From Sambusas to Pupusas: Washington, D.C. Foodways at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

October 8, 2014, 6:00 am

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In the Foodways and Home Life area of the African Immigrant Culture in Metropolitan Washington, D.C., program, African cooks prepare traditional meals and talk about how food plays an important role in affirming ethnic identities at the 1997 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

When I travel, the first thing on my mind is what I'm going to eat. The minute breakfast is over, I'm thinking about lunch, and then I'm onto answering the eternal question, "How many snacks can I physically manage without getting too full for dinner?" (I truly live life on the edge). I probably have a list of foods to check off in my pocket--I shudder to think of missing out on anything delicious that I can't get anywhere else. That might make me very grumpy.

Unfortunately, I'm no jetsetter, so I get my kicks in my own Washington, D.C. Fortunately, I work at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the unit that puts on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival every summer on the National Mall, and for two beautiful and scorching weeks every year I make my way down to the foodways tents to learn how to make something new. As an archivist, I can easily look through extensive documentation of these demonstrations from past Festivals: from the very beginning, the organizers of the Folklife Festival knew that food is one of the most meaningful ways humans can connect to each other.

Jodie Kassorla, presented by Michael Twitty, demonstrates Sephardic Jewish food traditions in the program Washington, D.C.: It’s Our Home at the 2000 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by Christine Parker, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

In his introduction to the Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook, Ralph Rinzler, the namesake of our archives, says,

The fact is, food is still one of the important ways in which people indicate that a guest is welcome in their home. In the Appalachians, Ozarks, Cajun country, Native American communities, and inner-city cultural enclaves, carefully prepared food invariably reaffirms the other assurances that you are welcome.

He also spoke of foodways in the 1971 Festival of American Folklife program book as "the more persistent of cultural traits, lasting among the descendants of immigrants long after language, song, dance, religious and secular rituals have been eradicated or thoroughly diluted." In his introduction to the 1992 Festival of American Folklife Cookbook, James Deutsch, a curator at the Center for Folklife of Cultural Heritage, expands upon this idea:

To be sure, this does not mean that foodways are forever fixed. Like other forms of traditional behavior, foodways adapt to modern technologies and changing environments as they are passed from generation to generation and from group to group. But their persistence and durability are remarkable.

A participant in the program Migration to Metropolitan Washington: Making a New Place Home grinds corn in a metate at the 1988 Festival of American Folklife. Photograph by Laurie Minor, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival has incorporated foodways into its programming since 1968. Every year since, the foodways programming has welcomed the public to discover and connect to food traditions from all over the world. In looking at the documentation and other materials created for the Festival over the years, I gravitated towards the times when the D.C. metropolitan area was celebrated for both its Mid Atlantic-flavored regional cuisine as well as its thriving immigrant cuisine. The Festival has presented DC-centric programming a handful of times over the years, as well as programming featuring locals with ties to the region or group being presented that year. As I've dug in to the program books, cook books, photographs, and audio recordings, I feel the need to dash out of the office and track down the nearest wat, pupusas, and pho or I'm going to throw a tantrum.

Edith Ballou demonstrates how to make rolls in the program Washington, D.C.: It’s Our Home at the 2000 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

When researching foodways in the Rinzler Archives, the Festival documentation is our richest resource. Using the various forms of documentation of D.C.-centric foodways programming as an example, here are the ways in which you can use the Festival in your research.

The photographs in this post represent a small selection of the D.C.-flavored foodways at the Festival. These photographs, in addition to tens of thousands more, are accessible by appointment in the Rinzler Archives.

Many Festival program books are accessible in their entirety online via the Collections Search Center thanks to the efforts of Smithsonian Libraries. Program books provide context and perspective on some of the traditional foods demonstrated on the Mall. In the book for the 2000 Festival, which featured a program called "Washington, D.C.: It's Our Home," a college-aged Michael Twitty writes in his essay "Haroset and Hoecake: The African-American/Jewish Seder in D.C." about the joint Seder dinner held by Shiloh Baptist Church and the Adas Israel Congregation:

Matzo and hoecake sit side by side as breads of poverty and affliction. Parsley is wed with collard greens, symbolizing the bitterness of oppression. Salt water reminds us both of the tears of the Israelites and the waters of the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. Tasting haroset and hoecake, I am reminded that in both traditions food expresses the soul.

For the D.C.-centric 1988 program"African Immigrant Folklife," the essay "A Taste of Home: African Immigrant Foodways" by Nomvula Mashoai Cook and Betty J. Belanus highlights how the city's large African immigrant population has both maintained and adapted their culinary traditions:

Other types of celebrations bring communities together seasonally. one example is the braai, a South African cookout celebrated in the summer. Typically, the women congregate in the kitchen, cooking and singing. The men bond with each other and with their sons while preparing imbuzi ne mvu (goat and lamb) for the barbecue grill with such savory condiments as South African curry or cumin.

Beautiful examples of the art of Thai fruit carving by local Nit Malikul for the Asian Pacific Americans program at the 2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by Laraine Weschler, Smithsonian Folklife Festival Records, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.

Of course, there's nothing better than being physically present for the programming at the Festival, so audio and video documentation can be tremendously helpful if you find yourself without your time machine. Both are available by appointment in the Rinzler Archives, but since you've stuck with this post through to the end, here's a recording from the African Immigrant Folklife Program at the 1997 Festival of American Folklife. In this clip, Jane Musonye of Upper Marlboro, MD demonstrates how to make Kenyan chai tea and coconut mandasi, a kind of sweet fried donut. It's a bit long, but well worth a listen. Being from 1997, some questions like "Where can I find loose leaf tea?" and "Where can I find fresh ginger?" are adorably dated.

It just might convince you to come do research with us (and by "research" we do mean "cut out early and find the best mandasi in town."). If you're not able to come in person, you can still make mandasi and chai at home, using recipes from the Kenyan program at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Cecilia Peterson, Digitization Archivist
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections

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Throwback Thursday: The Early Days of Computing at SI

October 9, 2014, 6:00 am

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Nicholas Suszynski, Director of Sl's Information Systems Division, Reginald Creighton, senior systems analyst for the MNH computer project, and Dr. Donald Squires, Deputy Director of the Museum of Natural History, with a computer tape containing scientific data, 1968. Acc. No. 11-008, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

In 1967 the Smithsonian Institution launched a project to develop an information storage and retrieval system for the Museum of Natural History's (MNH) biological and geological data. Data processing machines were set up at the museum for the capture of information from record cards. These machines would produce a tape that could be read by a computer. The Honeywell 1200 computer, which can be seen in the background here, occupied space in the Smithsonian Institution Building, or Castle, and was used to store the data. The computer gave the Smithsonian a record-keeping system capable of storing and retrieving all of the specimen data compiled by MNH. This was an early effort to better understand and provide access to our collections. We continue to strive for deeper understanding and broader access to collections throughout our vast museum and research complex.

