O Say Can You See?

History Halloween how-tos

Still looking for a creative costume for your upcoming Halloween celebration? We have some quick ideas pulled straight from our collections, guaranteed to make you stand out in a sea of ninjas and sexy nurses.

George Washington
		Have a particularly admirable physique? Consider modeling yourself after our own George Washington statue. What you need: Sheet White body paint White wig Plastic sword Don’t forget: Hold the blade of the sword with the handle out, because you’re handing your power to the people.
Phyllis Diller
		A quick trip to a thrift store should provide you with everything you need to transform yourself into this American comedy legend. What you need: Crazy wig Bright shift dress Ankle booties Lots of black eyeliner Fake cigarette holder (hers was fake, too!) Don’t forget: Practice the laugh
John Brown
		Whether you consider him to be a traitor or a warrior for justice, you’re guaranteed to get attention dressed as John Brown. Just be careful people don’t mistake you for Mose Schrute.   What you need: Neutral-colored button down shirt and vest Toy gun Crazy eyes Don’t forget: Plenty of product in your hair to create that wild man volume.
Rosie the Riveter
		You can do it! What you need: Chambray or denim button-down shirt Red bandana Toy drill Don’t forget: Practice your flexing pose and look confident.
Muhammad Ali
		Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee all Halloween night. What you need: Bathrobe, with electrical tape for lettering on the back Boxing gloves Don’t forget: You’re the Greatest of all time!

Oh, we could go on…how about Indiana Jones? Julia Child?

Have other ideas? We want to see your historic halloween costume! Post your photos to our Flickr group or tweet us @amhistorymuseum with the hashtag #historyhalloween.

Megan Smith is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History, who aspires to have the time to finally put together a Marge Simpson costume one of these years.

Music and the American experience

This post is part two of a series. Read part one.

In addition to examples of nearly every kind of American and European instrument, the museum is home to several objects which were owned by famous musicians, such as Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet. The collections of sheet music and recordings at the museum cover a wide range of history, including everything from American popular songs in the Division of Culture and the Arts, health and doctors in the Division of Medicine and Science, and to military history in the Division of Armed Forces History.

WWI-era sheet music from 1915.

The Division of Political History also has a collection of political campaign songbooks and sheet music, including a 1789 copy of the “First President’s March” for George Washington. I saw prints and photographs of various Americans playing their instruments, some of them portraits of famous musicians from the Graphic Arts and Photography Collections, as well as a unique panorama of a Montana smelter workers’ union band at a Labor Day celebration in 1880 from the Division of Political History.

A 1849 print that depicts men dancing in a barn to a fiddler’s tune.

A Montana smelter workers’ union band at a Labor Day celebration in 1880.

The Popular Culture collection within the Division of Culture and the Arts contains window cards and programs related to Broadway musicals and performances by famous musicians, as well as clothing and costumes worn by these stars and other items that they owned. Similarly, the Division of Armed Forces History contains uniforms of army musicians, and the Disability Collection even contains a band uniform from the Michigan School for the Blind. Invitations and programs for musical events at the White House or inaugural ceremonies can be found in the Division of Political History.

Even more surprising, I found that the museum’s science and technology collections include many objects relevant to music and sound. There are type, plates, and proofs related to music engraving and printing from the Printing History Collection. Mechanical and electric phonographs, radios, televisions, recording devices, and experimental records, some used by such famous inventors as Thomas Edison, Emile Berliner, and Alexander Graham Bell, can be found in the Division of Work and Industry. The Division of Medicine and Science also holds some interesting music and sound-related objects, including tuning forks, goblets that formed a glass harmonica and anatomical models from the Cornell University Department of Psychology, which were used in experimental psychology studies on how physical and physiological acoustics connect to musical aesthetics.

Similar tuning forks, resonators, and whistles can be found in the Acoustics Collection. However, these were not used for experimental psychology studies, but are rather considered philosophical instruments and were used to demonstrate specific scientific or acoustical principles.

One of the major highlights of the Acoustics Collections is the one-of-a-kind Grand Tonometer made by Rudolf Koenig, a famous nineteenth-century acoustician. Holding 660 tuning forks in a stepped rack, this instrument was originally made to be a perfect frequency standard that could be used to test the number of vibrations producing any given note. More recently, it was used in 2010 by a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, who recorded samples of each tuning fork to use as source material in the creation of new musical works.

Rudolf Koenig’s Grand Tonometer.

