"O Say Can You See?" is a blog produced by the National Museum of American History (NMAH). The blog takes readers behind the scenes at the museum, sharing insights and information about our exhibitions, events, collections, research projects, and more. Readers are encouraged to use the comment area to dialogue with us about the work of the museum.
“Black Friday”—the day after Thanksgiving when holiday shopping goes into high gear—promises to start even earlier this year on Thursday, the day previously known as Thanksgiving. Some retailers plan to open at 9pm thereby advancing the midnight rush by three hours. It is perhaps only a matter of time before retailers open even earlier, in a continuing scramble for any advantage, until there are no distinctions left between the days on the retail calendar.
Children’s souvenir booklet, Santa’s Own Story Book, Kresge Department Store, Newark, New Jersey, ca. 1926.
Once upon a time the nation’s retailers were attuned to the rhythm of the seasons. By the turn of the twentieth century it became apparent to most that more goods were sold in November and December than in all other months combined. Retailers planned accordingly and developed creative amenities to thaw hearts and jangle cash registers. The big idea was to make the big store a destination—shopping followed. The store that successfully associated itself with the holiday season became a leading retail institution.
Describing the strategy in 1894, Harry Harman, an “artistic decorator and window draper” from Louisville, Kentucky, noted the “jostling multitude” of sightseers that filled the streets “in front of the most attractive window and the building decorated and illuminated.” Directly addressing reluctant store owners who doubted the efficacy of such a strategy, Harmon explained: “the crowd, dazzled by the grand effect, will enter the store, and purchase, whereas, if your store was not made attractive, the crowd of people would pass by.” By 1913 The Show Window magazine regularly reported on the escalating practice of retail attraction, like the ever-popular Santa Claus parade, that delivered Santa through city streets to the store and installed him (and his helpers) at the back of a well-stocked toy department. The holiday window came into its own as an eagerly anticipated annual attraction in which nothing but the store’s institutional leadership was sold.
Reindeer relax in the kitchen of the Cozy Cloud Cottage, Marshall Field & Company, Chicago, 1948.
But that’s all changed now. By the late 1950s retail observers noted the rise of big box stores that largely abandoned holiday decor. Some characterized the bare-bones economy of display as dispiriting and soulless. At the same time the rise of the suburban shopping mall was changing life downtown, mostly for the worse. The consolidation of the retail industry soon left many towns without a department store and an austere holiday display scene absent of trimmings.
The main aisle, Marshall Field & Company, Chicago, ca. 1956.
With the certain exception of the walking precincts of New York’s Fifth Avenue and Chicago’s State Street, the over-the-top scale of imaginative display has diminished along with the retail amenities of yore. The lavishly-decorated store, the animated window, and other traditions are gone, given over to the big-box anomy of never-ending price markdowns, products on pallets, and shopping on Thanksgiving.
William L. Bird, Jr., is the author of Holidays on Display and curator at the National Museum of American History.
Somewhat late in the summer of 1784, James Smithson embarked on his first scientific expedition. This “expedition” might have seemed a bit odd to a modern viewer—as it consisted of four gentlemen, with their servants, driving north from London in carriages—but in the 18th century science was often a gentleman’s pursuit and this was how gentlemen traveled.
Their goal was to explore the remote island of Staffa, off the Northwest coast of Scotland. Staffa had recently been visited by Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society in London, and his description of the island’s distinctive basalt columns and remarkable marine caves had captured both the popular and scientific imaginations of the time. In the 19th century Staffa would become a major tourist destination, but in 1784 Smithson’s party would have been one of the first scientific groups—and certainly the first mineralogists—to attempt the rigorous overland journey to see it.
The island of Staffa. In Smithson’s time there was great disagreement about how an island like this could have been formed. Staffa has also inspired a range of artistic works over the years.
Smithson would later become famous for leaving his fortune to found the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. But at this time he was only 19 years old and fresh from his studies at Oxford. The driving force behind the expedition was Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, a French geologist and mineralogist who planned to use the trip as field-work for a book on Scottish volcanoes. Smithson only learned about the expedition at the last minute from one of his professors, who urged him to join and provided letters of introduction. Smithson dropped everything and rushed to London, arriving just a few days before it departed.
