community to help define that future.

In that spirit, a few months ago on this page I initiated a discussion about our own museum’s digital future, and asked readers for input on the question of whether the role of museums as trusted sources of online information would become more or less important in the digital age. The response warmed a humble museum professional’s heart: nearly three-quarters of respondents thought it would become more important, 18% thought it would remain about the same, and only 9% thought it would become less important.

Based on this unscientific survey, let us agree for the moment that museums will continue to play a vital role in the society of the future. There is still a lot of room for discussion about what that role entails and what particular strengths we can bring to bear in a time when access to information is proliferating, and the ways that people pursue learning and entertainment are changing.

Clearly, being a repository for the “real stuff” of history is one of the museum’s strengths, even when we are talking about digital representations. But as we must frequently remind people, only a small fraction of the three million artifacts in our collection can be on display in the museum at any given time. One of the great tasks before us is to make more artifacts “virtually” available to the public online. This task is approached in many ways by different museums, but typically it boils down to making tradeoffs between quality vs. quantity. Creating complete digital information about an artifact takes time—and so the more detailed the information, the slower the pace of progress (and vice versa).

This is where I come back to the issue of “trust.” Some argue that museums earn trust by ensuring that our digital artifacts are accompanied by complete, authoritative information (see, for example, this thorough description of an early 19th-century clock). Others are of the opinion that it’s more important to focus on exposing greater numbers of objects in our collection to the public, even if accompanying information is brief (for an example of an online collection that emphasizes quantity over written detail, see this group of patent medicines). These are the kinds of issues the museum is grappling with as we rethink our process and priorities for publishing artifact information online.

What do you think? Here is your chance to weigh in on the type and quality of information you expect from the National Museum of American History. Take our quick survey or share your thoughts in a comment.

(Don't see the poll above? Go here.) 

Matthew MacArthur is Director of New Media at the National Museum of American History.

Winner in a star-spangled dress

In honor of Independence Day, we asked our readers to vote on who was best dressed in red, white, and blue. The contestants were drawn from entries we received as part of our Star-Spangled Banner singing contest on YouTube (which concluded in May).

After a week of voting, I’m pleased to announce the winner of this mini-contest: it’s seven year old Ellie! In her video, Ellie—outfitted in a blue dress covered in white stars and decorated with red bows—performs a charming rendition of the national anthem. Standing in front of a stars and stripes bunting, Ellie’s face beams with pride and enthusiasm for the Star-Spangled Banner.

Thanks, Ellie, for sharing your song with us and for showing us how to dress up with patriotic flair!

Dana Allen-Greil is the new media project manager at the National Museum of American History.

Preserving humanity

The oral history program with renowned author and global environmentalist Lester Brown last month was an eloquent reminder that the stories and people behind our collections are as interesting as the objects themselves. Brown—who founded the Worldwatch Institute in 1974, the Earth Policy Institute in 2001, and has authored or coauthored 50 books—was interviewed on stage by noted historian Marc Pachter, formerly director of the National Portrait Gallery and acting director of the National Museum of American History. Pachter developed the notion of “Living Self Portraits” to encourage prominent people to describe important influences on their lives. For this program Pachter only interviews people in their 70s and older, and only if they are still mid-career in the sense that they continue to be actively productive and creative. The program was presented by the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation as part of its “Portraits of Invention” series. At 75, and with his latest book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization on its way to the printer, Brown epitomizes both the creativity and productivity Pachter studies and the innovative approaches documented by the Lemelson Center.

Marc Pachter (left) interviews Lester Brown (right).

Despite his prodigious writings and numerous speaking engagements, Lester Brown rarely speaks publicly about himself, so the program ploughed a lot of new ground—even for people like me who have known Brown for many years. Pachter was able to move beyond the standard biographical details: son of a tomato farmer and successful tomato farmer in his own right; seminal trip to India in an agricultural exchange program; productive and meteoric if irreverent stint at the U.S. Department of Agriculture; fortunate funding to start the Worldwatch Institute. We learned about Brown’s motivations, hopes and dreams, and left understanding more about how the son of a sharecropper became the type of person who meets with heads of state when he travels overseas. The considerable number of young people in the audience gained tremendous insight into how Brown got where he is today and were treated to a vivid demonstration of how a 75 year old can be phenomenally smart, energetic, and productive.

Pachter ended the program on an important point by calling Brown a humanist. He noted that, while many environmentalists rally to save the planet, Brown’s latest book is subtitled “Mobilizing to Save Civilization.” In fact, one of the hallmarks of Brown’s work from the start of his career has been to factor people into his environmental reasoning.

Likewise, our museum’s collections of oral histories focus on the humanity behind our objects. —including intriguing artifacts like a dictaphone recorder (from a man who never learned to type), index cards printed with Brown’s daily schedule that were kept hidden in his shirt pocket, and handwritten notes used throughout his career to prepare for talks. If you want to understand the man behind these artifacts, you can turn to this interview.

Who else would you like to see interviewed? You can let us know through your comments.

Judy Gradwohl is Associate Director for Public Programs. Before joining the National Museum of American History, she founded the Smithsonian’s Environmental Awareness Program.

4th of July 1905

This real photo postcard shows three young men enjoying the holiday weekend. The young man on the left has taken the photograph using a string attachment so he too can be in the photograph. The names of the young men seem to be on the actual tent, rather than added to the photo later. Their bed rolls can be seen inside the tent and fishing poles just outside.

Front—“This is what I sent to Gertrude. Camping out the 4th of July 1905. I took this picture with myself in it set camera up and used string attachment.” Real photo card, catalog number 86.3048.772.

Back.

Real photo postcards were incredibly popular from about 1900 to WWI. They were made on thick photo paper with the postcard info pre-printed the back. On this postcard, you can see the author has written his message on the front instead of the back. In 1907, postal regulations were changed to create the divided back postcard allowing senders to put messages and addresses on the back, keeping the front image unmarred.

The museum’s Photographic History Collection (PHC) has some 3,000 postcards exploring a range of topics made by amateur and professional photographers. Real photo postcards can still be found in antique stores, flea markets, and the like. In private collections, they are found among loose snapshots, albums, and framed images, sometimes surprising owners with a wealth of hidden information on the back.

The postmarks can help date the photo and begin tracking a chain of communication. In our example here, we have two friends communicating who live in different locations—the text references a third friend, Gertrude—and then there are the two young men in the photo. One can begin to see a social network building. (Note to teachers: Real photo postcards are great resources for creative writing projects.) You’ll notice, too, that the address looks different than the way we write them today. For instance there is no zip code. The zip code system wasn’t put into place until July 1, 1963.

One set of real photo postcards in the PHC reveals that mail in the Bedford, Massachusetts, area in the early 1900s was delivered several times a day. One young woman would invite friends for tea, or let them know she was leaving class early to catch a train to visit, and receive responses from them on the same day.

I like these real photo cards because they are often snapshots—casual events and milestones in life that were intentionally shared across time and space. They offer historians and researchers views into what some people thought was interesting enough and important enough to share with others—sort of like today’s Facebook, Shutterfly, Flickr, and other such image sharing sites—though perhaps with reduced numbers! If you are in the museum over the July 4th weekend, be sure to share your photos and memories of your visit with others by joining our group on the Flickr.

Happy Fourth of July!

Shannon Perich is Associate Curator for the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History.