O Say Can You See?

Want to change your seven-year-old's life?

Many of the staff who work here at the National Museum of American History are “museum advocates” (AKA fans). Not only do we love visiting museums, but we believe in their power; for many of us, museum work becomes a life-long career. But there are plenty of museum advocates in the world who work outside of museums, can’t afford museum memberships, or don’t get to walk into a museum 5 days a week. They just love museums and try to get them into their lives and into the lives of the people around them.

Researchers have recently discovered that most people who grow up to be museum advocates had an important museum experience around the age of 7. Some of my colleagues heard this news with smiling nods, remembering their own experience that forever changed them into museum advocates. Unlike them, I drew a blank.

The author (at age 8) and her sister in front of the First Ladies exhibition in 1993.

As a kid, we went to tons of museums and zoos. But what was The Experience that changed me? Maybe it was the gopher tunnels at the Bronx Zoo that I could actually climb around in. Perhaps it was the historic barracks at Trenton that I visited in fifth grade. Or maybe, just maybe, it was a family trip to the First Ladies exhibition at the museum for which I now work. To this day, I continue to love the way historical clothing (like the fancy gowns in the First Ladies collection) brings history down to human-scale and immediately makes the stories of the past seem more relatable to my own times and life.

I hope what we do at the museum inspires some of our little visitors to become museum advocates. Maybe it will be seeing how a cotton gin works before they’re old enough to know there’s another definition for “gin.” Maybe it will be tinkering in Invention at Play. Or, maybe their parents will download one of my OurStory activities and spark a love of museums somewhere entirely outside of our museum in Washington, D.C.

In closing, I ask you: Are you a museum advocate? (If you’re reading this blog, I bet the chances are good.) Do you remember The Experience that made you into one? Tell us how YOU are encouraging kids to be museum advocates.

Jenny Wei is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History and is willing to put awful photos of herself on the Internet to spark conversation.

Internet uttered "lo" forty years ago

On the bottom edge of this pigment print (a type of digitally printed photograph) by Robert Weingarten, is the text “29 Oct 69 22:30 Talked to SRI Host to Host.” It seems rather innocuous but, in fact, the quiet success it records enables you to read this very blog. Forty years ago, the first Internet message, under the supervision of Leonard Kleinrock, was sent to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) from the UCLA computer lab. The “CSK” you see on the right edge of the image stands for Charley Klein, who recorded the log entry. According to Kleinrock’s Web site, they crashed the system the first time they tried. The message that was sent was simply, “lo”, the first two letters of “login.” They succeeded an hour later.

29 Oct 69 22:30 Talked to SRI CSLC Host to Host. Copyright Robert Weingarten.

This photograph was not collected for its Internet story, however. It is part of series of images by Weingarten who asked his subjects, all noted American icons, “What makes you who you are?” His subjects supply him with a list of meaningful ideas and objects. Weingarten then photographs those items from the lists and brings them together digitally to create a visual biography.

In this translucent composite are the diagrams—see those circles and arrows?—from Kleinrock’s 1963 Ph.D. dissertation in which he developed the mathematical theory of packet networks that is the technological underpinning of the Internet.

The very wires that sent the message are visible in the image, a filter that you look through. The brick exterior of the UCLA lab is also used as an overall texture. Leonard Kleinrock is not a household name to most of us, so—in case you needed a bit of a hint as to the subject of this photo—there is a clue in the upper right corner in the cover of a book with his name on it. Anyone for a quick read on stochastic message flow?

See Kleinrock’s office receding into the background? You can imagine him donning the sweater and tie on the left when he needs to fill his professorial role at UCLA. The Eagle Scout award illustrates one of the defining experiences his life. As if this photograph isn’t enough of a visual puzzle already, a mind-bending print by illustrator M.C. Escher occupies the lower right corner.