Music and music-related objects are everywhere in the museum, highlighting the role that music plays in nearly every aspect of American life. Whether the topic is politics and reform movements, the armed forces, homes and communities, scientific advancement, or work and industry, music is never far behind. It is a touchstone that connects various academic disciplines and provides an interesting lens through which to look at the amazing variety of objects contained at the museum.

Alexis VanZalen is an intern with the Division of Culture and the Arts at the National Museum of American History.

 

Finding music in unexpected places

An experimental telegraph, a unique device used to spread seeds, an object named the "Greffuhle,” a list of all the places where one man traveled while serving in the Civil War—what do all these objects from the museum's collections have in common?

One would never guess it but in fact each of these items are, or are made out of, violins. In 1875 Elisha Gray was granted a patent for an "Electric Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones." One of his telegraph models, part of the Electricity Collection of the museum’s Division of Work and Industry, used a novel approach. A violin was used as a resonator which produced the musical tones transmitted through the telegraph wire. Another item, the unique nineteenth century seeder in the Division of Work and Industry’s Agriculture Collection, actually uses a fiddle bow to spread seeds from a spinning disk.

 
(Left) Elisha Gray, inventor of the Electric Telegraph for Transmitting Musical Tones.(Right) Named for the French nobleman who once owned it, the “Greffuhle” is a rare decorated Stradivarius violin.

There is a violin in the collections used for another purpose: as a war diary. Solomon Conn, a Civil War soldier with Company B of the 87th Indiana Volunteers, recorded a list of his travels and battles on the back of his "Greffuhle” violin, turning the instrument into a unique document of his adventures and military record.

Civil War soldier Solomon Conn of Company B of the 87th Indiana Volunteers used his violin as a record of his travels and battles.

As I quickly realized during my summer internship at the museum, music is a topic which connects with a far broader range of collections than one might expect. My job was to find and catalog all the instances where music is represented in the museum’s artifacts. My sponsor? One member of a brand new and growing Smithsonian community called "Music at the Smithsonian” which is committed to serving as a hub for Smithsonian Institution musical research, exhibitions, education, outreach, and public engagement.

As an initial step of learning about some of the Smithsonian’s musical resources which could inspire such research or programming, I spent my internship discovering music-related objects from all areas of the museum’s collections. I found myself on a journey of discovering how these objects create a deep and nuanced picture of the role of music in American life and of music’s intersection with numerous topics and academic disciplines.

Editor’s note: This is part one of a series. Check out part two for more exciting music discoveries.

Alexis VanZalen is an intern with the Division of Culture and the Arts at the National Museum of American History. 

General Grant’s sword takes the cake

As a member of the Military History Collections Project team, I research the official collection records of the museum for information about the objects being inventoried by my colleagues.

Sounds a little boring, doesn’t it? Sure, some of the accession files that I process simply hold the standard paperwork that contain dry but important legal details,  such as the date on which the museum received the objects. More often, however, the files reveal vivid stories that bring to life the objects and the people who use them, like unusual military uniforms. However, of all the intriguing tales that I have encountered, this one takes the cake.

On March 6, 1962, Ulysses S. Grant III wrote the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution begging for a rather strange loan agreement. His sister and the first grandchild of President Ulysses S. Grant (who was born in the Executive Mansion during his presidency and later married into Russian nobility), Princess Julia Grant Cantacuzene, desired to help throw a most festive tenth anniversary party for the Republican Women’s Conference. In order to cut the eight-foot tall birthday cake, the ladies required an equally impressive carving piece. That utensil just so happened to reside in the Division of Military History in the form of one of General Grant’s swords.

Inscribed “PRESENTED / BY / G.W. Graham. C.B. Lagow. / C.C. Marsh & John Cook. / 1861," this sword and scabbard were given to General Grant in March 1862. Colonel C. C. Marsh remarked that “they were ordered long since, and before a glorious victory…but they have fortunately been delayed…” because it now “affords us an opportunity to express our renewed confidence in your ability as a commander.”

While this arrangement is far from acceptable by today’s standards, museum practices were a little different in the 1960s. In fact, David Miller—our Associate Curator who specializes in firearms and weapons—affirms that the loaning of swords for cake cutting wasn’t all that bizarre. For many years, the Smithsonian Institution cared for Presley O’Bannon’s sword under a loan from the U.S. Marine Corps. “It was routinely sent out to cut the cake at the annual USMC Birthday Ball,” explained Miller. As to its current whereabouts: “That sword is now at the National Museum of the Marine Corps and they don’t use it to cut cake anymore.”

