O Say Can You See?

In their own words: Auto safety pioneers

In today's post, Roger White, Associate Curator for Road Transportation with the Division of Work and Industry, shares the stories behind auto safety artifacts in the museum's collection.

Since the 1970s, Americans have witnessed an amazing number of safety improvements in automobiles and the driving environment. Seat belts, air bags, safer fuel tanks, the Jaws of Life, and anti-driving while intoxicated (DWI) campaigns are some of the devices and social movements that reduced the historically high auto fatality rate. Many objects in the museum's collection shed light on these initiatives.

Because the devices and social movements are products of recent decades, many of their creators are still active. We invited auto safety pioneers to tell us their stories in their own words and reflect on the meaning of the objects. These objects are not currently on display but are informing research and other work behind the scenes.

Tribute to Cari Lightner from her classmates

Candace Lightner became nationally known in the early 1980s when she founded Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD). In her 1990 book, Giving Sorrow Words, she shares the loss of her daughter Cari at the hands of an intoxicated driver and her decision to prevent others from suffering the same terrible loss.

What I find most interesting about the story behind Candace's and Cari's objects is how successful MADD became in a short time and how ineffective previous temperance and auto safety movements had been. (Less effective attempts include Prohibition and the 1948 Tucker safety car.) Reform movements do not always bring about positive change. But with MADD, "kicking a few pebbles" turned into an "avalanche of protest from the long forgotten victims of the country's most often committed crime," in Candace's words. New state and federal laws put pressure on the legal system to rein in driving under the influence. MADD's high public profile caused society as a whole to disavow the leniency and tolerance that characterized attitudes about drinking and driving. MADD was a giant flash bulb that exposed a way of life long ingrained in American culture. A 1933 Constitutional amendment repealing Prohibition said that it was OK to drink, but it took 50 years and thousands of lives for Americans to decide that it was not OK to drink and drive. Cari Lightner was the one life that became the turning point.

Roadside sign from Carlsbad, New Mexico

In the 1990s, several states came up with the idea of memorializing DWI victims on roadside signs as a way to express social outrage and turn the tide of public opinion against a culture of leniency and tolerance with regard to drinking and driving. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, the Eddy County DWI Program added the most poignant feature of all: faces of DWI victims on memorial signs. 

Program Coordinator Cynthia Sharif commented, "We have found that to put a face with a name personalizes the message and delivers a greater impact on the motoring public. The signs serve as stark reminders of the high cost of DWI and reinforce the message that anyone can be the victim of an impaired driver." These unique portraits honor and remember victims in ways that no other medium can accomplish. The sign donated to the National Museum of American History bears the faces of Isaiah Carrillo and his brother Freddy Carrillo, the youngest DWI victims in Eddy County since the program began.

Ralph Nader and Byron Bloch point out the rear location of the Ford Pinto fuel tank at a press conference in Washington, D. C., 1978. Courtesy of Byron Bloch

Where to place the fuel tank in a car?  It's a simple question that didn't become controversial until the 1960s, when auto manufacturers removed some of the heavy steel frame that once surrounded the chassis. The fuel tank remained where it had been for decades, under the wide, flat trunk. That led to a problem: when a car was rear-ended, the fuel tank ruptured and caught fire, and motorists died.

Byron Bloch, an auto safety expert trained in industrial design, started a campaign to relocate the fuel tank forward of the rear axle, where it couldn't be rammed. When the Ford Pinto's fuel tank became a focal point of the controversy, Bloch took his color-coded Pinto model, now in the museum's collection, to trial after trial to show how dangerous the rear fuel tank location was. After a highly publicized trial in 1980, auto makers switched to a mid-chassis fuel tank design. In Bloch's prophetic words, "I believed that this trial finally could convince the auto industry to stop placing fuel tanks in the vulnerable location near the rear bumper."

Mike Brick demonstrates the Jaws of Life. Courtesy of Kevin Brick.

Before the 1970s, removing accident survivors from crumpled cars was an agonizingly slow process.  Fire department responders used a variety of tools designed for other purposes—pry bars, chain saws, sledge hammers, winches, and jacks—to reach motorists. In the 1960s, George Hurst, who was famous for introducing the Hurst Shifter to auto racing, tried something new at the race track when a car cracked up: a 350-pound hydraulic spreader tool that dangled from an A-frame on the front of a pickup truck. 