What makes you who you are? What would you include in your visual biography? Perhaps you’ll help us celebrate this technological anniversary by sending the museum your own Internet message? You have a lot more options today than Leonard Kleinrock had in 1969. You can leave a comment at the end of this post, add a photo to our Flickr group, post a message on our Facebook wall, or—if you’d like to keep it short and sweet in honor of "lo"—send us a 140-character message on Twitter. 

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

Putting names with the faces of braceros

I was interning at the National Museum of American History when I first encountered the photographic images of Leonard Nadel, who spent several years photographing bracero communities throughout the Southwestern United States and Mexico. I looked through the collection anxiously, thinking that perhaps I would find an image one of my uncles who participated in the Bracero Program. I never found them. But as we started collecting oral histories the possibility of coming across the men featured in these pictures seemed plausible. Like my own relatives, these men had names and I wanted to identify them. I felt that by adding names to faces it would somehow make them more human.

I began working on the Bracero History Project as a graduate student at Brown University. Although I had taken seminars in public humanities and was trained to carry out oral histories, nothing could prepare me for working directly on a national project focused on such a controversial part of American history. My experience working with ex-braceros forced me to grapple with questions of trauma, marginalization, and the role of public history.

We started the collecting process by inviting braceros to town hall meetings in several towns in the Southwest where we projected images of the Nadel photographs to explain the project. As the images appeared on the screen, the ex-braceros—who were now elderly men—added their own commentary. The men looked at the images with conviction—“That’s what really happened”—as if they needed to affirm to non-braceros the reality of their experiences. Many of the men felt the history of the Bracero Program was forgotten in a national amnesia about Mexican guest workers, and these photographs served as a reminder of their stories. In several of the town hall meetings former braceros asked to view the images a second time. They cherished the postcards we distributed featuring Nadel images and often asked for additional postcards for family members. Eventually, curator Steve Velasquez decided to make large prints out of the images so that ex-braceros could view at their own pace.

One image in particular from the collection always caused a stir: a cropped image depicting DDT sprayings of braceros. Nadel had cropped out the naked body of braceros from the waist down and we decided to show this version in consideration of young members of the audience. We chose this photograph because we were not sure how ex-braceros would react. I imagined that if I was the young man in the forefront of the photo, I would not want to encounter the uncropped image for the first time on a screen, sitting in an audience with my family members. We grappled with questions of ethics in public history.

Photograph by Leonard Nadel.

We later learned that the men wanted and needed to see the photos depicting the most humiliating circumstances. Men in the audience explained that the sprayings, along with medical inspections, were the most dehumanizing experiences of the contracting process and perhaps of their entire experience as braceros. An ex-bracero angrily explained what had been cropped—that the workers were naked—and argued that people should see the complete image. He felt we were hiding the truth with the cropped photograph and that the truth needed public exposure. “Where were human rights then? Were we not human?” I realized then that it was through the most dehumanizing experiences that many braceros made a claim to their humanity.

Some of the men’s voices would crack or their eyes would well up with tears as they pointed at the photographs and said things like, “I worked like that.” Because the meetings were large, I imagined the possibility that some of the braceros depicted in the images might be in the audience. I wanted someone in the audience to stand up and say, “That’s me.” It never happened but it came close.

For the meeting in El Paso, several of Nadel’s images were enlarged and placed around the room. The faces of the braceros in the photographs were almost life size. As families came in they viewed the enlargements and some even touched the images. It was there that an older gentleman pulled me aside and told me, “That is my brother, Santos, in that picture.” He explained with sadness that his brother had passed away and he had no images of his brother. He asked for a copy of the photograph. My heart sank at the news his brother was no longer alive. But I was encouraged that at least I finally had a name to one of the men I had so often looked at. Santos was no longer another face in a sea of anonymous braceros.

Mireya Loza is a fellow at the National Museum of American History.

Recipe of the Week: Julia Child’s La Tarte Tatin

Today’s post is the tenth in a series of weekly Julia Child recipes. This week, Jan Lilja, Associate Director for Management and Museum Services, tries her hand at La tarte des demoiselles Tatin . . . with some, shall we say, “artistic” results.

“I think good rolling pins are awfully important . . .” 