The route Smithson’s group took to Staffa. Today’s highways take essentially the same path.Map by Reginald Piggott from Heather Ewing's The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian (Bloomsbury, 2007).
The events he witnessed, the places he visited and the ideas he encountered propelled Smithson’s early scientific career and influenced much of his later scientific work. As a Smithsonian curator researching the science of James Smithson, I’ve spent much of the last year trying to unravel the story of what Smithson saw on this trip and what it would have meant to him. So much of the story is connected to the specific geology of Scotland and to Enlightenment-era Edinburgh that I came to realize the importance of seeing these places in person. And when I mentioned this idea to my intrepid volunteers Jeff Gorman and Frank Cole, it was not long before we all found ourselves on a unique vacation: following in the footsteps of James Smithson.
Edinburgh
Averaging less than 20 miles a day, it took the expedition several weeks to reach Edinburgh (more than 300 miles from London), and for me this was their first important destination. This is where Smithson encountered the remarkable intellectual flowering now known as the Scottish Enlightenment.
We know that Smithson carried letters of introduction and that he met and later corresponded with the famous chemist Joseph Black. Black was noted for his use of the chemical balance and at the National Museum of Scotland we were able to see some of his actual instruments. Smithson wrote about carrying a balance “of Black’s design” when he traveled in Europe.
The Scottish National Museum's galleries about 18th century life provided a glimpse into the world Smithson explored.
Smithson arrived in Edinburgh at a very interesting time. The city was home to some of the most brilliant men in Europe and they all seem to have been close friends. Smithson was able to meet many of them and although the expedition could not linger more than a few days, he seems to have been strongly affected by the experience and returned for a second visit on his way back to London.
In particular he seems to have been impressed by James Hutton, now known as the father of geology. At the time of Smithson’s visit Hutton would have been just developing his revolutionary theories about underground heat and pressure, and we know that he was recruiting visiting scientists to send him rock samples. Hutton seems to have recruited our hero as well, as Smithson later tried to send him fossils. If Hutton spent any time with Smithson, one of the places he would have taken him was “Salisbury Crags”—an ancient lava flow that literally loomed over the back yard of his house.
The Salisbury Crags, near Hutton's home
This image was taken just a short distance from where Hutton lived, and it’s easy to see why his attention was drawn to this formation. In his time the hard basaltic stone at the top was being excavated for use as paving stones. As new material was exposed Hutton would study it for evidence of structures that could only have been formed by underground lava. To help us understand the unique geology of Edinburgh we arranged a geologic tour of the city, and this turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The Edinburgh area was shaped by ancient volcanoes and in Holyrood Park, in the center of the city, we were able to see some of the same formations that Hutton would have studied—and presumably shown Smithson.
On Salisbury Crags, in Holyrood Park, our geology guide Angus Miller points out what Hutton would have called an “unconformity”—a layer of sedimentary rock that has been injected with unground lava.
Inveraray
Edinburgh was the intellectual center of 18th century Scotland, but the expedition encountered a different side of the Enlightenment at the next place it lingered—Inveraray Castle. This was, and still is, the home of the Duke of Argyll, and Smithson’s group reached it only after a long, difficult journey up the west side of Loch Lomand and then overland to Loch Fyne. A modern highway now follows this same route and as we drove we were able to enjoy the rugged beauty of mountains and lochs. But we could imagine the challenge of getting carriages over muddy mountain roads and of finding food and lodging in the rain and dark. We could also imagine the joy of Smithson’s group when they finally reached the Castle.
With large windows and a decorative moat, this castle was never intended for military use, but served as an example of enlightened ideals and manners for this part of Scotland.
Located on the shore of Loch Fyne and situated at the base of a low mountain, the Castle remains today much as Smithson would have seen it. Much more a home than a fortress, the Castle was just being finished when they arrived. The Duke and Duchess were famous for their hospitality and refinement, and Faujas later reported that French was spoken at dinner and that French wines, tableware and manners were at all times employed.
