Category Archives: Museums

Smithsonian Road Show

30 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in Libraries, Museums

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As a librarian myself I am aware of the wide range of initiatives taking place within our public, academic, and special libraries. Yesterday in my former hometown of Houston the Smithsonian held one of the most innovative .  Curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture evaluated artifacts brought by local citizens to the downtown central library.  Unlike on such television shows as PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, Smithsonian officials examined items and offered guidance on their preservation but did not appraise their monetary value.  Houston was the eleventh stop in the museums’s ongoing “Save Our African American Treasures: A National Collections Initiative of Discovery and Preservation” program.  The event yielded some real finds, including a portion of a statue from 100 a.d. and poll tax receipts from the early 1900s.  Select items may go on display in Washington.

Custer at West Point

12 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Museums, Washington, D.C.

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One of the reasons for our fascination with the American Civil War is that it coincided with the nascent stages of photography.  Because we have photographs of Lincoln, Grant, and Lee we see them as more human–more like us–than Washington, Jefferson and Madison, for whom all that remain are artists’ renderings.  This sense of shared humanity allows us to relate to the citizens of 1861-65 in a way we never could with the Founding Fathers.  My own interest in the War of the Rebellion began when my uncle gave me a book of Brady photographs when I was ten.

Here is a vignette on the man who finished last in his West Point Class of ’61.

A battle in Atlanta

09 Sunday Oct 2011

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The Atlanta Cyclorama has been thrilling audiences in its present location since 1921. The heart of the exhibit is a circular, 125-year-old oil painting on five panels of Belgian linen that depicts one of the great battles of the Civil War. It’s so big it could nearly cover a football field, and it hangs like a curtain four stories high in a big, round building in the Grant Park neighborhood…

…There have been renovations over the years, the last in 1996, but the cyclorama and the dated Civil War museum that is part of the attraction might not be good enough anymore. There is talk of moving it elsewhere in the city. A new location might give the cyclorama more pop. Or, barring a move, maybe there is simply a better way for the cyclorama to tell the story of Atlanta’s place in the Civil War.

If they indeed do move the Atlanta Cyclorama, or leave it in its present location but add “more pop,” I hope they think it through. I am not against modernization–I’m typing this on my iPad–but changing something just to appeal a younger, tech-savvy audience seems a mistake.

(Detail of Atlanta Cyclorama courtesy London Looks)

A Bronx Tale

07 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Museums, New York City, Uncategorized

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Last Saturday a friend and I ventured to the Bronx.  After Staten Island this is the borough I know the least.  My friend and I made a pact to visit the borough more often this fall.

When one thinks of Colonial America, New York City does not spring to mind.  That is because so little of Gotham’s Colonial past remains.  The Valentine-Varian house lies on the Boston Post Road.

The Valentines were the original owners.  They tried to stay neutral during the Revolutionary War but still lost their fortune. After the war the Valentines began to struggle financially and the estate eventually fell into the hands of the Varians.  When it comes to New York City real estate, the more things change the more they stay the same.

A reminder that for a good portion of America’s history slavery was not confined to the South.

The Bronx River Soldier has a long history.  The Civil War statue was built in the 1890s and was in various locations and states of condition before finding a permanent home at the historical society.  At one point, during New York City’s Dark Years, the statue had even literally fallen into the Bronx River and been left due to scarce financial resources and indifference. Thankfully it was eventually rescued and now serves as a reminder of the sacrifice made by the men of the area.

I am sorry the location names are illegible.  A better camera is in my near future, I promise.  At least one can see from the title that Civil War memory was important to the area in the post war years.  As I always say, history is all around us if we just stop to look.  This particular book covers Brooklyn, not the Bronx, but here is one of my favorite titles.

William Saward was a member of the 9th New York, Hawkins Zouaves.  The 9th New York served under Ambrose Burnside. Saward died in April 1862.

Yes, that is the General Warren statue on Little Round Top.  The Saward family visited Gettysburg in the late 1890s.  I love the lady holding the parasol on the far right.