Marguerite Roby, Photograph Archivist
Smithsonian Institution Archives

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Flashback Friday: Turner Returns to Brazil

October 10, 2014, 6:00 am

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This October, the Smithsonian Collections Blog is celebrating American Archives Month with a month-long blogathon! We will be posting new content almost every weekday with the theme Discover and Connect. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

In 2010 for American Archives Month celebration, I wrote a blog post on the pioneering linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner and the Anacostia Community Museum efforts to preserve and digitize his field recordings created between 1930s and 1950s. Since that post, the museum has successfully recovered and preserved folktales, songs, and interviews Turner collected in West Africa and Brazil. The museum also presented a groundbreaking exhibition on Dr. Turner titled, Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner Connecting Communities through Language in 2011. The exhibit looks at the life, research and scholarship of Professor Turner and is based almost entirely on his archival papers and objects in the museum collection.

A section of the exhibition focuses on Turner’s research on African survivals in Afro-Brazilian culture, especially within the Candomblé religion. The show along with a museum symposium on Turner helped Brazilian scholars unfamiliar with Turner to discover and connect to his work in their country during the 1940s. As a result, “Word, Shout, Song. . .” exhibition is scheduled to travel in Brazil starting in July 2015.

This will allow the Candomblé communities to connect with the research and documentation conducted by Turner. As an archivist, it gives me professional pleasure to see the materials one has arranged, described, and cataloged as a source for reconnecting a community to their heritage. In addition, we plan to ingest some of Dr. Turner’s research and appointment books in the Smithsonian Transcription Center for the benefit of scholars, researchers, and the communities he researched.

In the meanwhile, here are some images from Turner’s research in Brazil:

Woman dressed as Iyansã goddess of the wind and storms and the wife of Sangõ, the god of thunder, in the Candomble pantheon. Lorenzo Dow Turner papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Lois Turner Williams.

Afro-Brazilian holding a Berimbau, an Angolan musical instrument.Lorenzo Dow Turner papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Lois Turner Williams.

Mãe Meninha do Gantois and her followers.Lorenzo Dow Turner papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Lois Turner Williams.

See more images here!

Jennifer Morris

Archivist

Anacostia Community Museum Archives

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Band Aid for American Culture: Brass Bands, Marching Bands, Women's Bands, Jazz Bands...

October 13, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Uncovering the Institute on Race Relations

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U.S. Indian School Band of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on trip to Long Branch, New Jersey, 1906. Photographic postcard.
From the Hazen Collection of Band Photographs and Ephemera, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

The plethora of bands in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America can be suggested by visual evidence in a number of our other collections as well. The Underwood & Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, one of the Archives Center’s original core photographic collections, contains many examples of both American and European marching bands, including military and non-military ensembles. The murky quality of these images in our online database, SIRIS, is pretty atrocious, thanks to the fact that they represent a transition from videodisc technology to digital. They were scanned at a very low resolution from analog videodisc images on a television monitor, and the videodisc images themselves were two generations removed from the original glass plate negatives and interpositives (used for making duplicate negatives). So I’m illustrating one of these photographs in a small size! Needless to say, we hope to upgrade these scans, and currently are doing so as needed.

White Oak band, White Oak Cotton Mills, Greensboro, North Carolina, ca. 1900-1910.
Silver gelatin stereoscopic interpositive for stereographs published by H.C. White Co., photographer unidentified.
Underwood & Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, NMAH Archives Center.

A small but fascinating collection of papers and photographs relates to the career of Helen May Butler, a woman bandmaster who directed an all-female traveling military band from 1898-1913. The Helen May Butler Collection contains photographs such as these:

"Ladies' orchestra," Providence, Rhode Island, ca. 1900. Silver gelatin (?) print by unidentified photographer.
Helen May Butler Collection, NMAH Archives Center.

Helen May Butler's Military Band, ca. 1900. Silver gelatin photographic print, photographer unidentified.
Helen May Butler Collection, NMAH Archives Center.

American music is certainly one of the strengths of the Archives Center collections. We have other collections related to all-women bands, especially in the categories of jazz and other popular music. The Virgil Whyte “All-Girl” Band Collection contains photographs, papers, and interviews related to an all-female (except the director!) jazz band from Racine, Wisconsin, which toured during World War II to provide entertainment for servicemen at U.S.O. venues.

Virgil Whyte's Musical Sweethearts, ca. 1943. Silver gelatin photographic print by unidentified photographer.
Virgil Whyte "All Girl" Band Collection, NMAH Archives Center.

A companion archive is that of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, a racially and ethnically mixed swing band, whose members were women. They toured the American South and Midwest, and toured overseas with the USO in 1945.

Members of International Sweethearts of Rhythm in performance at Club Plantation, Culver City, California, May 1944. Silver gelatin print, photographer unidentified. International Sweethearts of Rhythm Collection, NMAH Archives Center.

Of course, as far as professional jazz bands were concerned, all-male groups were the norm. The Duke Ellington collection contains hundreds of photographs of his orchestra, and the Scurlock Studio Records include photographs of the African American dance bands and jazz orchestras (including "all girl" bands) which once made U Street, N.W. in Washington renowned as the “Black Broadway.”

Johnson's Capital Rhythm Girls : acetate film photonegative, 1938. Addison N. Scurlock, photographer.
From the Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center.

Club Prudhom orchestra, in band box : acetate film photonegative, ca. 1930s. Addison N. Scurlock, photographer.
The negative is taped for cropping. From the Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH. Archives Center.

Music has been an important aspect of the National Museum of American History's collections, exhibitions, and public programs for decades. The Museum actively collects and displays musical instruments and sponsors concerts. The Archives Center works closely with music curators to collect original music manuscripts, published sheet music, ephemera, photographs, and other archival materials related to our American musical heritage. Search SIRIS to discover additional examples of the wide variety of music-related documents we collect.

David Haberstich, Curator of Photography
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

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Uncovering the Institute on Race Relations

October 14, 2014, 7:00 am

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Letterhead from the Institute on Race Relations collection, Anacosita Community Museum Archives, gift of Henry P. Whitehead

For me, processing the Institute on Race Relations collection was just that— a way to connect with the past and expand my knowledge of the fight for equality in the African American community

mid-20^thcentury.

Created in 1943 and based in Washington, D.C. , the purpose of the Institute was multi-fold. It aimed to reform communities in the U.S by advocating for democracy and challenging segregation. It attacked discriminatory practices like Jim Crowism and the segregation of African American soldiers in the U.S military, and advocated for the use of non-violent political action as a way of creating a sense of togetherness in the community.