On an episode of The French Chef Julia declared (while tossing one over her shoulder) that the rolling pins found in most American kitchens were “toys,” and proceeded to show her television viewers what real rolling pins were all about. Julia had six heavy-duty rolling pins—each distinctive—stored in a copper stock pot in her pastry pantry, just off the main kitchen. A rolling pin is an essential tool for making La Tarte Tatin, this week’s recipe. We recommend using the fourth version of this recipe, as published in The Way to Cook. Julia declared this version the “definitive recipe” because the Tarte came out perfectly, not collapsing during unmolding (as seen on The French Chef episode) or sticking to the pan. 

Where to Find the Master Recipe for La tarte des demoiselles Tatin

• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, p. 638
• The Way to Cook, p. 434
• The French Chef, episode “La Tarte Tatin,” available online at PBS.org
• An online version from the “rollin in the dough” blog 

Jan’s Story 

I don’t own Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but do have a second hand copy of From Julia Child’s Kitchen that I’ve never used, so I happily volunteered to try the Tarte Tatin recipe for this museum blogathon. I was a bit apprehensive—having cooked for my family for almost thirty years I generally cook without a recipe. I cook from the senses: taste, smell, feel, and intuition. 

I wasn’t sure that I would have the mental discipline to follow an extensive recipe without change or modification. However, the book mentioned that Tarte Tatin was originally created by les Demoiselles Tatin who lived in the Loire valley. Good karma, since I was an overseas student in the Loire valley many years ago. I resolved to try, hoping that the end result would be a tarte les Demoiselles Tatin would recognize, as opposed to something in keeping with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. (If you don’t know, Google it!) Especially since this tarte was slated to be dessert at the birthday dinner for my sister Karen and her husband Kevin—both born in October. Bon courage, alors. 

So, I actually read the recipe most of the way through before starting. My first issue with the recipe came up right away with the first line and the first ingredient. Julia recommended using Golden Delicious apples—usually bland and a little mushy—a bad choice a mon gout. So I made the first modification—I used mostly Golden Delicious but with a few organic Granny Smith apples for flavor and texture. Further, Julia’s recipe called for using vegetable shortening in addition to butter in the crust. Crisco? Could she be advocating Crisco? Phut. No way. I deviated again—substituting Smart Balance butter blend for the amount of vegetable shortening in the recipe. 

I happily found as I went along that my free-form modification and breezy cooking is perhaps a good thing. For example, the recipe called for kneading the dough—but didn’t mention the need for flour on the hands and the pastry board, which I knew to do anyway, increasing my confidence. The dough formed quickly as it was supposed to and I put it in the fridge to chill for the day. 

Hours later, upon my return to the kitchen, a major decision awaited concerning the pie pan. Tarte Tatin has to be cooked in an oven resistant frying pan—the tarte is heated on the stove top, cooked in the oven, and returns once more to the stove top for finishing. It is a fuel-intensive dish—probably a huge energy footprint for a dessert. The recipe called for a 9” x 2” deep flame-proof frying pan. No such thing in my kitchen. But I did have a secondhand copper oval-shaped frying pan—two inches deep. Would it work? Incredibly, from the deep recesses of my mind I remembered that the area of a circle is equivalent to pi r². Measuring the radius of my oval fry pan (width wise) and then adding on an additional 25% area to compensate for the oval ends was about the same as pi r² for a 9” frying pan! Hurray! Basically, I had no choice in the matter—but it’s always nice when the data analysis confirms one’s priors—I wasn’t a CBO budget analyst for nothing. Heh, heh. 

The next few steps were pretty straightforward—peeling apples, sugar, lemon juice, more sugar, lemon rind, more sugar—all topped with the rolled crust, tucked down the sides. 

 

The pan, with the crust cover, is then placed on the stove to cook until the apple juice “thickens into a syrup.” What Julia doesn’t say—but assumes that you will figure out—is that one has to peek, using a spoon to push the crust aside and check. Then the pan pops into the oven for 30 minutes or so, comes out when the crust is golden brown, and goes back on the stove to boil away more liquid. 