As elsewhere, the Grand Army of the Republic was a powerful presence in the Bronx.

This is a Decoration Day, 1911.

…and Memorial Day circa 1950.  Note the cars to the right.  In that decade before the Centennial there were still many people throughout the country with a living connection, through their parents or grandparents, to the war.


We walked ten or so blocks to the Edgar Allen Poe house on the Grand Concourse.  The house is closed for renovation but at least we saw it from the outside.  Poe rented the cottage from the Varians.

When Poe lived here the Bronx was rural and remote.  As the photo shows, it now lies in the heart of this vibrant community.

The afternoon made me realize that the Bronx is more than just getting on the subway and going to a baseball game.  I look forward to exploring the only borough that lies within the contiguous U.S. in greater depth.  When I do, I will bring that new camera.

Temple of Invention

05 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Museums, Washington, D.C.

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These last few years the Hayfoot and I have been visiting Washington fairly frequently.  Our favorite place is the National Portrait Gallery.  For better or worse, I have always taken a cross-disciplinary approach to art and literature, collating in my head the circumstances under which the book was written or the scuplture created.  There is no better place for this than the NPG, with its collections of historical paintings and sculpture that put the art into a historical context.  The last time we visited in July I was reading The Siege of Washington, which chronicled those tense days just after Fort Sumter when it appeared the Confederacy just might take the Federal capitol and end the war before it began.  In Siege, the Lockwood brothers describe how Clara Barton clerked in the Patent Office, which was located in the Greek revival building that is now the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.  Unfortunately, sexual harassment was not uncommon.  Walt Whitman worked in the Patent Officen during the war, when the facility was used as a hospital.  The building’s history as a museum dates only to the 1960s, not that long ago in the grand scheme of things.

The museum is currently exhibiting a retrospective on the building called Temple of Invention.  Here is the online version.

African American Museum: Coming Soon

18 Sunday Sep 2011

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This summer the Hayfoot and I joined the Smithsonian.  What I love most about the Institution is the cross-disciplinary nature of its collections.  One thing I am especially looking forward to is the African American Museum of History and Culture, whose progress I have been watching with interest the past few years.  It will be a real addition to the Mall.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Fredericksburg slavery museum site to be sold

17 Wednesday Aug 2011

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A few weeks back the New York Times reported that former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder’s plans for a slavery museum in Frederickisburg were in peril.  Yesterday it was announced that the $7.5 million dollar property is to be sold.  The project is apparently a victim of the recession and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture that is about to break ground on the Mall near the National Gallery.  It is difficult to see any endeavor such as this fail but given the overlapping scopes of the two museums it was probably inevitable that this would happen.

Shooting Soldiers

02 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Museums

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This past spring I mentioned our visit to the Merchant’s House Museum on the Lower East Side to see the Dr. R.B. Bonetcou photographs of Civil War wounded.  I mentioned in that post that a book was in the works.  The exhibit ended yesterday but as writer and blogger Jim Schmidt explains at Civil War Medicine (and Writing), the book has been released.

Update: The exhibit has been extended through August 29, 2011.  If you have not yet seen the collection I suggest you do so by the end of the month.

The return of the 69th

27 Wednesday Jul 2011

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One hundred and fifty years ago today the 69th New York returned to New York City after the disaster at Bull Run.  On November 11th of this year the regiment returns to New York again in the form of the Louis Lang painting Return of the 69th (Irish) Regiment, N.Y.S.M. from the Seat of War.  The painting was lost just after the Second World War and had deteriorated significantly before being rediscovered in a New Jersey warehouse a few years ago.  The artist had given the painting to the New-York Historical Society in 1886 and the institution recently commissioned the Williamstown Art Conservation Center to restore the work to its proper condition.  Art Conservator, the center’s periodical, has more on the restoration.  The New-York Historical Society is one of the hidden gems of New York City cultural life.  I am so looking forward to seeing it re-open later this year and to see, also, the return of this long lost art treasure.