The main focus of the Institute, however, was to build multi-racial relationships with the hope of allowing collective action to flourish and strengthen the community. America was to look inward and challenge itself to become the greatest democratic nation imaginable. This was the ultimate desire of the Institute, and its message was broadcast to the public through various means.

1949 Banquet announcement, Institute on Race Relations collection, Anacosita Community Museum Archives, gift of Henry P. Whitehead

One of the pieces in the collection that I found interesting was a banquet announcement from President of the Institute Tomlinson D. Todd to members of the Institute advocating support for the Americans All Radio program. The program featured notable figures in academia, politics and entertainment who professed similar ideas of racial tolerance and democracy in an effort to spread the need for social change.

Such change often came in the form of requests for political action as these documents below demonstrates.

Institute on Race Relations collection, Anacosita Community Museum Archives, gift of Henry P. Whitehead

Although the Institute on Race Relations operated domestically, it challenged the way in which other oppressed minorities were treated globally. Calling for a march on Washington, the Free India Committee of Reconciliation urged DC residents and citizens alike to march for the liberation of the Indian and Puerto Rican people from their oppressors. This notion of spreading democratic ideals was a major theme found in the Institute on Race Relations collection, and highlights the efforts that all of its members took in order to bring about social change.

This connection between India and America however is one that requires further exploration. Greater emphasis is needed in discovering the history of the Institute on race relations— the history between Gandhi and the desire to utilize non-violent political action in the African American community.

Institute on Race Relations collection, Anacosita Community Museum Archives, gift of Henry P. Whitehead

All in all, I discovered this small collection in its entirety helps to shed light on the necessity of nonviolent political action and the need to develop methods of bringing about peace and harmony in multiple communities.

In processing the Institute on Race Relations records, I was able to take some of the rhetoric, some of the material, and apply it to my own life. At times I became so immersed with the documents that they began to take on a life of their own. In reading the material, I was able to put myself in the shoes of the demonstrators, to fight alongside them as they fought for change in a world that seemed static and inflexible. Their hopes for social transformation in the past mimicked mine in the present, and allowed me to connect with the collection at its core. I had such pleasure processing this collection, and hope that researchersdiscover and connect with this material as much as I have.

Bremacha La Guerre
Volunteer
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

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Archivist on the Road

October 15, 2014, 6:00 am

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My August trip’s direct route was about 4000 miles, but with side trips to places like Hondo, New Mexico and Aspen, Colorado, among others, I put over 6500 miles on my rental car.

There are many means by which we discover the existence of a new cache of papers we may want to acquire. The first, and most common, is from unsolicited offers from artists, dealers, collectors, scholars, or their heirs. Although we can’t accept everything offered to us, we do often run across collections of exceptional depth and scope, like that of Santa Fe dealer Dwight Hackett. Hackett ran an art foundry in New Mexico and worked to realize in metal the work of some of America’s most highly-regarded artists. The records of Art Foundry and his subsequent business Dwight Hackett Projects contain a wealth of research-ready material on artists like Kiki Smith, Lesley Dill, Bruce Nauman, Luis Jimenez, and Lynda Benglis.


The Art Foundry records and the Dwight Hackett Project records comprise over 40 linear feet of correspondence, photographs, drawings, and project files.

Another method that we employ for discovering interesting collections for potential acquisition is to build networks in art communities throughout the country. Our friends in the field often suggest people whose papers we might be keen to collect. Such was the case on this trip with metalsmith Tom Joyce, another Santa Fean, to whom I was introduced through a mutual friend. Joyce is a self-made man in every sense of the word. This includes his breathtaking home and studio, which he built by hand without any formal training in architecture. Joyce also collects widely in African metalwork. His papers include a shelf of dense sketchbooks with drawings by Joyce of each new acquisition in his metalwork collection.


Tom Joyce in his studio. In addition to his enviable collections of books and African metalwork, Joyce has a remarkable number of tools for his craft.


Tom Joyce draws each new acquisition of his African metalwork collection so that he can “get to know the piece better.”

Often, we look for collections with a connection to people already represented in our holdings. While in Seattle, Washington, I looked at the papers of the artist Byron Randall. Randall was married to Emmy Lou Packard, whose papers contain important material on her friend, the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Randall and Packard also ran a gallery together in Northern California. Collecting in “circles” like this allows us to build on our strengths and comes with the added bonus of getting both sides of a correspondence.

Ahren Hertel in his Reno, Nevada studio.

My favorite thing to do while I’m on the road is to meet young, emerging artists, whose archives may not be of interest to us yet, but whose promising careers mean we may be knocking on their doors later in life. A friend of mine in Reno, Nevada told me I had to meet two local painters, Jaxon Northon and Ahren Hertel. Both work in similar styles but have very different processes and themes. Not only is it important for us to develop these relationships early, but painters like Northon and Hertel represent a generation of artists whose “papers” will contain virtually no paper at all. Learning how they work, communicate with one another, and market their work is crucial to understanding what archives will look like in the coming decades.

Jason Stieber, National Collector

Archives of American Art

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Throwback Thursday: Making Discoveries and Connections through Photography

October 16, 2014, 6:00 am

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≪ Previous: Archivist on the Road

Alexander Gardner, Kaw Delegates, Washington, D.C., 1867. William T. Sherman Collection of Alexander Gardner Photographs. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution

In the 1920s, two of General William Techumseh Sherman’s descendants donated the general’s sixty large-format albumen prints to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, predecessor institution to the National Museum of the American Indian. Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner had printed these for Sherman from a selection of his negatives of American Indian delegates to Washington, D.C. (1867-1869). These included both views along the Kansas Pacific Railroad (1867), and scenes from the Fort Laramie Treaty signing (1868). The photographs belong to Gardner’s “Scenes in the Indian Country” series and were likely intended to recognize and celebrate Sherman’s role in the Fort Laramie treaty negotiations with the “hostile” Lakota, Crow, and Cheyenne and Araphaho people of the Northern Plains.

The MAI-Heye Foundation individually cataloged Sherman’s photographs but this summer the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center decided to reunite and re-describe the collection. Although the collection record is not yet available in SIRIS, the project gave me the opportunity to discover and connect. The cultural affiliation of the American Indian delegates pictured in the above photograph is often cited as Sac and Fox, but I recognized important Kaw leader Allegawaho seated at the far right. With this discovery, I contacted Dr. Crystal Douglas of the Kanza Museum of the Kaw Nation for assistance. So far Dr. Douglas has been able to provide definite identifications of two additional sitters, father and son Wahtiangah (standing far right) and Kahtega (standing far left). Gardner also circulated this photograph on a printed mount, and Dr. Douglas pointed out to me that on his mount Gardner reversed their names. By connecting with Native experts like Dr. Douglas, I hope to continue to correct the errors of the past so that future discoveries in the archive will be reliable.