Continuing the tradition of hospitality that Smithson experienced, the Duke of Argyll graciously welcomed us to his home.
For me, Inveraray Castle presents the romantic side of the Enlightenment. The artwork and tapestries, the elaborate gardens and hothouses, even the design of the Castle itself all express something of the idealization of nature and reason that characterized Smithson’s time. And there is also an underlying belief in progress and human improvement, which is an interesting connection to Smithson’s later founding of the Smithsonian.
Sculpture of Perseus and Andromeda by the Flemish sculptor Michael Van Der Voort, 1713. Smithson almost certainly saw this work and one wonders how he would have understood it. Did he see, as many in his time would have, a metaphor of nature and the power of reason?
The expedition could only linger three days at Inveraray, although the Duke urged them to stay longer. They must have looked back fondly to this time during the subsequent days, because they now began the most difficult part of their journey.
Mull
The expedition now headed northwest to the fishing village of Oban, from which they would sail to the island of Mull and, from there, to Staffa. The road was the worst they had yet encountered and they were exhausted by the time they reached Oban.
Our own drive to Oban was much more pleasant and took only a few hours. We arrived in time to visit the local historical society and learn a bit about its history. Oban would have been a small fishing village when Smithson saw it, with a population of only about 600. It began to grow in the 1790s—partly due to interest in Staffa—and today is a pleasant community of about 8,500.
The launching point on Mull to Staffa
Today it’s an easy ferry ride from Oban to Mull, although for Smithson the 33 mile trip could have been daunting—it was the beginning of the stormy season. Once on Mull, Smithson’s group crossed to the west side of the island and the embarkation point for Staffa. They stayed at Torloisk, an estate the Duke had recommended, and from which (on a clear day) they could see Staffa. It took several days before the seas were calm enough to attempt to reach Staffa and even then Smithson reported a harrowing trip. He spent the night on the island, returning the next day with a cache of mineral samples and a genuine sense of accomplishment.
Our own expedition to Staffa was less successful. Modern tour boats leave Mull from the same spot that Smithson used, but on the days we were there the seas were too rough to venture out. The seas around Staffa are notoriously unpredictable—Smithson had to wait almost a week for good weather—but having gotten so close made me determined to come back and try again during another trip.
Leadhills
After Staffa, Smithson returned to Edinburgh for an extended visit and then returned to London. On the way back he visited the important mines at Leadhills, which produced not just lead, but a variety of other metals including zinc, silver and gold.
The Museum of Lead Mining in Wanlockhead. The mine Smithson visited is now closed, but this one is in the same area and dates from the same period.
At the museum in Wanlockhead we were able go a short way into one of the original lead mines, which was an interesting experience. I was intrigued to learn that this area had both lead and zinc mines. Smithson wrote about the chemistry of both minerals and the zinc ore Smithsonite is named after him. Did his interest in these ores begin during this visit?
Northwich
Smithson’s last stop before returning to London was to visit a salt mine in the Northwich area, southwest of Manchester. The underground salt deposits in Northwich have been worked since Roman times and the extraction of salt has led to a series of subsidences (or “fells”) throughout the area. Many of the lakes in Northwich are actually old salt mines that collapsed after the salt was removed.
The Trent and Mersey Canal. Finished in 1777, the canal was one of the first in England.
This was also our last stop, although the mine Smithson visited no longer exists. Instead we visited the Lion Salt Works in Marston which is one of the few remaining 19th-century salt mines. It closed in the 1970s and is now in the process of being restored as an industrial museum. It used a “brine” method of extraction, which is different than the mine Smithson visited, but the site is adjacent to the Trent and Mersey Canal, which was completed just a few years before Smithson’s visit. The canal was built to facilitate shipping salt and, like so much of what Smithson saw on his trip, was what we now think of as the beginning of the British industrial revolution.
London
Smithson returned to London just over three months after he had left. His newfound reputation as an explorer opened doors for him, as did the large cache of mineral samples he brought back. Just 3 years later, in 1787, he was elected to the prestigious Royal Society, becoming its youngest member. Smithson’s scientific career had started.