In 1970, Hurst hired Mike Brick to make the tool more practical and place it on the market. Brick designed a slim, powerful, hand-held caliper that could spread sheet metal, pop doors, and create a wide gap in a fraction of the time that conventional tools required. Suddenly the objective changed from removing motorists to removing the car around the motorists. 

By the end of the 1970s, thousands of fire departments had purchased the Hurst Power Rescue Tool (nicknamed the Jaws of Life) through Mike Brick’s marketing efforts, which included national exposure on the television program "Emergency!" The tool donated to the museum was used by the Carlsbad (New Mexico) fire department from 1977 to 2012.

Roger White is Associate Curator of Road Transportation at the National Museum of American History. Interviews with each donor as well as additional photos are available on the America on the Move exhibition page here.

History in sugar cube-sized pieces and under 140 characters

A recent tour group saw all kinds of interesting artifacts behind the scenes, from the first implanted heart to a baggy of chads from the Florida election recount—and tweeted the whole thing.

Curator Katherine Ott's eyes glow mischievously as she shows off what might look like odd, even disturbing objects in the museum's Medical History Collection to our modern eyes. Back in the day, they were the state of the art. Holding long, metal tongs in her gloved hands, she asks the 15 participants in the museum's first behind-the-scenes "tweet-up" tour, "What do you think this device did?"

 

Physicians used a tonsilotome, like this one from the 1880s. A swift, one-handed motion would remove the tonsils. This photo is by tweet-up participant Han Nguyen (@hanseldee on Twitter) via the Creative Commons license.

It's a "tonsil guillotine," used to perform the most common surgical procedure in the United States from 1915 to the 1960s : removal of the tonsils. Reactions range from "ew, yuck" to "ooh, cool" and they aren't just verbal. While touring two of the museum's collections storage areas, tour participants shared the experience via social media, allowing followers and friends to tag along as they squealed over a Civil War-era stomach pump and thumb mitts designed to keep kids from sucking their thumbs.

 

Toddler-sized aluminum mitts from the early 20th century prevented thumb-sucking. Photo by Karon Flage (@Karon on Twitter) via the Creative Commons license.

Physicians used stomach pumps to prevent death from poisoning as well as to feed patients who could not swallow. Jailers used stomach pumps to force-feed imprisoned suffragettes to break their hunger-strikes. This stomach pump is from the Civil War era. Photo by Liz Williams (@wizzerfly on Twitter) via the Creative Commons license.

The game of "guess the mystery object" was trickier among the collections overseen by Curator William L. Bird. A sugar cube-sized piece of metal turned out to be a piece of the Bastille. A hunk of nondescript granite is a chipping from Plymouth Rock. A sliver of rough wood was chipped from the railroad tie where the east and west railroads met at Promontory Point, Utah.

"It's a good thing these things are labeled," says Bird, whose book Souvenir Nation will provide another peek into these fascinating objects, "Otherwise, you’d have no idea what they are."

 

Piece of the Bastille, Paris, France, ca. 1380. Gift of Mrs. Sarah Ella Cummings, 1924.The storming of the Bastille, a former royal garrison and prison in the city of Paris, on July 14, 1789, was a seminal event in the history of the French Republic and a revolutionary symbol that has been celebrated in Franco-American relations ever since. The demolition of the Bastille left a debris field that fed the market for Revolutionary relics in France, England, and the United States. Photo by Karon Flage (@Karon on Twitter) via the Creative Commons license.

Plymouth Rock fragment. Gift of the heirs of Mrs. Virginia L. W. Fox, 1911. In the early 1800s, tourists visiting Plymouth Rock were provided a hammer so that they could take a piece of the rock as a souvenir. Photo by Andres Almeida (@andresdavid on Twitter) used via the Creative Commons license.

Wooden chip cut from a railroad tie, Promontory, Utah, 1869. Traveling west with his mother in June 1869, eight-year-old Hart F. Farwell stopped at Promontory, Utah, to cut a chip from a special railroad tie. The previous month, on May 10, 1869, the ceremonial "Golden Spike" had been driven into the "last tie" to complete the first transcontinental rail link in the United States. Gift of Hart F. Farwell, 1922. Photo by Hilary-Morgan Watt (@bluelikechagall on Twitter) via the Creative Commons license.

