Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Letters to the Home Front

"My dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and as my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name . . . If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you . . . "

This excerpt is from a letter written on the eve of the First Battle of Bull Run--150 years ago last Wednesday--by Union soldier Sullivan Ballou to his wife, Sarah. While Sullivan could not know his fate with certainty while writing this letter, he was mortally wounded in the battle and died without putting his final letter in the mail.  The letter, recently published in an article in The Washington Post, was delivered to Sarah along with her husband's personal effects after his death. 

SITES is planning a new exhibition that examines just this sort of epistilary drama. Mail Call, an exhibition created in partnership with the National Postal Museum, investigates all aspects of communication between the home front and the front lines, from the Revolutionary War to the present.  

Civil War artifacts, including hand-written letters like the Sullivan Ballou letter, stamps, envelopes and Confederate “adversity covers” (envelopes fashioned from old letters and scraps of paper) are included in Mail Call. In addition, the exhibition explores several important changes in the postal system which got their start during the Civil War.  

For example, money orders--a secure way to send relatively small amounts of money via the postal system--emerged during the war as a way for soldiers to send money home, and they continue to be used by both military personnel and civilians today. In addition, sorting mail on a moving train car (a difficult feat) began as an experiment during the Civil War. The change increased the efficiency of mail delivery to soldiers in Missouri so much so that after the war, it became standard procedure on all mail trains in the U.S.  

But, not all Civil War-era changes in the postal system were inspired by a need for efficiency or security. One aspect of the postal system which I’ve always taken for granted—home delivery—began during the Civil War as an act of kindness toward women. Each day, women flocked to the Cleveland post office in anticipation of letters from their loved ones in battle, but the contents of the letters they received were often highly personal and difficult to bear. Sensing that these women might prefer to receive such news in the privacy of their own homes rather than in front of the assembled masses, a creative postman organized a system for delivering letters to individuals at home.  

The excitement around the Civil War anniversary this year has caused us to take special note of the exhibition’s Civil War content, but this is just one piece of the Mail Call story. The exhibition goes on to explore related technical innovation and social change in the 20th and 21st centuries while paying special attention to those aspects of the story that are the same in all times. The distance and danger involved in military pursuits continue to inspire heartfelt correspondence like the “Sullivan Ballou letter," and letters and packages—and the dedication, courage, compassion, and ingenuity of everyone involved in transporting them—continue to be a vital source of communication and strength for our military personnel and their families around the globe. 

The National Postal Museum will open a permanent Mail Call exhibition in November 2011. Check out the exhibition website. For information about hosting SITES's traveling version of Mail Call, please contact Ed Liskey at liskeye@si.edu.

--Robin Meyer, SITES publications intern

Sweet and Sour: Chinese Food from Chinatown to Main Street

Sweet and Sour is an emerging collaboration between SITES and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on Chinese food in America.

Something about Chinese food always draws a crowd, and this morning's Sweet and Sour team meeting was no exception. We found ourselves cramming 11 people around a table meant for six to brainstorm and discuss the content of this epicurean exhibition. All that was missing was the lazy Susan!

Our meeting began with a somewhat counter-intuitive declaration: Chinese food is American food. But really, who doesn't have memories of family dinners at a local Chinese restaurant? From Jewish-American traditions of Chinese food on Christmas to television shows like Yan Can Cook to the 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. (more than all burger joints combined!), Chinese food has become not just an integral part of American food culture but a quintessentially American food.

When Chinese restaurants (which emerged in the mid-19th century as small kitchens offering Chinese immigrants a taste of home) began catering to the American palate, recipes changed.  According to Cedric Yeh, the curatorial advisor for this project (and Deputy Chair and Associate Curator in the Division of Armed Forces History in the National Museum of American History), "They were selling the exotic. They were selling China. We haven't eaten Chinese food in over 100 years." Since we've been introduced to the cuisine, our familiarity with "Chinese food" has reached the point that all connotations of "the exotic" have been erased and the ubiquitous Chinese takeout box has come to symbolize a typical American meal in movies and TV.

Sweet and Sour will document this transition and, in doing so, provide a glimpse into the long history of Chinese immigration, exclusion, exoticism, and perseverance in the U.S. The exhibition will highlight the fact that Chinese food today is a uniquely American tradition.

As the discussion turned to ideas for objects and props that would communicate either the "all-American" nature of Chinese food or its historical roots, Cedric laid out a challenge: "There has to be a strong intellectual grounding to the exhibition, but also some flash." After listening to his ideas, Project Director Deborah Macanic smiled and asked, "Cedric, do you believe in kismet?"  As it turns out, SITES already has strong connections from previous exhibitions which may help turn Cedric's biggest "wish-list items" into reality.

