The list of selected staff publications may be searched by keyword or author and can be sorted by year.
Illustrates and provides a brief overview of the life of William F. Friedman.
Publications
"William Frederick Friedman, A Pictorial Essay"
Cryptologia 16, no. 3 (July 1992).
"Mr. Darby Goes to Washington,"
American Windsurfer no. 5 (1998).
Discusses the donation and significance of the Newman Darby archives to the Archives Center.
The Public Historian,
with Susan Burch, eds. Special issue on disability, v. 27, no. 2 (Spring 2005).
A special issue of the journal that explores the intersection of disability studies and public history.
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives; Modern Histories of Prosthetics,
with David Serlin, Stephen Mihm, eds. (New York: New York University Press, 2002).
A collection of essays examining aspects of the history of prosthetics, such as Civil War soldiers’ petitions for limbs, the Jaipur foot, and the artificial hip.
Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture since 1870,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Nominated for the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award.
By examining the technologies used to diagnose and treat tuberculosis, this book explains how the material culture of medicine influences the conceptualization of a disease as much as the medical textbook definitions.
"Carnage Remembered: Prosthetics in the United States Military Since the 1860s,"
in Bernard Finn and Barton Hacker, eds., Materializing the Military. (London: Science Museum, 2005): 47-64.
An overview of the influence of the military on the development and use of prosthetics.
“Using Science to Parse the Body: Some Artful Methods for Learning Medicine”
in Analyzing Art and Aesthetics, Anne Collins Goodyear and Margaret A. Weitekamp, editors (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2013): 2-16.
Analysis of the role of models in understanding the body, using three different medical objects.
“Collective Bodies; What Museums do for Disability Studies”
Re-Presenting Disability; Activism and Agency in the Museum, in Richard Sandell, Jocelyn Dodd, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, eds. (New York, London: Routledge, 2010): 269-279
A discussion of the politics and implications of disability content in exhibitions.
"Making Disability Public: An Interview with Katherine Ott"
Interview by David Serlin, Radical History Review 94 (Winter 2006) pp. 197-211.
Discussion of issues that underpin the collecting and exhibiting of the history of disability and people with disabilies.
Scrapbooks In American Life,
with Susan Tucker, Patricia Buckler, eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006).
A collection of essays examining the origins and different uses of scrapbooks through analysis of a variety of albums. Winner of the Allen G. Noble Book Award for best edited volume on material culture.
“Contagion, Public Health, and the Visual Culture of Nineteenth Century Skin”
in David Serlin, ed. Imagining Illness: Public Health and Visual Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010): 85-107.
Analyzes the relationship of the graphic representations of the dermatological conditions of scabies and favus (ringworm) to the beginning of professional public health work.
“The Sum of Its Parts: An Introduction to Modern Histories of Prosthetics,”
in Katherine Ott, David Serlin, Stephen Mihm, eds., Artificial Parts, Practical Lives; Modern Histories of Prosthetics. (New York: New York University Press, 2002): 1-42.
An overview of the evolution of understanding of prosthetics.
"Between Person and Profession: the Scrapbooks of 19th-Century Medical Practitioners,"
in Katherine Ott, Susan Tucker, and Patricia Buckler, eds., Scrapbooks in American Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 29-41.
Examines the role of scrapbooks in the lives of physicians and nurses.
"Hard Wear and Soft Tissue: Craft and Commerce in Artificial Eyes,"
in Katherine Ott, David Serlin, Stephen Mihm, eds., Artificial Parts, Practical Lives; Modern Histories of Prosthetics. (New York: New York University Press, 2002): 147-170.
Examines development of the making of artificial eyes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including discussion of techniques, materials, training of the makers, and the internal politics of eye-making.
"An Introduction to the History of Scrapbooks,"
with Susan Tucker and Patricia Buckler, in Katherine Ott, Susan Tucker, and Patricia Buckler, eds., Scrapbooks in American Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006): 1-25.
An overview of the antecedents to scrapbooks and analysis of different ways of using them as primary sources.
"Disability and the Practice of Public History: An Introduction,"
in The Public Historian, special issue on disability, v. 27, no. 2 (Spring 2005), pp. 11-24.
The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family,
with Richard Avedon. New York: CollinsDesign, 2007.
No family has captured the fascination of the American public like the Kennedys. In 1961, acclaimed photographer Richard Avedon of Harper’s Bazaar magazine photographed president-elect John F. Kennedy and his young family. This study showcases a selection of previously unpublished images from the historic photo session. Avedon donated more than 200 photographs and negatives to the Museum in 1966, complementing the Museum’s 1962 acquisition of Jackie Kennedy’s inaugural gown.
“Local Photographers in the National Collection,”
with Michelle Delaney in History of Photography Journal, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring (2000), pp. 63–64.
“Frith’s Fabulous Photography,”
DIG November/December (2004), vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 26–27.
Illustrated article about how Englishman Francis Frith made and sold photographs of Egypt’s historic relics and sites in the 1860s. DIG is a children’s archeology magazine.
“Things Panoramic,”
Panorama, November (2003).
Illustrated article about panorama cameras and photographs in the Photographic History Collection.
“Process and 3-D Materials, National Museum of American History,”
History of Photography, vol. 24, no. 1, Spring (2000), pp. 37–41.
Discusses photographs and equipment in the Photographic History Collection related to process and 3-D photography, especially as it connects to advertising and photojournalism, from 1840s-1960s.
“Coming into Focus,”
Footsteps, January/February (2005) vol. 7, no.1, pp. 37–41.
Illustrated article about how daguerreotypes are made, and mentions African-American daguerreotypist Augustus Washington. Footsteps is a children’s magazine about African American history, this particular issue focuses on African American inventors.
Seymour Lipton: Aspects of Sculpture,
Smithsonain Institution Press, 1979.
The Genius of American Painting,
Morrow & Co., New York, (co-author), 1973.
Manet's Contemplation at the Gare St. Lazare,
University of California Press, 1987; paperback 1991.