O Say Can You See?

No fairy here: A mysterious mouse took my two front teeth

Spread the word: the Tooth Fairy is using the Museum as a secret drop spot for the teeth she collects. We even have it all on video. But what happens to the teeth lost in Latin America? 

I think I lost my first tooth when I was about five. Growing up in Argentina, tradition told me that at bed time, I should put my very valuable tooth under my pillow because Ratoncito Perez would come and get it and leave money. I went to bed waiting to hear Ratoncito's tiny mouse steps but fell sound asleep without noticing. And indeed, the next morning I had several pesos under my pillow! This routine happened every time I lost a tooth and every time I had the same feeling of wonder... how did Ratoncito get into my room?

 

The author, missing her two front teeth

I grew up in a very small town, in the middle of the pampas in Argentina. In town, everyone knew each other and we all knew Ratoncito lived among us. All my older friends had been equally fascinated by Ratoncito stories and everyone awaited his presence without ever actually seeing him.

I now live in the United States and Ratoncito Perez has moved with us! My two sons, born here, know Ratoncito and they also know the Tooth Fairy. Along with many other children in the world, they are keeping the tradition of offering their teeth to a whimsical character.

 

The author's son Blas, also missing two conspicuous teeth

Ratoncito Perez is the tooth fairy of the Hispanic American world. The tradition came from Spain in the late 1800s, passed through children's stories and folk tales. In the museum, I am working on the dynamic encounters that occur when people from different cultures connect. The world of the private and the public, the home and the "outside world" particularly resonate.

I can't help but think about how traditions are kept or transformed through the appropriations and exchange of particular cultural traditions. For one, I do not believe Ratoncito will disappear from homes and families that keep deep ties with their origins in Latin America; but also believe that Ratoncito might acquire some new traits. Will Ratoncito morph into something else? Will he spread glitter all around? Will the Tooth Fairy grow big front teeth like a mouse? If this ever happens, will we, as keepers of culture, be able to decipher what came from where and who is "authentic?"

In any case, the most important fact here is that museums, such as the National Museum of American History, keep all kinds objects in their collections that inspire the imagination and creativity of all who visit!

Magdalena Mieri is director of the museum’s Program in Latino History and Culture. When you lost teeth as a kid, what were you told? What do you tell the kids in your life? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook. Happy Tooth Fairy Day! 

On the set of "Decoding History:" A virtual field trip with "The 39 Clues"

Behind the scenes of our “The 39 Clues” virtual field trip with History Explorer educator Sarah Coffee

There’s an aura of mystery to the museum at 5:30 AM on a frigid January morning, which is fitting as I was about to play a very small part in the last chapter of the sweeping saga of historical intrigue, The 39 Clues.

The 39 Clues is the story of the Cahills, the most powerful family in history, whose illustrious members have been at the heart of virtually every historical event of significance. The clues themselves are hidden across the globe, and must be uncovered in order to reveal an ultimate, earth-shaking secret. Told over the course of two New York Times bestselling book series, each installment is written by a different acclaimed author.

 

Filming in the “American Stories” exhibition

The 39 Clues are all about solving historical mysteries by finding and examining artifacts for the hidden messages they contain about the past, a pursuit that sounds pretty familiar to anyone acquainted with the work we do at the National Museum of American History. In fact, the path to the final resolution of the current 39 Clues series arc lies through the Smithsonian. The museum is one of the key settings in Day of Doom, the latest installment of The 39 Clues, written by David Baldacci.

That is why I found myself bleary-eyed on a recent winter morning, watching a film crew busily setting up lights, teleprompters, and cameras near one of our landmark objects, the John Bull locomotive, getting ready for David Baldacci’s first interview of the morning, with curator Harry Rubenstein. It was filming day for Decoding History, a virtual field trip produced in collaboration between the museum and Scholastic, publisher of The 39 Clues series. Over the course of the day, David Baldacci, as guide of the field trip, would be making stops throughout the building to see artifacts and talk to curators. As program assistant for education outreach, my role in the endeavor was a small one, primarily consisting of making sure that none of the film crew got lost in the building and that everyone got pizza at the end of the day.

We began filming in the wee hours, before the building opened to the public. During this time, Baldacci visited some of the most famous artifacts we have on public display, like Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch and the compass that guided Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their fateful journey. In the afternoon, as students and families milled through the exhibitions, Baldacci would be going behind the scenes to conservation labs and storage areas rarely seen by the public, talking to conservator Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss and curator Bonnie Campbell Lillienfeld about the hidden messages they’ve uncovered in the artifacts in our collection.

The film crew captures an interview in collections storage for some of our ceramics

It was a fascinating whirlwind of a day. In many ways, it began to feel like a mini Cahill adventure, enacted wholly within the walls of the museum. It reminded me of that childlike feeling I used to get that history can be a journey, and that there are epic mysteries to be uncovered.

Decoding History: A Virtual Fieldtrip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will be webcast on March 5th at 1:00 PM ET and will continue to be available on the museum website and on the Scholastic website.

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. 

A museum mystery for young detectives: The Tooth Fairy File

Grown-ups: please share this post with detectives under the age of 12. We're stumped! Sincerely, grown-up historian Katherine Ott.

Clues in the museum's history mystery

Have you ever wondered what the Tooth Fairy does with your teeth after collecting them while you sleep? We think we may have figured it out thanks to some mysterious things that have been happening at the museum where I work, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

When you visit a museum, you see exhibitions that include really old historic objects (such as a big locomotive train) and their stories. You might also see a gift shop, bathrooms, café, and hands-on area. But there's much more you don't see.

Behind the scenes, there are more historic objects in storage and lots of people who study and care for these objects. Back there, workers organize and study these objects.