 

“When there is no more liquid to boil away” is when the tarte is ready to invert onto a platter, according to the book. This is not great advice. When there was no more liquid to boil away was the same nanosecond when I started to smell carbon. Not a good sign. We quickly removed the pan from the heat, but neither my sister nor I could manage the one-hand flip of the pan onto the platter—the birthday boy had to help with that. 

Then—quel dommage—the tarte did not come out in one complete piece (unlike pineapple upside down cake, which always works). 

Rather—some stayed in the pan. This must be the standard operating hazard for this tarte as Julia advised in the cookbook that if some of the tarte stayed behind in the pan to simply scoop it out and mush it on to the top. 

Well, she didn’t exactly say mush—but that is the technique!!! Yes, it ended up looking a little “demoiselles d’Avignon” after all. Sigh. But the birthday couple took it in stride.

 

 

The taste? The value proposition? Sorry Team Julia—I remain unconvinced about this cookbook and La Tarte Tatin. I find there is fresher taste, more nutrition, less time involved, and indubitably a lower energy footprint for my tried-and-true Mennonite cookbook apple crisp with oatmeal crumble topping. Next time I will bake the apple crisp in the copper oval fry pan for a little extra sophistication and flair francais—but really, made with tart autumn apples and brown sugar it just tastes better than this Golden Delicious tarte. Below is my highly recommended apple crisp alternative for casual cooks to enjoy this autumn. 

Easy Apple Crisp 

Combine and put in greased casserole:

• 3 cups sliced tart apples; 1 Tablespoon flour; ¼ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; shake or two of salt; 1 Tablespoon water. 

Mash together with a fork:

• ½ cup folled oats; 3 or 4 shakes of salt; ¼ cup butter or margarine; 1/3 cup brown sugar. 

Sprinkle crumbled mixture on top of apples and bake 35 minutes in 375 degree oven. 

Do try this at home! 

We invite you to join with us in this celebration of Julia Child’s life, work, and contributions to American culinary history. Please share your experiences making Julia Child’s recipes by posting your story, photos, or video on our Tumblr page for this recipe series. Don’t forget to check back next week. 

Jan Lilja is the Associate Director for Management and Museum Services at the National Museum of American History.

Have you met Anna?

As floor managers, we sometimes spend hours interacting with visitors—some of whom are more cheerful than others after a long visit to the nation’s capitol. These experiences make us even more impressed by the efforts of the museum’s amazing team of historical facilitators who make our daily programs possible. Our troupe of five is responsible for the behind-the-scenes legwork that makes our historical theater programs happen.

A typical day for a facilitator begins with a quick meeting and then at trip around the museum before the building opens to run sound checks and make sure props and equipment are in the right place.

Next up, the fun part—running the shows! Each facilitator spends 30 minutes prepping for a show by setting up stools and stanchions—an unrewarding job they do with a smile! Once the show begins, their roles vary depending on their assignments. They might run a Q&A session about the Civil Rights Movement or set up some of our WWII-era props. Perhaps they will cue music for a song program or encourage a child to meet a historic character. Facilitators also bring out original or reproduction items that you can touch. They might take out our original 1952 Kelsey Printing Press and let you print your own card. On some days, they will even let you hold a reproduction Brown Bess Rifle, the type used in the American Revolution.

On your next visit, you might chat with some of our facilitators. Look for Anna to teach you about rice growing in the South Carolina Lowcountry or Shani to help you experience what it was like for Mary Pickersgill to sew the Star Spangled Banner. Discuss with Bob his personal experiences participating in the Civil Rights Movement or speak with Kiah about reproduction items from the Revolutionary War.  And keep an eye out for Lara who can tell you all about stereoscopes—items a lot like the Viewfinders you might have at home!

Many thanks to our facilitators, whose passion to help people connect with history fuels the success of our many programs.

Johanna Mutz and Erin Nielsen are floor managers at the National Museum of American History.