I've just finished a scavenger hunt in America's attic,
looking for a very particular kind of treasure. Before I describe my finds though, let me explain how I got
there in the first place.
The same hosts who held the reception that introduced me to
the Crowden
School hosted another last month, this time in honor of Richard Kurin,
undersecretary for history, art and culture of the Smithsonian
Institution. Kurin, who oversees
about half of the Smithsonian's activities, gave a talk about how the
Institution is fulfilling the vision of its founding donor, James Smithson, a
British scientist who died in 1829, willing his entire $500,000 estate to
create “at Washington an establishment for the increase and diffusion of
knowledge.” (It was an amazing
gift, because Smithson had never set foot in the United States!) Since that endowment, the Smithsonian
has become the world’s largest complex of museums and research centers,
encompassing 19 museums, the National Zoo and nine research facilities. Kurin's overview of all that was
eye-opening for me; I'd had no idea of the vastness of it all.
As I left the reception, I reflected shamefully that I had almost never visited Smithsonian facilities during
the dozens of times I visited Washington during my professional career. For the few purloined hours when I was able to break away
from meetings, my favorite destination was the National Gallery, which is not
part of the Smithsonian. Of the Smithsonian's complex, I remember visiting only the Hirshhorn Gallery and the Air and Space Museum. So, of the Institution's
137 million artifacts, works of art and specimens (of course, never all on display
at once, some never displayed), I probably saw substantially fewer than a
thousand.
Most of these items are small (they would have to be, since
there are so many millions of them to store), but some are monumental, like the
space shuttle Discovery and even Julia Child's kitchen! Kurin's perspective is that each is a
lens that brings into focus part of America's history—its wars, politics,
popular movements, constantly changing social setting, racial and ethnic heritages, and technological drivers.
A little over a year ago, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, published A History of the World in 100 Objects. The objects he selected were all man-made, all owned by the British Museum, and range from a two-million-year-old chopping tool to a modern credit card. He used a picture of each as a companion for an essay on its surrounding times. Now Kurin is writing a book on the history of America in 101 objects owned by the Smithsonian. (How's that for one-upmanship?) I have no idea how he will choose those objects from a haystack more than a million times that large, even allowing for the many duplicates in it.
A little over a year ago, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, published A History of the World in 100 Objects. The objects he selected were all man-made, all owned by the British Museum, and range from a two-million-year-old chopping tool to a modern credit card. He used a picture of each as a companion for an essay on its surrounding times. Now Kurin is writing a book on the history of America in 101 objects owned by the Smithsonian. (How's that for one-upmanship?) I have no idea how he will choose those objects from a haystack more than a million times that large, even allowing for the many duplicates in it.
That's what brought me to my scavenger hunt: I was trying to
guess what those 101 objects will be.
Here are fifteen possibilities, the result of a rambling on-line search through
the Collections section of the
Smithsonian's website. I list them
in the serendipitous order in which I came upon them:
• A piece of Plymouth Rock, representing the migration of Europeans to
settle in America.
• Eli Whitney's cotton gin, which made slavery an economically viable
and indispensable institution for the South.
• Any one of Thomas Edison's many inventions—say the light bulb or the
phonograph—representing one of the pre-eminent inventors in American history
and the vast impact of such inventors and inventions on our civilization.
• One of the early personal computers—a Commodore or an Apple—which
augured the stunning shift to our now-webcentric lives.
• A Model-T Ford, the car that almost alone made Americans mobile.
• The Woolworth's "Whites Only" lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina, where in 1960 four African-American college students staged a
sit-in, an event that helped ignite that decade's civil rights movement.
• The chairs and table from the Appomattox Court House that Generals
Grant and Lee used when signing the documents ending the Civil War.
• The pen used by President Lincoln to sign the Emancipation
Proclamation.
• George Washington's Revolutionary War uniform.
• The Wright Flyer, which made the first heavier-than-air flight, an
invention that further increased our mobility.
• The shuttle Discovery, representing the advent of the Space Age.
• The ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in "The Wizard of
Oz," symbolizing both the power of the movies in our national culture and
the advent of Technicolor.
• The original Star-Spangled Banner from Fort McHenry in 1814—an
emblem of the fight to defend the young America from invasion and the
inspiration for our National Anthem.
• A poster from the Longest Walk, a 1978 American Indian civil rights
march from California to Washington, D.C., protesting the continuing
devastation of reservations and violation of treaties and tribal rights that
have characterized the fate of Native Americans.
• A barracks sign from one of the relocation
centers in which Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II.
Pictures of just
those fifteen items, arranged in chronological order with essays attached,
would illuminate significant portions of American history. There would still be huge gaps (like
the Depression, World War I and the Vietnam War), but I've left Kurin with 86
more objects to fill them in!
You should try this game. I
think you'll find yourself in a delightful rummage through the nation's attic,
without cobwebs, dust balls or strange odors to offend you!