Category Archives: Museums

Wikipedian in Chief

12 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by in Libraries, Media and Web 2.0, Museums

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(Photograph courtesy/Dan Smith)

The National Archives has hired its first Wikipedian in Residence and so far the results have been impressive.  I was saying to someone just yesterday that the institutionalization of Wikipedia is all but complete.  Be honest.  Who among us does not use Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, at least for a quick overview of the subject at hand?  Obviously there will always be legitimate copyright issues to consider, but I can’t see the Open Access of historical photographs and documents as anything but a good thing.  After all, where do you think the above photo came from?

Brady’s Senate

08 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Museums

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Senator David Levy Yulee (D-Florida); Brady Studio; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

From Princeton University:

Princeton’s graphic arts collection has acquired a salt print composite of the United States Senate; one of only three known imperial prints of this historic image. To create the print, Brady and his operators photographed each member of the Senate individually, then cut and collaged the photographs and finally, re-photographed the composite.

Museum Resource Center

04 Saturday Jun 2011

Posted by in Museums, National Park Service

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When I was in Washington DC last week I was wondering to myself what happens to all the items left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The storage of museum materials is fascinating and has a history all its own.  One of my favorite things at the Brooklyn Museum, New-York Historical Society, and Metropolitan Museum of Art is the visible storage space where one can see items not currently on display in the collections.

The Smithsonian’s Bigger Picture

03 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by in Museums

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Hey everybody, as I mentioned the other day I spent Memorial Day weekend in our nation’s capital.  Although my mother was born in Washington DC and lived there for several years as a young girl, I myself had never visited the city until just a few years ago.  My favorite thing to do is visit the Smithsonian.  The Hayfoot and I have had this on the heavy rotation since I returned last Sunday.  One thing  was surprised to learn when I visited for the first time a few years ago was that the Smithsonian Institution is not one site, but a system of museums and research institutions dedicated to preserving and disseminating our nation’s scientific, historical, and cultural heritage.  Visiting Washington over Memorial Day weekend has whetted my appetite to learn more about the Smithsonian and its history.  Earlier today I inter-library loaned some titles on the history of Mr. Smithson’s museum.

Ambrotype of Abraham Lincoln by William Judkins Thomson (1858); Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

The Smithsonian also has a blog presence and is posting frequently about the Civil War, particularly on how the war affected the organization for good and ill.  The museum was founded in 1846, just fifteen years prior to the start of the conflict, and as you can imagine was vulnerable on a number of different levels.  According to a recent post:

As the war erupted in April 1861, the Board of Regents experienced a major upheaval, with more members leaving the Board over the course of the year. Several were expelled for their loyalty to the Confederacy, including Lucius Jeremiah Gartrell, a US Representative from Georgia, and James Murray Mason, a US Senator from Virginia. In June, the board lost another strong supporter when Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois died. Douglas had been appointed to the board in 1854 and had been an advocate for the Institution in the Congress...

…As the war wore on, yet another member was expelled for “giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the Government.” Other strong supporters were also lost, including Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, who had been a Smithsonian regent from 1847 to 1851, and was a close friend of [Smithsonian] Secretary Henry.

I can’t wait to go back next month.  Until then, here is the next best thing.

Ulysses Grant Dietz

11 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by in Monuments and Statuary, Museums, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President)

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The USA Today has a short interview with General Grant’s great-great grandson.  Dietz is an author, senior curator, and curator of decorative arts at the Newark Museum in New Jersey.  I have been to the Newark Museum several times over the years and can attest that it is one of the finest museums in the nation.  Sadly many don’t visit because of the location.  The best way to experience the Newark Museum is to visit the site and then have dinner in the Ironbound District.  Both are within walking distance of Newark Penn Station.

An added bonus is the nearby Gutzon Borglum statue of Lincoln.  An audience in the thousands watched Theodore Roosevelt dedicate Borglum’s statue on May 30, 1911.

(Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

(Thanksgiving Friday, 2009)

See you at the sites,

Keith

 

“Facts bend under pressure.”

18 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by in Museums, National Park Service

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The always worthwhile Edward Rothstein has spent the past week visiting various museums, plantations, and other sites in South Carolina.  In his latest piece he explains the evolving missions of institutions like Charleston’s Confederate Museum and says some are doing better than others at keeping current.  The most moving thing to me was the slave’s embroidered sack in the slide show.  I visited Arlington House last week and can attest that similar efforts are underway there as well.  The Park Service is doing great work telling the wider, more complicated history of the Lee-Custis estate and giving voice to the previously voiceless.

An earlier Rothstein piece, “Emancipating History,” is worth your time as well.

For heaven sakes read them now before the Times makes them part of its Digital Subscription Plan.

“work harder for final victory”

15 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Museums, Washington, D.C.

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Hey everybody,

The Hayfoot and I went to Washington this past weekend.  We took in part two of the National Archives’ Discovering the Civil War exhibit.  I find primary documents evocative.  They make history more immediate and tangible.  Seeing the kids in the museum gallery I wondered how many will have their imaginations sparked by the sesquicentennial the way so many youngsters did during the 100th anniversary.  If you want to see it you had better hurry; the show ends on April 17th.  We love playing tourist in D.C.   We also went to Arlington National Cemetery.  The Lee Mansion was somewhat disappointing because the house is undergoing extensive renovation and there was not much to see.  Still, the work is necessary and it gives us reason to return in the future.

I have always known of course that the Lee residence is just across the Potomac and close to the capitol, but until standing in the front yard with its panoramic view of the District of Columbia I was not aware of how close.

Walking down the hill we came across Robert Todd Lincoln, who rests within sight of his father’s memorial.

One yankee dollar for the restoration of the Lee estate.

We also watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.  I came across this Universal Newsreel with a brief snippet of the Tomb from Memorial Day 1945, less than a month after V-E Day but with the war against Japan still raging.  The National Cemetery in Brooklyn Ed Herlihy refers to in the second segment is Cypress Hills, one of the first fourteen such burial places created by President Lincoln in July 1862.  I sense a Civil War subway trip coming this spring.

Memorial Day 1945 marked the end of an era; it was the first time no Civil War veteran participated in any of New York City’s numerous Memorial Day parades.  Eighty years after Appomattox only 240 members of the Grand Army of the Republic remained.  Eleven were New Yorkers and their average age was 98, too old and infirm to participate.  In the newsreel’s part three Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia—a former translator at Ellis Island—presides over the parade in Manhattan, which ended at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at 89th Street and Riverside Drive.  Many mistake this for Grant’s Tomb, which also lies on Riverside Drive but thirty-three blocks north.  The inside of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument is usually closed to the public.  One exception is each October when the public can tour the interior during Open House New York.  I missed it last year but already have it down on the calendar for fall 2011.

We have been to D.C. several times in the past few years and my only regret each visit is that we cannot stay longer.  Another trip is already in the works.

Thanks for checking in.