Tiny teeth discovered at the museum

 

At the end of the day, most of the museum workers go home to their families, make dinner, and go to sleep. Security officers stay all night to guard the building and objects—don't worry, they sleep during the day. In the morning, all the historic objects are just as they were left the day before.

But not lately. Lately there have been mysterious things going on. Here are some of them: 

• Objects in storage rooms have been moved. Nobody knows who did it or why.
• Something odd appeared in the museum: tiny teeth!
• The objects that have been disturbed all had to do with teeth, fairies, or children.
• All disturbances happened at night when only the security guards were here. 

People like me who work at the museum are historians—detectives who explore the past—and use information and evidence to make educated guesses, or inferences. We can't say for sure, but we think it is the Tooth Fairy and her friends—including that rascally Ratonicito Perez—who have been leaving the teeth they collect here at the Smithsonian for safekeeping.

The Tooth Fairy and her friends around the world refused to comment on this. We made this movie about it so you can decide for yourself. What do you think? 

You can also watch this video on our YouTube channel. 

P.S. Grown-ups, you can see the behind-the-scenes story of why we made this video in this blog post. 

Katherine Ott is Curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the National Museum of American History. Grown-ups, want to know more about the Tooth Fairy File? Check out this blog post.

Abolition and modern slavery: Q&A with Professor John Stauffer

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the museum is hosting a National Youth Summit on Abolition, a webcast on February 11 for secondary students to look at the strategies used by 19th century abolitionists to end slavery in the U.S. and how this history can inform efforts to end modern-day slavery. Chris Wilson, the museum's director of the Program in African American Culture, asked Professor John Stauffer to answer three essential questions to get the conversation started. Stauffer is Professor of English and Professor of African and African American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard University and a well known and oft-consulted expert in the field.

Antislavery Pamphlet, 1848, Division of Political History, National Museum of American History

How would you define slavery? How does modern slavery compare with its 19th-century counterparts?

Slavery is the attempt to dehumanize people and treat them as domesticated beasts of burdens such as horses, cattle, oxen, etc. Slaves are forced to work against their will, using violence or the threat of it, with no pay. Thus, a simple definition of slavery is that it is a state of war between the slave and the master. Like beasts of burden, a slave is also treated as commodity that can be bought and sold. In some societies and eras, such as 18th and 19th century North America, the commodity value of slaves increased dramatically. At other times, such as today, the commodity value of slaves is minimal; they can’t be sold for much and are considered "disposable people," as the sociologist Kevin Bales has noted.

There are other characteristics of slavery that have persisted in world history. Because of their circumstances, slaves are radically alienated from friends, family, social networks; they can be uprooted at any time, and typically can be killed with impunity by their masters.

Another characteristic of slavery from ancient Babylonia, Greece, and Rome through the early twentieth century is the attempt on the part of masters to physically distinguish slaves from free people. In the U.S., slavery is almost always linked to race—people of African descent were slaves—but there are plenty of instances in which slavery was not based on the concept of race—the ancient world, and 20th century state slavery in Germany and Russia, and modern slavery. When masters could not easily identify slaves as such, they branded them, shaved their heads, made them wear striped clothing or badges, or used some other physically distinguishing characteristic to "mark" them as slaves.

How did abolitionists work to end slavery in the 19th-century?

The greatest weapon of the abolitionists was words and images, convincing people that slavery was a horrible evil that needed to be abolished. As a group the abolitionists proposed numerous strategies in the hopes of working with Southerners to end slavery. These measures included the desire for lawful debate; the use of moral suasion, including millions of antislavery petitions to Congress and the proliferation of antislavery writings and images in newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides; numerous proposals for compensated emancipation, which Southerners totally ignored; boycotts of slave-grown products; international pressure, especially from Great Britain, in the hopes of bringing Southerners to the bargaining table; slave resistance (especially running away) and the specter of slave rebellions—what Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville both called "a slumbering volcano" blanketing the South; a sophisticated Underground Railroad; and the emergence of antislavery political parties, in which immediatists worked closely with gradualists to end slavery through peaceful and constitutional channels. Much like the early gradual abolition movement, nonviolence was the foundation of the modern immediatist movement, though not every immediatist adhered to that ideal.

Slave Shackles, 19th century, Division of Home and Community Life, National Museum of American History

Does using the term modern slavery to define modern human trafficking contemporary exploitation minimize the experience of enslaved African Americans who endured the legal, generational, race-based slavery of the 19th century United States?

Throughout history, there has been a huge variation in how slaves were treated. Some slaves were comparatively well treated and enjoyed privileges others did not. Other slaves were continually brutalized, worked to death within a few years, or murdered. This variation often occurred on the same plantation, factory, camp, etc.

Speaking of this larger context of world slavery, modern slavery, or ancient slavery, where these systems were not "race-based," does not minimize the experience of 19th century enslaved African Americans.

Slavery in the U.S. South was virtually unique from slavery in other "slave societies"—in which slavery was a defining aspect of the economic, social, political, cultural conditions—in two ways: in almost every other slave society, slaves "died out," meaning deaths exceeded births and masters depended on continual slave imports to sustain the slave population. In the U.S. South, births exceeded deaths and there was a net natural growth in the slave population. This was chiefly because the forms of work—tobacco, cotton, corn production—were backbreaking, but they wouldn't kill you in the way sugar and rice production, or mining did in other slave societies. The other virtually unique characteristic of U.S. slavery is that in other slave societies there was a slim chance for manumission [emancipation from slavery], whereas in the U.S. slaves were slaves for life, with no chance of manumission.

To continue the conversation on these important topics, register and join us on February 11 at 12 PMEST. This Q&A blog post was coordinated by Christopher Wilson, Director of the Program in African American History and Culture at the National Museum of American History.