In addition to these items, the exhibition will include artifacts form the National Museum of American History's new Sweet and Sour collecting initiative. Research specialist Noriko Sanefuji reported back on her recent trip to San Francisco's Chinatown where she went to gather background information for the project. While in SF, she met with Cecilia Chiang, P.F. Chang's mother and a pioneering restaurateur in her own right, along with several other restaurant owners and local historians. Interns are already hard at work scanning the photographs and menus that were given to Noriko on her trip. Keep a lookout for the images in the upcoming issue of Siteline!

It was smiles (and a few stomach rumbles) all around as we ended our meeting. Things are really cooking! Now, where are those fortune cookies?

--Robin Meyer, SITES Publications Intern

Let's Get this Show on the Road!

If you know our registrar Ruth Trevarrow, you'll know that she's as hilarious as she is knowledgable, and that sense of humor came through in her recent AAM discussion called, "Registrars: Let's Get this Show on the Road." Presented with several colleagues from other institutions, the session was delivered as a skit. Trevarrow says, "Questions and comments afterward reflected audience appreciation for humor, honesty, resources, and helpful turns of phrase to use with shippers and contractors. For added flavor, we scripted all of the shippers to speak like pirates." Aye matey! Want more information? Feel free to contact us!

Session summary: An interactive session that follows several recent exhibitions on the road through the lenses of their organizing and exhibiting registrars. The presenters will offer a novel roadmap (a model and resources) for navigating the challenges of traveling exhibitions. Leave with the knowledge and confidence to successfully manage traveling exhibitions and apply best practice techniques.

Relevance: Many museums are involved in the receiving end of traveling exhibitions while many others are beginning to consider traveling exhibitions as alternate sources of profit. Best practice techniques have not been established for all stages of preparing for traveling exhibitions; this presentation will identify and address these gaps. Four exhibit registrars with recent experience from the California Academy of Sciences, Field Museum, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and American Museum of Natural History will share their internal practices. This collaboration will mark the start of an ongoing effort to standardize steps in the traveling exhibition process.

Audience: Most registrars, at some point in their careers, will have worked on traveling exhibitions, whether as organizers, lenders, or exhibitors. This session is designed to reach as many registrars as possible, in particular those who are new or mid-career. Large-scale, object-based exhibitions that have traveled to museums of a variety of discipline types and sizes will be featured. Covering the basics of organizing, preparing for, and receiving traveling exhibitions, this session will provide best practice techniques and considerations. The presenters, who have been on both sides of organizing and receiving traveling exhibitions, will share, through skits and dialogue, tips for successfully navigating this often daunting process. 

Focus: Traveling exhibitions are a popular part of most museum programs, and the registrars’ role in their management is critical to their success on the road. This session will provide insight into the roles and responsibilities, unique and shared, between organizing and exhibiting registrars. Rebecca Buck and Jean Gilmore’s seminal book On the Road Again and other current literature provide an excellent foundation for practice. This session will expand upon their work by offering a model schedule and key practical tools. Through a dramatized discussion, presenters will showcase tried and true processes for traveling current large-scale exhibitions.

Seniors and social media, according to Elvis

What do think . . . is social media just for the young? Well, according to our stats, seniors are more active than ever. Take a look at the age demographics on one of our popular Facebook pages.

 

Ages of Facebook users:
13-17=.80%
18-24=8%
25-34=13%
35-44=15%
45-54=17%
55+=23%

That means 40% of our audience is over 45 (not exactly senior citizens but pretty close in the technology world). Why is this the case? Are older users more inclined to follow cultural organizations? Do they have more time to devote to such activities? Or, is it more about the the topic of conservation?

We'll argue that it may be all of these, but my inclination is to suggest that the latter is the biggest contributing factor. This particular Facebook page is all about Elvis, a complement to the traveling exhibition Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer, and everyday is something new about the rock-n-roll legend--trivia, curatorial insight, photographic history, videos, etc.

Not that Elvis doesn't have a younger following. Indeed, some of the most rabid fans are under 25, but those who are most engaged on our Facebook page fall into the more mature crowd; they are the folks who listened to Elvis as a kid or sat in the front row at one of his concerts. They are the ones who know Elvis inside and out; in fact, these fans have taught us a thing or two on more than one occasion.

