Fifteen Objects

  In January, I wrote about having met Richard Kurin, undersecretary for history, art and culture of the Smithsonian Institution, at a reception in San Francisco.  He gave a talk about the Smithsonian's amazing complex of museums and research centers and its collection of almost 140 million artifacts.  He also mentioned that he was writing a book to be called The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects.

  I was abashed at my lack of knowledge of the Smithsonian's sweep, which I tried to repair by visiting its website, particularly its Collections section, spending many pleasurable hours rummaging through what I called America's attic.  As I recounted in my January posting, I chose, in serendipitous order, fifteen objects from the attic that I thought should be included in Kurin's book.  Note that I magnanimously left him 86 additional objects with which to fill in the rest of America's history—as it turned out, from the Cambrian era until today.

  Kurin sent me an email a couple of months ago, letting me know that the book was soon to be published, and astounding me by saying "of the objects you named on your blog," which the hostess of the reception had sent him, "just about everyone is in the book.  For those that are not—there is another item that is included that gets at the same topic, theme or event. So you were spot on!"  That burnishing of my ego instantly impelled me to pre-order the book.  And lo! as if by magic it appeared on my iPad while I slept in the early morning of the publication date.  I spent the next two weeks engrossed in it.

  The book is in itself an objet d'art: lavishly illustrated, beautifully written, meticulously researched and intensively end-noted.  For those who like history per se, it can be read linearly as a chronological narrative.  For those who favor artifacts, it can be sampled at random, object by object.  Either way, the depth of description of both the objects and the history surrounding them will surely captivate you.  This is a must read for history buffs, lovers of artifacts, and aficionados of the Smithsonian.

  Kurin's 101 objects run several gamuts—in time, from a collection of half-billion-year-old Burgess Shale fossils, to the Giant Magellan Telescope currently being built in Chile by a consortium led by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory; in size, from a small postal date stamp retrieved from the wreckage of the U.S.S. Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor, forever frozen at December 6, 1941, the day before the attack that brought the U.S. into World War II, to the huge Enola Gay bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, effectively ending the war; in culture, from esoterica such as Thomas Jefferson's cut-and-paste New Testament, purged of material he thought contrary to reason, such as miracles and references to Jesus' divinity, to the pop-culture of Mickey Mouse cartoons.  Each is accompanied by a lovingly written, fact-laden essay chronicling its importance from its creation throughout the rest of American history.  It's an 800-page tour de force, providing a unique insight into the story of America.

  So how did I do in my recommendations of fifteen objects for inclusion in the 101?  Here's my original unchronological list, on which I've inserted a √ mark against the twelve objects that made it into the book, and added an italicized note to the other three, indicating the closest matching object in the book.

å A piece of Plymouth Rock, representing the migration of Europeans to settle in America.

å 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.

å A Model-T Ford, the car that almost alone made Americans mobile.

å 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.

å 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.  (Emancipation Proclamation Pamphlet.)

å George Washington's Revolutionary War uniform.

å The Wright Flyer, which made the first heavier-than-air flight, an invention that further increased our mobility.

å The shuttle Discovery, representing the advent of the Space Age.

å 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.  (Gay Civil Rights Picket Signs.)

  •A barracks sign from one of the relocation centers in which Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II.  (A piece of art painted by a detainee in one of the centers.)

  My ego, already burnished by Kurin's kind words in his email to me, fluoresced when I compared my list with his full list of 101 objects.  I felt as if I had aced an important final exam.  But the fluorescence dimmed considerably when I thought of Kurin's Herculean effort in choosing 101 objects from 140 million candidates, elaborating the provenance of each, and writing at length of its intimate connection with American history.  My few hours of poking about through the Smithsonian's website suddenly seemed very dilettantish compared to the years of effort, the thousands upon thousands of hours of exhausting labor, that I know he expended.

  But, hey, ego boosts are rare enough for me these days.  My ego is thankful for any it gets.