Heather Shannon, Photo Archivist
National Museum of the American Indian, Archive Center

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Friday Flashback: Hello, Helldiver!

October 17, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Taking Flak-Bait for a Walk

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During Archives Month 2013, the National Air and Space Museum Archives told one of the many true stories behind the restoration of the Museum’s Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver. In this story, restoration specialist Will Lee created a new clip for the outboard trailing edge using Curtiss manufacturer’s drawings from the Archives’ collections.

NASM Restoration specialist Will Lee with drawings from the Archives Department and newly fabricated parts for the Museum's Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver. NASM 2013-03245

On April 1, 2014, the Helldiver finally went on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia! Although you can’t see the clip Will constructed under the fabric, dope, and paint, we all know it’s there!

The Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver on display at the Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center. NASM 2014-01742

And that isn’t quite the end of the story. Will gave the Archives duplicate copies of his work. We now pair these pieces with reproductions of the drawings as show and tell in Museum events, such as Become a Pilot Day and the Hazy Open House.

Will's duplicate pieces were part of the NASM Archives showcase in front of the Helldiver at Become a Pilot Day 2014. (I'm very excited about something!) NASM 2014-03501

What is the National Air and Space Museum up to next? Stay tuned for Monday’s post!

Elizabeth C. Borja, Archivist
National Air and Space Museum Archives

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Taking Flak-Bait for a Walk

October 20, 2014, 6:00 am

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With much of the work of the National Air and Space Museum taking place behind the scenes, the glass-enclosed Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar allows visitors to discover and connect to our work in real time. Time and again we hear a very popular question: “How did that get there???” In the case of the newest hangar occupant, the Martin B-26B Marauder Flak-Bait, the answer is: “With the help of the Archives.”

View of the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar floor from the visitor overlook. Taken during the 2014 Hazy Open House (hence, the visitors on the shop floor). NASM 2014-00195

The Archives? As told in last week’s Flashback Friday, in the past, we have provided drawings and information in order for restoration specialist to build new parts, such as clips. But moving an entire airplane?

Flak-Bait was the first Allied bomber in the European Theater of WWII to complete 200 missions. It was transferred to the National Air and Space Museum in 1949 but it did not come to DC until 1960. When the Museum building opened in 1976, the forward fuselage section was a highlight in the World War II gallery. The entire airplane has never been exhibited intact. In fact, the forward fuselage section had never left the World War II Gallery and was already in place when the overhead walkway was built. Questions abounded. Could Flak-Bait go back under the walkway? Would Flak-Bait even fit into the freight elevator all the way at the other end of the Museum?!

Flak-Bait leads other Martin-B-236 Marauders of the 332nd Bombardment Group over Belgium to Magdeburg, Germany, on 17 April 1945. This was Flak-Bait's 200th mission. NASM A-42346

The Archives again scoured our collections for manufacturer’s drawings of the B-26B. Fortunately, unlike with the Helldiver, the set of reels contained an index!! Based on these drawings, Archives and Restoration made a life-sized cutout of the nose section of the B-26. First, the freight elevator was mocked up on the floor of the Restoration Hangar. So far, so good.

A life-size cutout of the B-26B Marauder Flak-Bait on the floor of the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar. Green tape marks represent the dimensions of the freight elevator on the Mall. NASM 2014-02801

The next step was to take the cutout, affectionately dubbed “Flat-Bait,” to the Mall and walk it through the complicated route.

Starting out in the WWII Gallery. Flak-Bait on the left. Flat-Bait on the right. NASM 2014-03656

With careful direction and measuring, Flat-Bait made it out of the gallery and into the museum corridor.

Taking Flat-Bait for a walk. NASM 2014-03657

Then came the next test—the freight elevator. Success!

Flat-Bait fits! NASM 2014-03665

June 18 was the big day! Flak-Bait moved down the hall to the freight elevator and…fit!

The real Flak-Bait enters the freight elevator. NASM 2014-03304

Flak-Bait was then loaded into a truck and carried to the Udvar-Hazy Center, where it has since been reunited with the other two sections of the fuselage.

Hangar Sweet Hangar!! NASM 2014-03788

Although currently you can only view Flak-Bait with your face pressed up against the glass of the hangar, the National Air and Space Museum has found ways for you to still connect with the work that we’re doing. The Museum is constantly updating our Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr accounts with Flak-Bait photos. Another great source for information is our AirSpace blog.

We in the Archives can’t wait to see what else we will discover in our collections to help!!

Elizabeth C. Borja, Archivist
National Air and Space Museum Archives

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Artful Collaborations at the Howard Theatre

October 21, 2014, 9:00 am

≫ Next: 75th Anniversary of "Gone with the Wind"

≪ Previous: Taking Flak-Bait for a Walk

Harold Curtis Brown illustration, 1924. Henry P. Whitehead Collection, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Michael A. Watkins.

Through recognizing outstanding local talent and providing suitable facilities for the presentation of theater, music and dance, the Howard Theatre has had a direct and dynamic impact on the history of African American culture. A local talented artists illustrations can be seen in two 1924 programs recently found within the collection. Harold Curtis Brown, today an unknown figure in American Art illustrated three known Howard Theatre programs. Brown was an artist, designer, illustrator, and decorator. Brown spent a year in Washington, DC where he ran an art shop “Blakra” on U Street a few blocks from the Howard Theatre. At the time these programs and one known other were distributed Brown was currently living and working in New York City beautifying the homes of the elite. Harold Curtis Brown worked primarily in interior decorating a field which was vastly unexplored by African Americans at the time.

Henry P. Whitehead was a local Washington, DC historian who led efforts to restore Washington's U Street cultural corridor and achieved recognition as an authority on and collector of black theatrical memorabilia. Mr. Whitehead worked to promote and preserve Washington, DC’s rich African American cultural heritage. His collection was donated to the Anacostia Community Museum in 2005 and is currently being processed and will soon be available for research.

Claire Norman
Project Archivist
Anacostia Community Museum Archives

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75th Anniversary of "Gone with the Wind"

October 22, 2014, 6:00 am

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Bulk-mail (postcard) hanging advertisement for the Marlboro Theatre, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, advertising the program for the week of April 14th, 1940, highlighting the premiere of ‘Gone With the Wind’. Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0475-0000269-02).