 

But what are they? The tiny, easy-to-pocket tidbits of history are relics from a time when attitudes towards collecting, historic preservation, and national memory were different. Getting souvenir from your travels often meant physically taking a piece of history home with you—even if that damaged the original. So many tourists took home pieces of the Promontory Point railroad tie that it needed to be replaced regularly.

Today, pocketing relics at historic sites is against the rules. And what's the point of cherishing a wood splinter that, minus an identifying label, looks like any old piece of mulch? I suppose you could also ask why 15 people tweeted a photo of that same splinter to their friends, sharing a bite-sized piece of history in 140 characters.

For the people around the world following the tour through Twitter, the answer was clear. "I'm obsessed with these #sitweetup posts! Wish I was there!" someone tweeted from Fredericksburg, Virginia. A resident of Germany tweeted, "Trying to pack for my trip to Edinburgh tomorrow but too distracted by all the interesting #SITweetup posts!"

 

A tweet from Shropshire, England. Metrics indicate that as many as 1,156,000 Twitter users may have seen #SItweetup tweets.

As Ott showed us a few keys that were made by patients in a psychiatric hospital from found materials such as nails, wire, and cans, the group had more questions than she had answers. "We don't know who made these or why," she said. Did they use the keys to escape or to access a food pantry? We don’t know. "But there's somebody present in them —through their ingenuity," she said. "You can tell there's a person, an individual behind these objects. This is their tangible history."

 

Patients at Winnebago State Hospital in Wisconsin made these key from "found" materials.

Like relic collectors bringing home pieces of historic sites to prove they were there, many of us crave a personal connection to history—a way to connect with the stories behind the stuff. As I looked around the room at tweet-up participants listening to our curators, taking photos, and posting tweets, I saw them each sharing their own take on history.

Highlights of the tweet-up can be seen in this colorful summary.

Erin Blasco is an education specialist in the museum's New Media Department. She'd like to thank the participants of the tweet-up for making our first one a success. Serenety, Andres, Lynsey, Erin, Meghan, Karon, Paul, Han, Julia, Erin, Chris, Hilary-Morgan, and Liz, thank you! Another big thanks to curators William L. Bird and Katherine Ott for sharing their enthusiasm for the museum's collections and stories. If you work at another museum and would like advise on hosting a tweet-up, e-mail Erin at blascoe@si.edu. 

Saying so long to "Sweet & Sour"

Curator's note: The following post is the latest from our Sweet & Sour series, part of a project to explore the culture and history of Chinese in America through food and restaurants. Through it, we hope to tell a broader story of immigration and acceptance for all Americans.

While the Sweet and Sour display was recently de-installed to make way for another showcase in our artifact walls, the traveling exhibition hits the road in 2014. In commemoration of the exhibition's de-installation, please read intern Edward Pagliarulo’s account of the show's original installation.

Visitors to museums seldom get to see the installation of exhibits, which is why I was eager enough to get up at 6:45 AM in order to come and assist in set up the Sweet and Sour showcase on a Wednesday morning in summer 2011. Sweet and Sour replaced a display on Hawai'i and gave a snapshot of Chinese food in America.

In witnessing it get assembled, I was given a glimpse of how exhibitions come into being. The background, an enlarged graphic of a Chinese restaurant menu from Hawai'i, was already in place along with several custom-made boxes upon which the objects would rest. The panels are made in-house and looked incredible, giving a nice backdrop to the objects while setting the theme of Sweet and Sour.

I was surprised by how quickly the showcase was put together, taking only around an hour and a half before it looked ready to go. All the boxes, signs, and objects had a very specific place and orientation mapped out previously in the design phase by the museum's exhibition designer, Nigel Briggs. On installation day, it was merely a matter of gathering the materials and putting them into their places.

I helped to bring down some of the smaller objects that were being housed in the staging room on the second floor of the museum.

The staging room was filled with a variety of different artifacts for several different exhibits and gave a good impression of the scope of the museum's collection.

Once gathered, the objects were placed in the showcase rather ingeniously. The two neon signs were hung using two steel cords anchored to the floor and ceiling.

The signs could be moved freely up and down the cord until four stops were secured, holding the sign in place.