Switching fields a bit, we also have a Twitter account for the exhibition @elvisat21, but this platform doesn't seem to attract the same number of older followers. When we've mentioned the Twitter page to our Facebook fans, the usual response is "Oh, I'm not on Twitter," or "I don't really know how to do Twitter." Even when we baited the platform with free Elvis giveaways or trivia contests, the leap never occurred. Most of our mature Facebook users were happy to stay put, even if it meant missing out on some rare exhibition-related freebies.

The exhibition continues its national tour through 2013, and the Facebook/Twitter accounts will be there along the way, so the final verdict is still out, but it's certainly interesting to see how the social media world is embracing (or not) a new audience.

 

Ready for the AAM Museum Conference?

It's that time again: butterflies, pollen, and AAM. This year's conference for everything in the known museum world will be held in Houston, Texas, from May 22 to 25th. And, as usual, SITES will be there to talk shop. Here's our agenda:

Sunday, May 22, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
Session: Collections Databases: Welcome to the World of Tomorrow
If you’ve never tackled researching a new database program, or have experienced the agonies of the task, join us and pick up some pointers for choosing a system that will grow with your institution.
Chair: Darlene Bialowski, Independent Registrar and Head of the AAM Registrars Committee Presenters: Amy Duke, Collections Manager and Registrar, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Heather Thorvald, Registrar, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Cheryl Washer, Project Director and Registrar, SITES

Monday, May 23, 7:30 – 8:30 a.m.
Event: Traveling Exhibitions Professional Interest Committee Annual Breakfast
Join us for this popular ticketed networking event where guest speakers discuss topics of interest to both producers and hosts of traveling exhibitions.
Attending: Shavonne Harding, Scheduling & Exhibitor Relations Coordinator, SITES
Ed Liskey, Senior Scheduling & Exhibitor Relations Coordinator, SITES

Monday, May 23, 2:15 – 3:30 p.m.
Session: The Greenest Show on Earth: Creating and Distributing Digital Exhibitions
Find out how the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and SITES created their first digital temporary exhibition, which lowered their carbon footprint, involved communities in exhibition development, and shared information and resources around the country in an entirely green way. Chair: Devra Wexler, Project Director, SITES
Presenters: Shavonne Harding, SITES
Lindsey Koren, Public Relations Coordinator, SITES
Angela Williams, Manager, Design & Exhibit Development, Museum of Science and Industry
Peter Kao, Member, Board of Directors, Bob Jones Nature Center, Texas

Monday, May 23, 3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Event: Marketplace of Ideas
At this forum, AAM Standing Professional Committees exchange and present information and new ideas for all types of museums and museum professionals.
Participant: Ruth Trevarrow, Registrar, SITES

Tuesday, May 24, 7:30-8:45 a.m.
Event: Traveling Exhibitions Forum
This roundtable will feature brief presentations by both producers of traveling exhibitions and potential hosts. Connect with colleagues in the industry, pick up some information on the latest traveling exhibits, and stay for the free coffee, tea and bagels!
Attending: Shavonne Harding, SITES
Ed Liskey, SITES

Tuesday, May 24, 9 – 10:15 a.m.
Session: Hitting the Road: Traveling Exhibitions and Small Museums
This session will provide logistics of how small museums can start their own program and how to find and host traveling exhibitions from other institutions.
Chair: Nathan Stalvey, Curator/Exhibitions Director, Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory Presenters: Zinnia Willits, Director of Collections Administration, Gibbes Museum of Art
Ed Liskey, SITES

Tuesday, May 24, 3 – 3:30 p.m.
Event: Ice Cream Social in the Expo Hall, hosted by SITES
Take a break from the conference madness and enjoy some refreshing ice cream, our treat! Representatives from our Exhibitions, Public Relations, and Scheduling departments will be on hand to greet you and share what’s new in SITES program.

Tuesday, May 24, 3:45 – 5 p.m.
Session: Registrars: Let’s Get this Show on the Road!
This session will provide insight into the roles and responsibilities, unique and shared, between organizing and exhibiting registrars.
Presenters: Annette Gavigan, Exhibits Registrar, California Academy of Sciences
Jenn Cooper, Traveling Exhibitions Registrar, The Field Museum
Ruth Trevarrow, Registrar, SITES

Need to schedule a meeting with a SITES staff member while in Houston? Contact our Director of Exhibits, Fredie Adelman, who will be available during the conference to meet with exhibitors and potential collaborators.