The David O. Selznick film version of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Gone With the Wind” (GWTW) celebrates the 75th anniversary of its premiere in December 2014. In the current era, when blockbusters, or would-be blockbusters, are released at regular intervals, the excitement around the original opening of GWTW may seem strange to us. This object of advertising ephemera from the Marlboro Theatre in Upper Marlboro, Prince George’s County, Maryland provides a window into the film’s promotion to a rural audience. The Marlboro, designed by John Eberson, was built for theatre entrepreneur Sidney Lust and had opened for business in January 1938.

GWTW did not go into general release until after a star-studded premiere in Atlanta in December 1939. With immediate popularity and wide critical acclaim the film became the “must see” motion picture event of 1940. GWTW did not reach Upper Marlboro until April 28, 1940 and Lust used bulk mail to advertise its coming to the Marlboro Theatre’s largely rural customer base. Lust cleverly used a hanging card and on the reverse side of the GWTW promotional postcard advertised the theatre’s April 14-27 program. At .75 for unreserved and $1.10 for reserved seating (roughly $12 and $18 in current money), the cost of a GWTW ticket was quite an investment for local tobacco farmers and their families. The Washington Post reported the day after the opening, “'Gone With the Wind’ opened in three of Sidney Lust’s Maryland theaters yesterday before large and appreciative audiences. The famous Selznick production was presented simultaneously at the Hyattsville Theater, in Hyattsville; the Milo Theater, in Rockville; and the Marlboro Theater, in Upper Marlboro.” (“Gone With the Wind”, The Washington Post, April 29, 1940, page 16.)

Verso of image above. A bulk-mail hanging advertisement for the Marlboro Theatre, Upper Marlboro, Maryland advertising other films on the schedule for April 14-27, 1940. Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0475-0000269-01.

Other Archives Center collections contain material related to this film. Only a few weeks earlier and about twenty miles away, African Americans had picketed the showing of "Gone with the Wind" at the Lincoln Theatre in the segregated Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The film's racist assumptions and stereotyped portrayals of African Americans roused normally complacent residents to mount a protest that foreshadowed the civil rights activism of the 1960s.

"Jim Crow" showing of "Gone with the Wind" / at the uptown Lincoln Theater. Rufus Byars, manager of Lincoln on left.
Probably photographed by Roberts S. Scurlock, March 9, 1940. Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, NMAH

Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.
Archivist, Archives Center
National Museum of American History

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Throwback Thursday: Peter Blume, From Concept to Realization

October 23, 2014, 6:00 am

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≪ Previous: 75th Anniversary of "Gone with the Wind"

Russian American artist Peter Blume’s highly detailed surrealist allegoric paintings helped define American modernism. Active from the mid-1930s through the 1980s, Blume’s creative process included sketching and drawing many drafts of his large-scale paintings. Here, we see a sampling of sequentially numbered sketches Blume completed for his painting Tassos Oak, 1957-1960. The artist’s creative process is documented in numerous sketches and photographs found among the circa eight linear feet of Peter Blume’s papers at the Archives of American Art, as well as in an oral history interview with the artist conducted by the Archives in 1983.

Photograph of the actual Tasso's Oak tree in Rome, undated. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Tasso's Oak study (#DPS60-24), circa 1950- 1960. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Tasso's Oak study (#DPS60-29), circa 1950-1960. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Tasso's Oak study (#DPS60-8), circa 1950-1960. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Tasso's Oak study (#DPS60-12), circa 1950-1960. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Peter Blume working on his painting Tasso's oak, between 1957 and 1960 / unidentified photographer. Peter Blume papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Peter Blume reflected in a mirror standing in front of his painting Tasso's oak, most likely in his studio, circa 1957-1960

Barbara Aikens, Head of Collections Processing
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

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Flashback Friday: Stettheimer Sisters

October 24, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Happy Anniversary Cultural Resources Center!

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Florine Stettheimer, Carrie with Dollhouse, 1923

Florine Stettheimer, Cathedrals of Art, 1942

Thanks to a recent permissions request, we’ve ‘discovered’ more Stettheimer images in the Juley Collection -- photographs of the interiors of the Stettheimer’s home, and of the studio Florine later kept in Bryant Park. I was thrilled to find these as they really help the viewer’s imagination in bringing the salons out of the fantastical world of Florine’s paintings and placing them in a real time in history. It’s easy to picture the sisters and their friends hanging out in the Stettheimer home or in Florine’s studio.

Florine was also interested in interior design, as evidenced by the colorful décor from her studio. The rooms there were adorned in lace, cellophane and floral patterns, echoing a similar aesthetic found in her paintings and theatrical design.

Interior of Stettheimer home, New York

These images were originally mislabeled as depicting an unknown location, but after a bit of searching we were able to locate the entire set and correctly catalog them in SIRIS. You can see the rest of the images, along with other works by the Stettheimer sisters here.

Rachel Brooks

Photograph Archives

Smithsonian American Art Museum

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Happy Anniversary Cultural Resources Center!

October 27, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: American Portrait Miniature Treasures

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2014 is an exciting year of anniversaries for the National Museum of the American Indian. Twenty five years ago our authorizing legislation passed, creating NMAI as part of the Smithsonian Institution. Twenty years ago our public space in New York City, the George Gustav Heye Center, opened its doors. Just ten years ago our flagship building on the National Mall opened to the public with great fanfare. But for those of us who work in NMAI’s archives, this year is special because it marks the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of our home, the Cultural Resources Center, the museum’s purpose-built collections facility.

The CRC houses NMAI’s object collections, archival collections, library, conservation labs, repatriation department, and many other offices. It’s a special place, and is quite different than other collections facilities in important ways. It was designed in consultation with many Native American communities, and their input is quickly evident in the building’s organic design and aesthetics, which reflect visual motifs often found in nature. In much the same way that our Mall Museum building takes inspiration from colors, textures, and forms found throughout the Americas, so too does the CRC. But NMAI’s discussions with our Native American constituents had a much deeper impact on the museum than simply how the CRC looks. These consultations formed the basis of many of the collections management and stewardship policies and practices that set NMAI apart from other museums. From the natural light in our collections’ areas, to the physical arrangement of collections, to the traditional care and handling we practice here, respect for cultural sensitivities is literally built into the CRC.

NMAI Cultural Resources Center Rendering. National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center,
Smithsonian Institution.

The consultations that informed the design of the CRC took years, and resulted in a massive document called “The Way of the People.” And once the building was designed and built, the real work began: moving the collections. But as a result of all of the planning and consultation, the CRC was ready to be a safe and supportive home to the incredible cultural patrimony in NMAI’s care. Here’s to fifteen years of the CRC, and many more to come!