All of the other artifacts were propped up by specially designed stands which made me realize how much thought has to go in to considering how best to display an object.

It is easy to simply lay out the objects, but by creating different angles and heights, the stands gave the showcase more depth and made it more appealing to the eye. Considering how much design, construction, and work went into creating this showcase gives one a sense of just how large an undertaking a full exhibit is for museums.

Edward Pagliarulo was an intern for the Division of Work and Industry at the National Museum of American History during the summer of 2011. See more installation photos on Flickr. 

Q&A on the history of pediatric dentistry

Dr. Joel H. Berg (DDS, MS), has been taking care of children and their teeth for nearly 30 years. He is the current President of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, making him the ideal person to answer our questions about the history of pediatric oral care. 

Set of hand tools with mirrored lid, mid-1800s. Physicians tried to quell the oral havoc from bad teeth with instruments such as the scalers and files in this small kit or those in this handset.

Who are your dental icons from the past and why?

Of the past, G.V. Black—the "father" of modern restorative dentistry. However, he is an icon also because of his less known work—he is the first to significantly talk about what is now finally emerging—the trend toward dental disease management via medicinal approaches.

Also, those who brought product dentistry into the medical arena originally, including William Morton, the first to deliver anesthesia for surgery to a patient—by himself, a dentist in Boston in the mid-1800s.

What did you learn in dental school that is no longer taught or that has been transformed in understanding?

I learned that a parent’s presence in the treatment room with the child was never allowed or indicated. Now, it is typical and preferred in most circumstances for parents to be present during dental visits. It adds to a positive experience during prevention encounters.

Joel Berg, President of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

What are the most common things a dentist probably would have encountered in 1900 or 1950 in children? How does that compare with today?

In 1900 a dentist would have encountered cavities as we see today in children, but extraction as often the only treatment. In 1950, with the growth of sugars in our diets, there was a much higher decay prevalence, and restorative dentistry techniques were emerging.

How has the profession changed in your lifetime?

The profession has changed immensely, mainly due to developments in technology, materials and disease patterns. We are currently witnessing a revolution of ideas, technologies, and products where the goal is to manage the disease that causes cavities, and not only to treat them with restoration (fillings). Implants have become so successful, that the idea of saving a failing tooth "at all costs" is at least questioned.

The patterns of practice have also changed, and whereas 30 years ago, nearly all dentists practiced solo, today, the largest growth area of dentistry is in large group practices. There is a similar "consolidation" occurring in the dental industry. This is being driven by some of the same forces that have led to overall healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act. There is a need to control cost, improve quality, and improve access. Dental Service Organizations (DSO) are rapidly developing and growing in size to provide care in a manner consistent with governmental and societal demands.

What one or two instruments or tools would be the hardest for you to live without in your practice?

I love my 330 carbide bur–a great tool for preparing cavities in primary teeth. A bur is a very small drill bit that spins within a handpiece (drill). The 330 carbide bur is the most versatile one for treating children because it is very small and allows for minimally invasive approaches to treating primary teeth.

Also, I am grateful for the mirror—it allows examination of all surfaces of the oral hard and soft tissues while maintaining good posture for a lifetime. By using a mirror, the dentist and team can preserve their own health better because it forces them to sit up correctly in their chair as they treat patients. Without a mirror, one will have the tendency to lean over—and, over a career, this causes back and neck problems.

What is the biggest myth or misunderstanding in pediatric dentistry and how do you think it got started?

That some teeth are "soft," that a person who has "soft" teeth will get cavities for no other reason... It likely started as an explanation of the fact that some with the same apparent risk factors get more cavities than others.

What got you interested in dentistry in general and in pediatric work in particular?

I have always been interested in children and the ability to shape behavior and health for a lifetime. Also, Pediatric Dentistry offers comprehensive care; one can practice all aspects of dentistry on a population where one can influence their overall health forever.

 

In the late 20th century, orthodontic appliances included head gear such as this one, used to align and adjust the angle of teeth.

At what age did you know this would be your career?

I planned to be a career academic pediatric dentist around age 16 while in high-school in Des Moines. In Iowa, I was a camp counselor for children and loved the technology and science surrounding dentistry.

If you were to collect dental objects, what would you collect and why?