Washington, D.C.
Historians are more commonly found in libraries and archives than on road-trips, and I must admit to being a bit uncertain about how useful this trip would actually be. But having seen the places Smithson visited and having, in some ways, shared his experiences has proved immensely helpful as I try to piece his story together. In particular, the depth of his interest in geology has been a revelation and my research since returning has been largely devoted to exploring that topic.
Steven Turner is a curator in the Division of Medicine and Science. He’d like to express his appreciation for his “support group” on this trip: Jeff Gorman, Ginni Gorman, Frank Cole and Mary Lou Cole; with a special thanks to Frank, who took on the daunting task of planning this trip and without whom it certainly wouldn’t have happened.
Editor's Note: This is the fifth post in a series exploring the 30th anniversary of HIV and AIDS. Beginning last June 3, the National Museum of American History has been marking the anniversary of the emergence of the HIV and AIDS epidemic with a three-part display and companion website. This blog series provides additional context through the perspectives of people directly involved in the history the museum is documenting.
Miguel Gomez, wearing the AIDS vigil button, stands before his board of buttons.
Miguel Gomez is the director of AIDS.gov, a program of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that works to increase HIV testing and care among people most at risk for, or living with, the disease. In his office in Washington, D.C., Gomez has a bulletin board showcasing an amazing collection of buttons from projects and events related to the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Buttons are an efficient means for documenting history because they distill complex messages into concise language and graphics, and capture diverse points of view (the National Museum of American History has over 33,000 pin-backs in its collection). We asked Gomez to elaborate on his button collection—and here's what he had to say.
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If inanimate objects could speak, the buttons on the bulletin board in my office would tell many stories. Each button has only a few words or a single image to "speak" to those who stop to take a look. But, if you care to listen, these small pieces of metal and plastic tell tales of nearly unbearable sorrow—as well as stories of courage and hope.
Buttons used to do what Twitter does now: share with the world, in a very few characters, an important message about the person who displays or wears them. You might call them low-tech "micro-tweets."
I have collected buttons since I was a child. I think I got my first one at the Detroit Auto Show in 1970; it featured an image of the brand-new AMC Gremlin. Over the years, I collected others. I still have one from my first trip to Washington, D.C. for a march. But the bulk of my collection is made up of the buttons I have collected over the 30 years of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
I have over 500 buttons, and all of them are meaningful in some way or another—but the one that memorializes an early AIDS vigil is my favorite. The button is black with white lettering. It says "National AIDS Vigil, October 8, 1983" and shows a hand holding a candle, which makes up the "I" in "AIDS."
AIDS vigil button, 1983.
At that time, we still didn't know what caused AIDS. It would be another year before HIV was identified as the cause of so much suffering and death, and many more years before treatments were available. All we knew then was that people we loved and cared for—friends, family members, co-workers—were dying.
Soon after that vigil took place, I came to Washington, D.C. to begin working at an organization that advocated for Latino issues, but they didn't want to address the issue of HIV and AIDS then. The stigma was too great. I am convinced that stigma kept us from responding quickly enough to the epidemic—and caused untold losses that might have been prevented.
The button encapsulates that history for me. It continues to be a stark reminder of how much HIV and AIDS has cost us. When I look at it, memories of the friends and colleagues I have lost to AIDS come flooding in—and I am reminded that approximately 18,000 people still die of the disease in the United States each year.
Miguel Gomez, 1984.
That button continues to inspire me in my work at AIDS.gov every day.
Other buttons remind me of events that have been important in the history of HIV and AIDS in the United States and the world. There are buttons from ACT UP rallies, which pushed the U.S. government to respond more rapidly and effectively to the epidemic here at home. There are buttons from multiple International AIDS Conferences, where I have met with thousands of people from around the globe who are responding to HIV and AIDS or living with the infection.
The buttons are of different colors, shapes, and sizes. They reflect multiple languages, perspectives, and goals.
But they share one, overarching message: we must respond to the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and we must do so in ways that honor those we have lost and protect those who are living with the disease now.