Michael Pahn, Head Archivist
National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center

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American Portrait Miniature Treasures

October 28, 2014, 9:00 am

≫ Next: Throwback Thursday: Panoramic Panic!

≪ Previous: Happy Anniversary Cultural Resources Center!

This October, the Smithsonian Collections Blog is celebrating American Archives Month with a month-long blogathon! We will be posting new content almost every weekday with the theme Discover and Connect. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

American artists began painting portrait miniatures around the mid-eighteenth century, following English and European traditions. The miniatures were closely tied to artistic and social circles, representing keepsakes for bonds of family and friendships, and of admired public figures. Portrait miniatures were often created to celebrate a special event or relationship, such as an engagement, marriage, or memorial. Private gifts of portrait miniatures sometimes were exchanged between loved ones, in which only a person’s eye was depicted. Miniatures were usually palm-size and created to be held or worn as jewelry. These treasured objects combined the fine art of portraiture with the decorative arts in protective cases of glass, fine metals, leather, filigree, and gems. The portrait miniatures were influenced by the earlier traditions of medieval illuminated manuscripts and classically inspired portrait medals of the Renaissance. In the colonial period, artists referred to the art as “pictures in little.”

The earliest English and European miniatures were created with watercolor or gouache painted on vellum and later on ivory or card. There was also a tradition of oil or enamel painted on copper and wood panel. In America, many of the early miniatures were created by European-trained artists beginning in the early eighteenth century. American artists learned from visiting or emigrant European artists and by studying abroad. The popularity of painted portrait miniatures was affected by the competitive market of daguerreotypes and photographs in the mid-nineteenth century. At this time, artists started painting portrait miniatures with greater realistic details and larger formats for public display on tables or as wall hangings. After 1890, miniature painting experienced a revival through the Arts and Crafts movement and the 1899 formation of the American Society of Miniature Painters.

From 2011 to 2012, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery held an exhibition entitled Mementos: Painted and Photographic Miniatures, 1750–1920. To complement this past show, I would like to present additional miniatures from the collection that are fine examples in the historic development of this art form in America.


Andrew Oliver (1706–1774), by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), c. 1758, oil on copper (NPG.78.218)

In about 1758, the young artist John Singleton Copley captured a remarkable likeness of Andrew Oliver, with attention to facial modeling, realistic detail, and side lighting. Copley created this portrait in oil on copper, a technique he used in the early stage of his career, possibly following the miniature technique of John Smibert, a Scottish artist who settled in Boston. Copley also painted a c. 1760 companion portrait of Oliver’s brother Peter, which has a matching original porthole decorative frame. The Oliver family members were so impressed with Copley’s talent that they commissioned seven miniatures from him. Andrew Oliver was a leading merchant and active politician in Boston. He served in the colonial House of Representatives for three terms, on the Massachusetts Council from 1746 until he was appointed secretary of the province in 1756 and lieutenant governor of the colony in 1771. As a representative of the British Crown, he was violently attacked by the colonists as an appointed distributor of the unpopular tax stamps after the Stamp Act of 1765.

Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828), by John Trumbull (1756–1843), 1791, oil on wood panel (NPG.2007.211)

Thomas Pinckney, a former governor of South Carolina, was soon to become minister to England when John Trumbull created this 1791 oil on wood panel miniature. The artist followed the elegant Federal period’s fluid, painterly style in this portrait of Pinckney in uniform, with a cloudy sky in the background in the English manner. He had studied painting under the American artist Benjamin West in London. Trumbull’s 1791 miniatures of Thomas Pinckney and his brother Charles Cotesworth Pinckney were intended as sketches for a planned group history painting of the 1779 siege of Savannah that was never realized. Both brothers had participated in the unsuccessful attempt to recapture Savannah from the British during the American Revolution. Thomas Pinckney’s most notable role was as special envoy to Spain, where he negotiated the Treaty of San Lorenzo (1795), which expanded America’s commercial interests in the Mississippi River region.

Elizabeth Depeyster Peale (1765–1804), by James Peale (1749–1831), 1795, watercolor on ivory (S/NPG.2009.49)

James Peale created a 1795 watercolor on ivory miniature of Elizabeth Depeyster Peale, the wife of his older brother Charles Willson Peale. Charles, a widower with six children, was impressed by Elizabeth’s character at their meeting in April 1791 during her visit to Philadelphia. She was a daughter of a New York City merchant; she married Peale after a brief courtship. James Peale had studied painting under his brother and specialized in portrait miniatures. James employed delicate, fine linear brushstrokes and soft lighting for this portrait of Elizabeth. He presented her in an engaged, relaxed manner with a slight smile.

Self-Portrait, by James Reid Lambdin (1807–1889), c. 1845, watercolor on ivory (NPG.78.213)

James Reid Lambdin’s c. 1845 watercolor on ivory miniature is a self-portrait in a dramatic style, depicting the young man’s head turned to the side with sensitive modeling and highlights on his face. This miniature recalls the general aura of the portraits of Lord George Gordon Byron, the poetic leader of the Romantic movement in England. Lambdin was an accomplished artist, educator, and leader in American art circles. He studied with the English miniature artist Edward Miles and local artist Thomas Sully in Philadelphia. In 1828 Lambdin founded the Pittsburgh Museum of Natural History and Gallery of Fine Art, following the model of Charles Willson Peale’s museum in Philadelphia. In 1837, Lambdin settled in Philadelphia and served as director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1845–64) and taught at the University of Pennsylvania (1861–66). During this period, President James Buchanan appointed him U.S. art commissioner, and Lambdin created portraits of fifteen U.S. presidents and other statesmen.

Varina Howell Davis (1826–1906), by John Wood Dodge (1807–1893), 1849, watercolor on ivory (NPG.80.113)

John Wood Dodge painted a 1849 watercolor on ivory miniature of Varina Howell Davis in Natchez, Mississippi. The artist portrayed the young Varina with refined, directional brushstrokes that follow the structure of her face. She wears a miniature brooch depicting a King Charles spaniel. This portrait is encased in a gold locket with her braided hair preserved as part of the decorative backside. At age eighteen, she married Jefferson Davis, who became the future president of the Confederacy in Richmond during the Civil War. She was a devoted wife and mother of their five children and an accomplished first lady. Dodge was mostly self-taught, following an early apprenticeship with a sign and ornamental painter. He exhibited his miniatures in 1829 at the National Academy of Design in New York City and became an associate of the academy in 1832. Dodge was later commissioned to paint miniatures of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay. He was a talented and prolific artist creating more than one thousand miniatures, as recorded in his account book from 1828 to 1864. A copy of the account book is held at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889), by George Lethbridge Saunders (1807–1863), 1849, watercolor on ivory (NPG.79.228)

In 1849, English artist George Lethbridge Saunders painted a watercolor on ivory miniature of Jefferson Davis. Saunders employed a colorful and varied artistic style, reserving the more detailed brushstrokes for Davis’s facial features, and surrounding his figure with soft washes for the landscape and cloudy sky in the English manner. Saunders painted this portrait when Davis was a senator representing Mississippi, before he became the president of the Confederate States of America. Saunders was already an established artist when he visited America in the 1840s. He created miniatures of prominent family members in cities along the East Coast, from Boston to Charleston. He met such artists as Thomas Sully and Charles Fraser and exhibited his works from 1840 to 1843 at the Apollo Association in New York City and the Artists’ Fund Society in Philadelphia.