A close up of the hilt. The sword was presented  to the Smithsonian in 1886 by Julia Dent Grant and William H. Vanderbilt.

The Smithsonian Institution replied that it would be happy to loan a sword, provided that the sword be delivered directly to a member of the Grant family rather than the organization because of its historical value. Curator Edgar Howell even recommended a specific sword out of the four Grant swords in the museum’s collections because of “its direct connection with one of Grant’s early victories” and, more importantly, “its clean cut lines.”

This sword is referred to as the “Donelson Sword” in the accession file because it was presented to General Grant in 1862 following the Union victory at Fort Donelson. It was given to the Smithsonian in 1886 by Julia Dent Grant and William H. Vanderbilt along with about 225 other objects related to the military and political careers of Ulysses S. Grant.

This document from the accession file illustrates the agreement made by the Smithsonian Institution to release the sword to Edgar Howell on April 15, 1962 for its secure delivery to Julia Grant Cantacuzene.

The anniversary party for the Republican Women’s Conference—which had been gathering female leaders from across the United States for spring meetings since 1953—received much anticipation. A Washington Post article titled “Gen. Grant Sword To Cut GOP Cake” described the gigantic confection as a four-tiered cake composed of three “dummy” layers of plywood topped off with an eighteen-inch tall edible cake layer. The entire creation would “be covered with sugar frosting and garlanded with edible sugar trimmings in flag red and blue-on-white background.”

On the evening of Sunday, April 15, 1962, Edgar Howell personally escorted General Grant’s sword to Julia Grant Cantacuzene in the Continental Room of the Statler Hilton in Washington, D.C. Princess Cantacuzene then passed the cake cutter to some of the female leaders of the Republican Party. From their specially constructed “cake walk” platform, they ceremoniously sliced the “elephant-sized cake.” Howell carefully returned the sword to the museum that night. Later that week, Cantacuzene wrote a warm letter of thanks to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, stating that “without the loan of the sword much of the interest and romance would have been lacking in the celebration.”

Today, you can find this sword in the National Museum of American History’s “Communities in a Changing Nation” exhibition. The icing remnants may be long gone, but it’s still serving up some great stories.

Lauren Jaeger is a Collections Documentation Contractor in Collections Documentation Services with the Military History Collections Project at the National Museum of American History.

 

Disbinding the Jefferson bible

Editor’s note: This blog is the fourth in a series of posts about the Jefferson bible conservation project.

It is difficult to describe how one faces the prospect of taking apart a national treasure. Of course, in order to reach the level of craftsmanship required, there are years of education and practice required, but that doesn’t begin to fully describe it. There are equal parts calm and anxiety, bravery and faith. To this conservator, it felt like a lunar landing, of sorts; after countless hours of preparation, one small step made with one sharp knife.

Removing the cover

The goal of conservation treatment is the physical and chemical stabilization of an artifact. Finding a way to accomplish both goals with minimal risk and without compromising the historical integrity of the artifact is the challenge. After completing an exhaustive survey and analytical testing of the Jefferson bible, conservators at the museum examined the results and considered numerous treatment options. One-by-one, they eliminated various chemical stabilization treatments, determining that solutions which could benefit some of the materials used in Jefferson’s “little volume” placed other materials at risk.

Oxygen-free storage was ultimately determined to be the best solution to address the chemical reactions and provide the optimum long-term preservation environment. In the end, the only viable conservation treatment option was physical stabilization. Since the bookbinding had caused thousands of tears throughout the pages of the book, the binding needed to be modified and the fragile pages needed to be repaired. Without making these changes, the volume could never be exhibited or used again without causing further damage. The curator agreed, and authorized the disbinding of the Jefferson bible with the understanding that once page repairs were completed, the book would be rebound into its original covers again.

 
Separating the pages.

Since the original bookbinder had glued multiple layers of paper beneath the leather spine, the knife edge needed to pass between those layers, leaving an intact leather cover on one side and an intact Jefferson bible textblock on the other. With great care, the task was accomplished in just under seven hours. Once the cover was placed around a textblock-shaped support in order to maintain its original shape, the focus turned to the Jefferson pages.

On the second day of the disbinding process, the remaining layers of spine-lining paper and adhesive were removed from the back of the pages. Then, the sewing threads were gently snipped with surgical scissors, and the pages were lifted free. At last, the book was disbound, and the pages were as Jefferson had made them; forty three folios of paper.

Janice Stagnitto Ellis is the Senior Paper Conservator at the National Museum of American History.