A button may not reach as many people as a tweet—but I would say it performs pretty effective "messaging" for something that can fit in the palm of your hand.
Chromolithograph, from about 1893, of Columbus bidding farewell to the queen of Spain on his departure for the New World in 1492. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
With the rising cost of fuel and the impossible demands on our time these days, we are constantly looking for shortcuts. That puts us in the company of history's most famous seeker of shortcuts, Christopher Columbus, who sailed west to reap the bounties of Asia. Key to his audacious plan to reach the "Indies" was the spherical shape of Earth, which, contrary to insidious schoolbook myth, almost everyone at the time accepted (some 350 years after Columbus, belief in a flat Earth began to resurface, as seen in the 1884 foundation of the United Zetetic Society, antecedent of today's Flat Earth Society). Had Columbus not seriously underestimated Earth's size, he might have made it to his true destination. Instead, his accidental landfall on the present San Salvador Island (now part of the Bahamas) introduced his fellow Old Worlders to the wonders of what they called the New World. The Genoese explorer's serendipitous encounter fed an ever-growing fad for discovery—and an ever-growing need to know where you were headed.
The National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum are jointly developing the exhibition Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, which will feature navigation instruments from clocks used in 17th-century seafaring to the latest Global Positioning System (GPS). Though Columbus had only a limited acquaintance with celestial navigation, celestial is what it's all about in the modern age of space exploration, the newest and most outrageous frontier. I am as concerned as any of my fellow earthlings about where we go post-Apollo and after the impending demise of the space shuttle. Though there is talk of traveling to Mars and even the moon again, I have yet to hear a definitive plan from NASA or anyone else.
An astrolabe, from about 1450, designed for an observer standing at the latitude of London. It has 25 star pointers shaped like heads of dogs, with a grid of lines below for setting star positions.
In the meantime, why think so small? Far more exotic worlds beckon: new planets, star systems, galaxies, and even parallel universes. And it's not just science fiction writers who are thinking this way. Intergalactic space and time travel has also become a fashionable topic among some very respectable scientific thinkers, including Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, and Michio Kaku. They admit this is the ultimate scientific and engineering challenge to navigation. Without shortcuts, you can't even think of trying "to boldly go where no man has gone before," as Star Trek intoned. Even allowing for the discovery of a revolutionary form of rocket propulsion, there is the absolute ban on exceeding the velocity of light—a speed limit policed by none other than Albert Einstein with his theory of relativity—which one must do to traverse cosmic distances in anything less than a ridiculous amount of time.
Yet it was Einstein who also suggested some theoretical loopholes—what are now called wormholes, those tunnels between two points in space-time (also made popular by Star Trek)—based on the curvature of space-time posited in his general theory of relativity. In 1935, with his student Nathan Rosen, he explored warps in the fabric of space-time that offered possible shortcuts. The Einstein-Rosen bridge shortcut involves black holes. As Kaku explains it, "At the center of a black hole, there is a 'throat' that connects space-time to another universe or another point in our universe." That's the magical shortcut. But, how do you navigate a wormhole? According to Einstein and Rosen, you can't, because it closes fatally before you and your spaceship can squeeze through.
This hypothetical spacecraft with a "negative energy" induction ring was inspired by recent theories describing how space could be warped with negative energy to produce hyperfast transport to reach distant star systems. Digital art by Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp.), 1998. Courtesy of NASA.
There the matter stood for quite a while, until in 1988 physicist Kip Thorne and colleagues at CalTech found a solution to Einstein's equations that kept the portal open long enough to allow safe passage. Ordinary matter and energy, according to relativity theory, give space a positive curvature, like the surface of a sphere. While that was a useful shape for Columbus, it is a problem for navigating wormholes, posing an impenetrable "singularity" (a point where space-time curvature becomes infinite). Thorne and his team introduced the idea of an extremely rare form of matter with "negative energy density," which they theorized curved space in the opposite direction and thus kept the wormhole open for traversing not only our universe, but between ours and other universes. "Negative energy" seems to exist theoretically, although it is exceptionally hard to obtain, even in the minutest quantities.