The Silver Goblet (Self-Portrait), by Lucy May Stanton (1875–1931), 1912, watercolor on ivory. (NPG.72.24)

Lucy May Stanton created this 1912 impressionistic watercolor on ivory self-portrait, The Silver Goblet. She depicted herself in the miniature with soft, fluid washes, produced by a new innovative “puddling” technique, in which the artist controlled the flow of washes by tilting the workboard. Stanton looks directly at the viewer in a confident and celebratory manner in this portrait. She studied in America and France with such artists as J. Emile Blanche, Augustus Koopman, Virginia Reynolds, and James Abbott McNeil Whistler. Stanton in turn became an art educator and exhibited in the United States and abroad, receiving many awards for her works. She also promoted woman suffrage and in 1928 co-founded the Georgia Peace Society.

American portrait miniatures evolved from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. The artists adapted English and European styles and techniques, but they transformed their artworks in the process. The American miniatures emphasized simplicity, directness, and “truth in the likeness,” reflective of the new nation and culture.

In 1966 the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery established the Catalog of American Portraits, a national portrait archives of historically notable subjects and artists from the colonial period to the present. The public may access the online portrait search program from the museum website of more than 100,000 records; more than 7,000 of these are miniature portraits. . Some of the most notable miniature collections are found at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, New York Historical Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven.

Patricia H. Svoboda, Research Coordinator
Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

All images are from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Websites:

Fortune, Brandon, and Ann Shumard. Mementos: Painted and Photographic Miniatures, 1750–1920. Washington, D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, June 17, 2011, through May 13 2012.
http://npg.si.edu/exhibit/mementos/

Barratt, Carrie Rebora. “American Portrait Miniatures of the Eighteenth Century.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mini/hd_mini.htm

Barratt, Carrie Rebora. “American Portrait Miniatures of the Nineteenth Century.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mini_2/hd_mini_2.htm

Frank, Robin Jaffee. Telling a Larger Story: Collecting Miniatures for a New Century. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, September 18, 2007, through January 13, 2008.
http://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/telling-larger-story-collecting-miniatures-new-century

Frank, Robin Jaffee. Private Faces of Public People: 1750-1900. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, August 17, 2005, through June 1, 2007.
http://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/exhibition/private-faces-public-people-1750-1900

Bibliography:

Aronson, Julie, and Marjorie E. Wieseman. Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum. Exhibition catalogue. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 2006.

Barratt, Carrie Rebora, and Lori Zabar. American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Bolton-Smith, Robin. Portrait Miniatures in the National Museum of American Art. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Art, 1984.

Frank, Robin Jaffee. Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures. Exhibition catalogue. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

Johnson, Dale T. American Portrait Miniatures in the Manney Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990.

Labels: 2014 Archives Month, Archives, Artists, Arts and Design, History and Culture, Museums

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Throwback Thursday: Panoramic Panic!

October 30, 2014, 11:29 am

≫ Next: Flashback Friday: Dumpsters Part Deux

≪ Previous: American Portrait Miniature Treasures

[Ghostly figure and children.], 1900. Silver gelatin on glass. Underwood & Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, 1895-1921. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Is anyone feeling a little spooky this week? They are over on SIA’s blog, The Bigger Picture, where the conservator thinks she is seeing things – perhaps a little spirit photography is in order – for it’s the return of that popular horror series… Panoramic Panic, Part III!

Nora Lockshin, Conservator
Smithsonian Institution Archives

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Flashback Friday: Dumpsters Part Deux

October 31, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: How to Hatch Your Dragon! The First Komodo Dragons Born at the National Zoo in 1992

≪ Previous: Throwback Thursday: Panoramic Panic!

The Freer Sign can be seen in the lower right of this photograph.

The above photograph finally confirms the exact location of the salvaged Freer sign when it adorned the museum.

We never knew exactly where the sign had been as that institutional knowledge had been lost to time. Sometimes happy accidents happen and things that were once lost are restored.

If you want to know more about the Freer sign, please read Dumpsters are Fun.

Lara Amrod, Archivist
Freer|Sackler Archives

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How to Hatch Your Dragon! The First Komodo Dragons Born at the National Zoo in 1992

November 4, 2014, 7:52 am

≫ Next: Civil War Decision Makers: John W. Garrett Commits the B&O

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Komodo dragon at the National Zoo displays its tongue that has scent receptors for hunting. “Kracken” is all grown up now in her new 620 square foot outdoor enclosure, attached to its 714 square foot indoor enclosure, September 10, 2002, photograph by Jessie Cohen. National Zoological Park photograph collection. Negative # NZP-20020910-3394JC

As fall approaches, we think of nature as quieting down for the winter; while spring is the season for baby booms. But such was not the case on September 13, 1992, when the National Zoo’s Komodo dragon eggs began to hatch, the first ever dragons born outside of their native Indonesia! As children know from the adventures of Hiccup, the Viking boy in the popular books and movie series, How to Train Your Dragon, the successful rearing of dragons requires study, devoted care, and cooperation between different groups, and such was the case here.

Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) are the largest of the lizards in the modern world. They bear a distinct similarity to their dinosaur ancestors, and are fierce fighters. Male dragons reach a length of 10 feet and can weigh 300 pounds. The largest known specimen was 10.3 feet or 3.13 meters and weighed in at 366 pounds or 166 kg. Although the Komodo can sprint at 13 mph (20 kph), they hunt using a strategy based on stealth and power, as they sit for hours at a time waiting for an unsuspecting deer, boar, goat, or similar sized animal to wander near them. They hunt primarily through scent and can track prey 2.5 miles (4 km) away in a good wind. Komodo dragon hatchlings weigh less than 3.5 ounces (100 g) and are about 16 inches in length (40 cm). Their first year is quite precarious since they can be eaten by a number of predators, including adult Komodos. The young feed on insects, small lizards, snakes or birds – whatever is at hand. By the time they reach five years of age, they can weigh 55 pounds (25 Kg) and stretch 6.5 feet (2 m) long. In the wild, their life span can be more than thirty years.