#Earth Day 2011

It's almost Earth Day. Ask yourself this question: "What is my museum doing to lessen its impact on Mama Earth?" If the answer is, "not a whole lot," then read on! There's hope for your institution despite the fact that resources across the cultural landscape have been slashed and burned.

In fact, these economically slim times beg us to REpurpose and REuse existing items, yes? Why do materials have to be new anyway? In the museum biz, don't we LIKE old things? Why can't one label be printed on the verso of another? Why can't previously manufactured structures like cases be reused, retrofitted for different objects? Is it because we expect a certain presentation from museums, especially art museums, that would prohibit the use of recycled items? Or, is it a matter of complex conservation? Every object needs a case that's custom built for its size, weight, and humidity needs? All of these or none of these may be true, depending on the genetics of your institution, but just thinking about repurposing gently used items may start to shift the sands a little.

And, what if you could invite your constituents, your community to come out and help build your exhibit? Think of it as crowdsourcing your production and fabrication. Talk about creating a fan base! Put a call out to your community for x, y, or z items. When they bring it, they can help build it. We aren't naive here, there are only certain kinds of exhibitions where this would work. The Smithsonian can't invite the whole world to help rebuild the case for Dorothy Gale's ruby red slippers, but there are others scenarious that might lend themselves to group involvement--panel exhibitions, small-scale history shows, children's exhibitions, science and nature endeavors, and the list goes on.

We've got a couple of things cooking here at SITES that are worthy of a green nod: #1 Repurposing exhibit structures. Really. If it looked good for one exhibition, it will look fabulous for another. The decision for reuse comes very early however, so that the materials for your new exhibition are sized and configured accordingly. #2 Digital exhibitions. Seriously. Not just materials online. We're designing the exhibition (panels, labels, banners) and "shipping" it out via Google Docs. You download. You build. Our green project director dishes, "For SITES, 'going green' needed to entail not just the green message, but the green method. If we're going to talk about taking steps to reduce carbon footprints, for instance, we had to walk the walk!"

It's a green, green world out there. Check out our Green Revolution exhibition for more details.

Behind the Famous Bootprint

This is opening week for an exhibition that has consumed a lot of our attention in the last two years. Suited for Space debuts at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry on April 6, 2011.

After studying manuscripts and documents, after talking at length to curators and engineers, you'd think we learned everything there was to know about spacesuits as well as the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.

WRONG!

We've discovered that these topics are so rich, it would take a lifetime to consume all the facts, some of which are constantly evolving as new information is unearthed and reexamined. Indeed, even those things that have been endlessly scutinized can always reveal something unexpected.

One of the most iconic images in the exhibition is the classic shot of Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the lunar surface. No doubt you've seen this one hundreds of times, but according to NASA's Bill Barry, there's much more to this 1969 photograph: "The bootprint is Buzz Aldrin’s right boot. He had the Hasselblad camera at the time, and one of his checklist tasks was to photograph a bootprint as a part of the study of the nature of the lunar surface and the effects of pressure on the surface," Barry explained.

Even better, check out this excerpt from NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal about the sequence of events surrounding Buzz's famous bootprint:

110:25:09: Aldrin (at the MESA): In general, time spent in the shadow doesn't seem to have any (garbled) thermal effects. (garbled) feel inside the suit. There is a difference, of course, in the (garbled) radiation and the helmet. So I think there's a tendency to feel a little cooler in the shadow than we feel out in the Sun. (Pause)

At about 110:25:17 in the 16-mm film, the shadow of the Hasselblad lens appears at the left edge, followed soon thereafter by Buzz. He has the camera in his right hand. He disappears from the 16-mm frame to the left, again, at about 110:25:49. At this point, he probably takes AS11-40- 5876, which shows an undisturbed patch of soil. At about 110:26:05, his right leg comes into view as he plants his right boot deliberately on the pristine patch. A frame from the 16-mm film taken at about 110:26:08 shows him with his leg extended and his boot planted. He then lifts his foot and backs out of the 16-mm field-of-view and takes two "after" pictures of the bootprint: 5877 and 5878. He took the second of these from slightly farther away and got better focus.

At about 110:27:00, Buzz steps back into view at the left and plants his boot just beyond the previous bootprint. In a frame from the 16-mm film taken at about 110:27:02, the first bootprint in just behind Buzz's boot. He now takes two pictures of his boot and the new print: 5879 and 5880. The 5-cm rock next to Buzz's boot in the Hasselblad images can be picked out in the 16-mm frame.

Suited for Space will be on tour for several years and includes a complementary Facebook page. The national tour of Suited for Space is generously sponsored by DuPont.