Long a skeptic of such things, Stephen Hawking has lately come around to giving the concept of navigating wormholes his tentative blessing, though he still insists that time travel can only go in one direction, toward the future and not the past. More precisely, his position is that it is "theoretically possible," which of course is not at all the same as saying you can actually do it.
I confess to being utterly fascinated by the fascination that physicists like Hawking and Thorne have with cosmic and intercosmic travel. But what does it all mean? The imagination should soar; yet at the same time I appreciate the dose of reality in Kaku's statement that "While Thorne's time machine seems theoretically possible, [it is] exceedingly difficult to build from an engineering viewpoint." A magnificent understatement, to say the least. Then again, if Columbus didn't have a dream (or had had his global dimensions right), would he ever have dared to venture forth?
The author conversing with visitors at the history cart.
Every so often, I am reminded of why I love working at the National Museum of American History, and a recent encounter with visitors at a hands-on history cart in the Communities in a Changing Nation exhibition was no exception. I had an in-depth conversation with three girls, between the ages of 10 and 11, that lasted for 45 minutes. The experience made my day (make that the entire summer!) and showed me once again why I love history and working in museums.
The purpose of the hands-on cart is to explore the lives of rice-cultivating slaves in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia in the 18th century. Visitors may closely examine and even touch objects that were used to cultivate rice (a fanner basket and mortar and pestle) and cultural artifacts (musical instruments and masks made out of gourds).
The conversation began when a young girl from California asked about the mortar and pestle while I was manning the cart. Through guided questions and hands-on exploration of the object, she learned how slaves used the objects to husk and skin rice. When I told her that the job would have been reserved for a girl around her age, her interest piqued, and she began to ask deeper questions about slavery and its implications. The first few questions were simple: "What would a slave do all day?" and "Were masters mean to their slaves?" Her questions began to draw a crowd, notably two other girls, from Maryland and New York.
Mortar and pestle. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Although there were others who listened and participated, these three girls primarily drove the conversation. I answered their questions honestly and did not assume that the material was too challenging for them. When we ventured into more complex themes, I told them that they should stop me with questions if a concept was too difficult to understand.
I explained the regional differences that affected slaves' lives and how slaves did not all experience slavery in the same way; some had to deal with harsh masters, while others were treated like members of the family. We discussed the complicated relationships and emotional connections that developed between some slaves and their masters. The girls asked about children born into slavery, particularly those born to parents of mixed black and white ancestry. As a group, we tried to understand the complex emotions that slaves would have experienced, as well as grasp the perspective of slave-owners who had been raised in a society in which slavery was the norm.
Slave using a mortar and pestle. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
I would have never guessed that I could parse through such complex themes with tweens at a museum. But, by using terminology that was appropriate for their age, the girls not only understood these ideas, but learned from them as well. I defined cultural agency as the ways in which people control their own lives by maintaining their culture and sense of individuality. After learning this concept, one girl asked, "How did slaves have agency on the plantation?" When I explained that some slaves broke tools, ran away, and preserved their culture through stories, song, and religion, she responded, "So they were just bending the rules to do as much as they could get away with?"
Through this comment, she demonstrated that she comprehended the concept and was listening closely. I could have cried from pride and happiness: I truly believe that the girls walked away from the history cart with a deeper understanding of a number of new and important concepts—namely, that slaves had widely diverse experiences, that not all slave-owners were the same, that rice was a significant low-country crop with vital cultural meaning, and, most importantly, that slaves and masters were human beings who felt pain and led emotionally charged lives under the brutal institution of slavery. I don't think I have ever had a conversation about slavery that was so intellectual, insightful, and challenging, especially while interacting with guests at a museum. Those girls forced me to reflect on how I perform my job at the museum and to realize that I can help our visitors to think more critically about the past. Ultimately, I hope the girls learned as much from me as I did from them.
Have you ever had a transformational experience as an educator or a museum visitor? Tell us about it in the comments below! If you want to learn more about the lives of rice-growing slaves, check out this lesson plan.
Katie March is a Goldman Sachs Fellow in the Office of Education and Public Programs.
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