I would collect old and new instruments used to extract teeth. The evolution of instrument types reflects advances in technology and understanding of anatomy.

This post is part of our series on The Tooth Fairy File. 

Feeding America: The people and politics that bring food to our table

Latino and food history expert Steve Velazquez looks beyond the plate to discover the people, technology, and systems that bring food to the table.

 

El Cortito, short-handled hoe, 1960s

What does something like a short handled hoe tell us about American history? This cortitio, or short handle hoe, was used by Jose Arredondo, a temporary agricultural guest worker for thinning and weeding in California fields in the 1960s. Using the short handle was physically grueling and demanding "stoop" labor and the cortito became a symbol of difficult working conditions for many agricultural laborers. Its use was outlawed in 1975.

Our FOOD: Transforming the American Table,1950-2000 exhibition explores some of the big changes in how and what Americans eat. The exhibition is arranged in several thematic sections, one that looks at the impact of new technologies in food production, distribution, and consumption. Another section focuses on some of the major social and cultural changes in American life that have influenced foods and foodways. When looking through a lens of Latino history, we see that Latinos have been—for quite a long time—instrumental in transforming the American table.

 

Part of the "FOOD" exhibition

Like many curators, scholars, and people involved in the study of food history, I like to think that food's importance is not just what's on our plates, but the labor and distribution systems behind it. Food has social and cultural meanings, but also has significant economic and political aspects.

For example, if we start with food production, we see that agricultural policy and the need for agricultural labor helped create waves of migrants coming into the U.S. During World War II, the Mexican Agricultural Workers Program, commonly known as the bracero program brought in two million Mexican men to work in fields (and on railroads) on temporary guest worker contracts. Jose Arredondo, who used the short handled hoe, was one of these men. They planted, tended irrigation systems, picked crops, and packed produce for the tables of Americans from coast to coast. Some of these men would eventually marry American women and/or come back and settle in these agricultural communities, contributing to demographic shifts in towns and cities and to community dynamics.

 

Mexican Braceros in Watsonville, CA 1956. 

Mexican Braceros in Watsonville, CA 1956. The Bracero Program has significance beyond agricultural history. Many historians have linked the program to settlement patterns of Latinos in the Unites States

Technological changes in food production helped, in part, to end the bracero program. But as historian Don Mitchell writes in They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California, the era of the bracero program "was pivotal in the development of the agribusiness landscape we have since come to take for granted" and the Mexican bracero became the essential labor force of the 20th century. The bracero program generated some economic opportunities for both farmer and laborer, but it also brought along conflict, economic exploitation, and cultural strife.

It is important to remember that skilled American domestic workers also tended the fields during this time. Many of these American workers were of Mexican and Filipino descent. The United Farm Workers (UFW) union, started in 1966 by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, fought to reclaim rights and power for these domestic workers, many of whom were overlooked for work in favor of the Mexican guest workers, who tolerated a lower wage. The UFW and Cesar Chavez fought for better wages, working conditions, and human rights for domestic labor, while at the same time shunning and fighting to stop the Mexican bracero program. The UFW used food—specifically the boycotting of certain foods and brands—as a means to reach out to a largely unaware consuming public, to rally behind fixing the problems of farm labor.

 

United Farmworkers poster. The text on this poster, printed around 1970, describes Chavez's vision of political and economic emancipation for farm workers. "La Causa," or "The Cause," as it was known among Mexican Americans, was the political and artistic touchstone of the Chicano movement.

A UFW button urging a boycott of non-union lettuce

The use of braceros and the organization of farm labor, especially in California, helped change and shape physical and cultural landscapes across the country. The examination of this period—the second half of the twentieth century—shows that this local change in California has international roots, repercussions, and legacies. As we look at Latino history we see that Latinos have been important in changing what and how we eat in America, from the guest worker, to farm union organizing, to the wider availability of foods across the country. And the interconnections are much deeper and complex than many Americans might realize.

To learn more about this topic, tune in to our Feeding America: Labor Politics and Food webcast on Saturday, February 23, 2013 from 2:30-3:30 PM EST. Update: watch the Feeding America video here.

Steve Velasquez is Associate Curator for the Division of Home and Community Life and Collections, Outreach, and Dissemination Coordinator for the Bracero History Archive project.