Color postcard of a Komodo Dragon at the National Zoological Park. The Komodo Dragon is sitting on top of a pile of rocks, and a zookeeper Roy Jennier is standing to its right. The postcard caption reads: “Komodo Dragon, a young specimen of the largest of all Lizards," by Curt Teich & Co., 1935. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 65, Box 16, Folder: Postcards. Negative # SIA2013-07822

The National Zoological Park had been home to a Komodo dragon in the 1930s. In the 1960s and 1970s, Zoo director Ted Reed traveled to Indonesia to bring back a pair, “Reni” and “Kelana,” but alas, no babies ever appeared. In the summer of 1988, two Komodo dragons arrived at the National Zoological Park, as gifts from the people of Indonesia to the people of the United States. The two Komodos, “Friendty” and “Sobat” were the only members of their species on exhibit in the Western hemisphere. The Zoo hoped for some youngsters, but the Komodos were not easy to breed.

One of the two Komodo Dragons in the National Zoological Park's Reptile House, “Friendty” is six-and-a half feet long and weighs 30.8 lbs., 1988, photograph by Jessie Cohen. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371, Box 5, Folder: September 1988. Negative # 96-1372.

Clearly the zookeepers needed to learn how to hatch a dragon…….

Studying how Komodos live in the wild, the keepers decided to expand the dragon exhibit and create a separate nesting area for the female. The exotic couple seemed to like their new digs, and keepers observed courtship activity from December 7 through December 29, 1991. On January 17, 1992, the female dug a new burrow, and six days later scientists found 26 precious eggs in the nest!

Komodo parents don’t care for their eggs or young – a female may sit on the nest to protect it, but they don’t always. So the eggs were removed and placed in incubators, sending ten to a lab at George Mason University and putting sixteen in NZP incubators. The Zoo had developed a cooperative arrangement with nearby George Mason University and split the eggs to two locations for safety’s sake. Months went by without any real action, but after a mere 237 days, on September 13, the first of the tiny dragons hatched at George Mason University!

Komodo dragon hatchling, a female “Kracken,” in September 1992, photograph by Jessie Cohen. National Zoological Park photograph collection. Negative # 215-53JC.tif

Within four weeks, a total of thirteen Komodo dragons emerged at George Mason and at the Zoo, making this the largest hatching of Komodos on record, in zoos or in the wild. The National Zoological Park thus became the first place in the Western Hemisphere to breed the rare and endangered Komodo dragon. In the years since this first dragon, four clutches of eggs have hatched at the Zoo, resulting in 55 little dragons that now can be seen at 30 zoos around the world! Scientists think the long period of incubation is to keep the eggs safe during the searing heat of Indonesian summers. When they hatch in the fall, they are far more likely to survive.

Komodo Dragon awaiting adoption at the National Zoological Park. Courtesy of National Zoological Park website.

Komodo dragons are still not easy to tame, and would prove a challenge to Hiccup or any other adventurous child today. Instead you can adopt a Komodo dragon at the National Zoo to get to know and help preserve this endangered species. Come visit Kracken at the National Zoo, and if that's not enough, consider a Komodo dragon tour to Indonesia -- these have also become a popular tourist destination.

Pamela Henson

Smithsonian Institution Archives

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Civil War Decision Makers: John W. Garrett Commits the B&O

November 6, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: Movember and No Shave November Mustaches from the Archives of American Gardens

≪ Previous: How to Hatch Your Dragon! The First Komodo Dragons Born at the National Zoo in 1992

Executive decision-making has been much in the news.

John Work Garrett, 1820-1884

During the Civil War, John W. Garrett, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, made a crucial business decision which affected the course of the war. Despite being personally sympathetic to the Confederate cause, with Jubal Early’s men circling north toward Martinsburg and Cumberland and threatening the B&O, on February 1, 1864, Garrett wrote to Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, offering the services of his railroad to transport Union troops:

“…Immediate re-inforcements [sic] appear to be required. I have ordered vigorous preparations to be made for the transportation of troops from Washington and Baltimore…”

Letter from John Work Garrett to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Feb. 1, 1864.
From the Baltimore & Ohio Records, Misc. Correspondence, Box 2, Folder 10.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Choosing the winning side facilitated the B & O’s post-war success in retrieving property stolen by Confederate troops. As the Confederates circled north they were amazed to find fourteen locomotives in the B & O sheds in Martinsburg, West Virginia. A handwritten manuscript in our B & O Records entitled “The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad: Adventures of A Railroad During the Civil War” tells the story:

Locomotives Moved Over Turnpike Roads to Richmond
The Confederates had almost undisturbed possession of 100 miles of the [rail]road west of Harpers Ferry, during which time they destroyed all the bridges between that place and Cumberland, and took up and removed to Richmond the iron rails of 40 miles of the track. They also conveyed to Richmond 14 valuable locomotives, in perfect order, which they found in the company’s repair shops at Martinsburg. They accomplished this novel task with extraordinary perseverance and great mechanical skill, as they had to transport these heavy locomotives over the turnpike roads on their own wheels to Strasburg, a distance of fully 40 miles.

According to the B & O Engine Shop Records, the company got twelve of the fourteen locomotives back in 1865:

“All 12 captured locos back in shop. 2 never returned 34 and 50.”

Christine Windheuser, Volunteer, Archives Center, National Musuem of American History

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Movember and No Shave November Mustaches from the Archives of American Gardens

November 13, 2014, 6:00 am

≫ Next: La Sirene (The Mermaid) Chair

≪ Previous: Civil War Decision Makers: John W. Garrett Commits the B&O

In honor of Movember and No Shave November, the Archives of American Gardens' honors the men behind some of America's most unique parks and gardens. These men sport some great facial hair!

This autochrome shows Alfred D. Robinson surrounded by his prized begonias at his home, Rosecroft, in San Diego, California. Robinson cultivated hundreds of varieties of begonias and was also a founder and first president of the San Diego Floral Association. The garden surrounding Robinson’s home sat on ten acres of land which has now been subdivided into multiple properties. Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, Garden Club of America Collection. (AAG# CA142001)

Two gardeners creating a carpet bedding design at Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut, America’s first municipal rose garden, early 20th century. Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, J. Horace McFarland Collection. (AAG# CT060001)

Charles Sprague Sargent, pictured here examining Quercus (oak) herbarium specimens, was appointed director of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum in 1872. Sargent collaborated with well-known landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the arboretum creating a space for exceptional research and recreation. Photo by T.E. Marr, 1904. Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, J. Horace McFarland Collection. (AAG# MA033024)

Catherine Bell
Archives of American Gardens 2014 Intern
Smithsonian Gardens

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