Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Memorial Day Tribute

In the fall of this year, SITES launches a new exhibition that tells the story of Americans at war--gathered not from the accounts of generals or historians but from soldiers who fought on the front lines during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and all the other major conflicts, leading us right up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Mail Call is slated to open at the Spartanburg County Public Library in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and reveals the quiet, sometimes agonized words of soldiers as they articulated matters of  love, life, and death. 

Often soldiers penned letters to fill the time and emptiness of being in camp or on the move: "June 5, 1898: Dear Mother and Sisters, Will write again today although I don't know what to say . . . ." And sometimes, they just wanted to report that they were alive and seemingly well: "April 30, 1918: Dear Dad and Aunt Clara, I am well and o.k. Just finished two days and two nights thru France . . ." Still others simply wanted to maintain their tenuous connections to life at home. "Alice sent me her picture last night, and it's just like her. She has on a Salvation Army bonnet."

Regardless of what the letters contained, they were not immediate. Many missives reveal the difficulty of waiting to receive news about family members back home: "Not yet having heard from you, I thought I would write again . . .," wrote one World War I solider. Imagine not knowing if a sister had survived scarlet fever, or if a baby had been born, or myriad other things that time and distance kept silent. Letters were a soldier's only connection to the world and family he left behind.

And the same was true for the families at home, but many times, letters were the harbingers of the worst news of all. Here's an excerpt of a letter from Sergeant John S. Louderbach to the wife of a Union solider, dated May 27, 1865:

I think I am Safe in Saying that your Husband D W Walters Died in Reble Prision about the 10th of Febuary I Saw him a bout the 5th he was then unable to help him self I waited on him & gave him as much Comfort as I could untill I was taken down my Self He often Spoke of you & his little Boy Whitch he Spoke of with a greateal of Respect & Seemed to waiting with a greateal of anxziety for the thime to Come when the Prision doores would be thrown open that he could return to his loved ones at home but alas the Small amount of Meal that he was allowed was not Suffitient for him I did not se him Dye my self but I have bin told by Competen Persons that he Died a bout the thime that I have Stated . . .

 Mail Call is a collaboration with the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.



Sticky Note Inspiration

Sometimes, less is more. After considering a number of high-tech ways to engage with our Suited for Space exhibition audiences, we decided on three very basic tools--pens, pencils, and sticky notes. Yes, the exhibit itself is about innovation and technology, but no modern device has the universal ability to convey information like a good, old-fashioned writing implement and a tiny slip of paper. There's nothing to download here; it's not device specific and runs on an hOS. (That's the hand operating system.) But, really, in this age when mobile is hot, and paper is not, why did we go with such a simplistic solution?

Maybe, we just liked the size of the sticky notes; they're so cute--each one a miniature canvas that only takes a second to customize with quick sketches and personal witticisms. Let's face it, this is a 140-character society, and asking folks to spend more than a few moments on anything might be asking too much. This sticky-note concept, while certainly not new, is really the antithesis of where we are in the technological moment, and yet, it reminded us of the most basic of museum goals--to foster dialogue.

That vibrant, sticky-note color also sucked us in. Are you a hot pink kind of gal or a lime green sort of fellow? No matter, you choose. Oh, and what about that wonderful, tacky swathe of glue? When was the last time you saw someone adhere their mobile device on a wall for others to see? "Hey, look at all my pictures, world. Here's my banking information and all my friends' phone numbers." Maybe, the point here is that the sticky note is personal and yet, somehow, very anonymous--an opportunity for publically condoned graffiti.

We tested the concept of the sticky note wall at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, California, where the Suited for Space exhibition was recently on display. To get the conversation started, we asked people to answer a couple of questions. Among them, "What one thing would you bring on your trip into space?" The answers were both serious and whimsical, thoughtful and flippant.

It's safe to say that Californians love their iPods, iPads, and cameras. It's also fairly accurate to state that food was of great concern. Many cited the implicit need for candy in space,  for cheese cake, hot cheetos with sour cream, Nutella, pizza, and pineapples (hooray for the fruit lover). Some, more nostalgic writers, asserted that a picture of their families would be a must, while others hoped that their beloved cat or dog could make the trip too.

Long story short, we were exceptionally pleased with the level of engagement at the site. Personally, I might have joined the waves of writers who referenced their mobile phones, but alas, maybe I could be convinced that a pen, pencil, and pack of sticky notes would be just as valuable.

Suited for Space opens at the Strategic Air & Space Museum in Ashland, Nebraska, this weekend. The national exhibition tour is generously supported by DuPont.

 

Titanoboa: Monster Snake Revealed

By now, you may be aware that something big, really big has come to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. In fact, it's so enormous that it arrived in six separate crates, each weighing about 500 pounds.

I was lucky enough to be in the weeds as the Smithsonian Pennsy Facilities team, SITES project director Jennifer Bine, and our registrars, Cheryl Washer, Ruth Trevarrow, Viki Possoff, and Juana Shadid put this 48-foot thing together.

Even before the crew heaved Titanoboa out of those crates, I was quietly amazed by the texture and coloration of the serpent's scales--so supple that they seemed to glisten with rain forest moisture under the dim museum lights. Segment by segment, the snake became even more awe inspiring, both in its scale and its girth. Indeed, getting down on the ground with this baby, I imagined Titanoboa swallowing a medium-sized person without batting an eyelash . . . if snakes had eyelashes, or real eyelids for that matter. 

Tracy Rollins, of the Smithsonian's Facilities crew, was poised to test my theory as he wrangled with the serpent, connecting two of its more recalcitrant parts. Inside of a massive set of coils, which in real life would have exerted some 400 pounds of pressure per square inch, Tracy looked like Titanoboa's first victim in 60 million years. That's when the snake really started to take shape, a mega predator slithering through the murky waters of a distant Paleocene world.

Titanoboa would have been at the top of the monster-eat-monster food chain, and it was easy to understand why when the team finally attached the monster's head, jaws agape, arched around a lifeless crocodile. Like modern constrictors, Titanoboa killed by squeezing its prey to death. Long, flexible tendons in the upper and lower jaws then allowed the snake to devour just about anything that was unlucky enough to get in its path, including massive snub-nosed crocodiles and turtles the size of billiard tables. You could almost hear the stomach acids churning as the snake's digestive system prepared to dissolve this croc's bones and tissues.

Head finally in position, she was born--a snake the length of a school bus, orginially conceived by Ontario-based model maker Kevin Hockley. There were some proud moments as the team stepped back to study the newest addition in the Smithsonian family. "Good gracious," I heard one staffer exclaim, "that's thing's a beast."

Titanoboa: Monster Snake is now on display at the National Museum of Natural History through January 2013. The exhibition will then travel to the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Nebraska State Museum, where the Titanoboa research teams continues to make discoveries. From there, there's no telling where the snake will end up--maybe in YOUR natural history museum.

For a complete view of the snake as it was being installed, see our Facebook gallery. Visit the exhibition website to find our about the upcoming tour schedule, see clips from the Smithsonian Channel film, and more.