 

A Blending of Photography and X-Rays

When spacesuit expert Amanda Young and I were working on photographing our spacesuits for her book, she told me that a series of test x-rays had been taken of small objects such as gloves, boots, and helmets. She wanted to have a whole spacesuit x-rayed next, if it could be done. She asked my advice on how the radiologist, Roland “Ron” Cunningham at the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center, could combine a lot of small sheets of x-ray film together into one big piece.

The largest film available for x-rays is 14 x 17". I suggested that they get some 4 x8' feet foam core board, which is extremely light, strong, and stiff, and tape or tack the unexposed film onto the board. I also advised them to be sure to overlap the film at least one inch, so there would be no spaces in between any of the films.

Ron took my advice and set the film up on the foam core, with three sheets of film across and five sheets down, for 15 sheets total, which is roughly 50 x 70". Then he laid the spacesuit on top of it. The x-ray machine was raised high enough to “zap” the entire suit. After the film had been exposed, it was processed and dried before being sent to me.

My job was to scan the x-ray films to create one digital image. First, I laid out the film on the light table and made sure I lined them up correctly before I started the scanning. It was like working with a jigsaw puzzle. I used the Epson Expression 10000XL photo flatbed scanner with the transparency unit. The scanner can cover 13 x 17", but the films were 14 x 17". So, I had to make two scans of each film by scanning at one end of the film, then rotating it 180 degrees to scan the other end. After I scanned all 15 sheets like this, I ended up with a total of 30 images.

With Photoshop, I opened all of the images, rotating half of the scans to the right orientation to match with the rest, and then “stitched” them together with the “photomerge” application. Then, I started with the row of three images of the head area, stitched them together, followed by the next three images of the chest, lower abdomen, legs, and finally the feet area. Finally, I stitched the five rows of images all together into one complete image.

This process took an entire day, but it was worth it after seeing such a gorgeous result. I was excited to work on more spacesuit x-rays after that first one. These days, like many of us photographers who no longer use film to shoot images, radiologists are now using digital x-ray machines instead of film. They also have new software to put together sections of the larger object into one image without going through the tedious process I used.

 --Mark Avino, chief of photographic services for the National Air and Space Museum

Holiday Greens

At SITES, greening up for the holiday has taken on an entirely new meaning. You may know that we're developing an exhibition--unlike any we've worked on before--that's entirely digital. Host venues download floor plans, designs, building tips, text and graphic panels, etc., and do the fabrication themselves. It's a perfectly green symbotic relationship. We do the planning in Washington, DC, and you do the legwork in your own community. Great thing is--there's nothing in between. What does that mean exactly? It means that there are no trucks, crates, FedExes, or shipments of any kind, reducing dramatically the exhibition's carbon footprint. It goes from our computers into your inbox--easy as that. Even better, we've requested that host venues use recycled or repurposed items to build the exhibit. Have an old panel from a blockbuster 1999 show about the planets? Great! Use the reverse side to display Green Revolution text and graphics. Voila.

Well, all of this green thinking can easily be applied to the holiday season. Here are a few tips for making your holiday a little more eco-friendly:

1. If you're a live Christmas tree type, buy a potted or balled tree that can be planted after your festivities.
2. Make your own tree ornaments. (True story, we have holiday Pez dispensers on our tree ;-)
3. Buy less. Does your uncle really want that violet cardigan? Maybe, but if not, how about some home-baked goodies?
4. Do away with gift wraps. If you think about it, you can wrap gifts in just about anything, or opt for gift bags instead--they're more likely to be used again by the recipient.
5. Get creative with your decorations.

Check out the way this Virginia family repurposed their shiny CDs!
Now, that's the spirit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

--Heather Foster Shelton, SITES writer/editor/web content manager

Engagement 101

How did the Center for Community Engagement, John Spoor Broome Library at the California State University, Channel Islands get youth involved with Bittersweet Harvest, The Bracero Program, 1942-1964?

Students in Chicana/o Studies Capstone 499 and Art 323: Communication Design and Packaging worked together to enhance the traveling exhibit. They created a historical timeline of the Bracero Program, and developed exhibition materials based on textual and visual images collected from the interviewees. These designs were featured in exhibition posters, promotional materials, as part of actual didactic displays, and were also made available as brochures/handouts for those who attend the exhibition.

CI student, Camille Chandler, was tasked with providing the voice over for the self-guided tours. Camille recorded the tour script in English and Spanish. These self-guided tours were transferred onto iPods and used by over 300 campus and community members. Got it?