Cultures & Communities - Overview
Furniture, cooking wares, clothing, works of art, and many other kinds of artifacts are part of what knit people into communities and cultures. The Museum’s collections feature artifacts from European Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, African Americans, Gypsies, Jews, and Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. The objects range from ceramic face jugs made by enslaved African Americans in South Carolina to graduation robes and wedding gowns. The holdings also include artifacts associated with education, such as teaching equipment, textbooks, and two complete schoolrooms. Uniforms, insignia, and other objects represent a wide variety of civic and voluntary organizations, including youth and fraternal groups, scouting, police forces, and firefighters.
"Cultures & Communities - Overview" showing 131 items.
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Work and Rest
- Description
- The Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History houses an extensive series of prints by archeologist and artist Jean Charlot (1898–1979), and prominent Los Angeles printer Lynton Kistler (1897–1993). Charlot, the French-born artist of this print, spent his early career during the 1920s in Mexico City. As an assistant to the socialist painter Diego Rivera, he studied muralism, a Mexican artistic movement that was revived throughout Latino communities in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. This lithograph, titled Work and Rest contrasts the labor of an indigenous woman, grinding corn on a metate, with the slumber of her baby. Printed by Lynton Kistler in Los Angeles in 1956, it presents an image of a Mexican woman living outside the industrial age. This notion of "Old Mexico" unblemished by modernity appealed to many artists concerned in the early 20th century with the mechanization and materialism of American culture. It was also a vision that was packaged as an exotic getaway for many American tourists. It is worth contrasting the quaint appeal of an indigenous woman laboring over her tortillas with the actual industrialization of the tortilla industry. By 1956, this woman would likely have bought her tortillas in small stacks from the local tortillería, saving about six hours of processing, grinding, and cooking tortilla flour.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1956
- graphic artist
- Charlot, Jean
- printer
- Kistler, Lynton R.
- ID Number
- GA*23355.05
- catalog number
- 23355.05
- accession number
- 299563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth
- Description
- A 20-gun American sailing warship covers the upper portion of one side of this intricately detailed scrimshaw sperm whale tooth. Nearly every sail is set; flags are flying; and every gun port is open with its gun out and ready for action. Unusually, the flying flags and pennants are polychrome, with red stripes.
- Below are two smaller ships in their own etched checkerboard frames, sailing towards each other on a collision course. Normally these would represent different views of the larger ship above, but both of these sailing ships are merchant vessels, without any guns. The vessel on the right is spewing smoke out of a midship smoke stack, and may be either an auxiliary steamer or a whaleship trying out a whale. In trying out, a whale’s outer layer of body fat or “blubber” was cut into small pieces and tossed into a hot cauldron to render it down into liquid.
- The other side of the tooth is carved with a hillside town, with several levels of buildings dominated by a large cathedral with a tall steeple reaching up into the sky. The steeple also has red accents. On the lowest level along the waterfront are two arches; a “D” is carved into one, and a shallow “S” was carved into the other. However, the “S” was scratched out and not in-filled with black pigment to make it stand out, like the rest of the tooth’s carving. Below in the harbor are two small but detailed sailing ships without sails, probably at anchor. The one on the right has a smoking stack similar to the vessel on the other side of the tooth, but much of that ship is gone because the base of the tooth is broken and missing.
- Although the style of the carving on this tooth is relatively simple, it was made by an experienced schrimshander, as shown by the amount of detail, the depth of the etching and the infilling.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*374484
- catalog number
- 374484
- accession number
- 136263
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth
- Description
- The obverse, or main side of this tooth is dominated by an etching of an American merchant sailing ship under sail from right to left. Below the water is an exergue or separate scene of three women. In the center is the bust of a woman in an arch; the two outside women are holding up flowers in one hand and pointing at the woman in the center with the other hand, as if they were on stage congratulating her after a performance.
- On the reverse is a patriotic scene of a woman standing in front of an anchor. In her right hand she holds a flagpole topped with a 19-star American flag; her left forefinger is held up, apparently to indicate “#1.” To her left is a house with a smoking chimney; on her right are a flowering plant, a palm tree and a steeple.
- The American flags, the flowers and other details are highlighted in red for a polychrome effect. With the women, ship and patriotic symbolism, the scrimshaw artist of this piece has managed to include all of the common sailor’s favorite themes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*374493
- catalog number
- 374493
- accession number
- 136263
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Mexican Kitchen
- Description
- The French-born artist Jean Charlot spent his early career during the 1920s in Mexico City. His 1948 lithograph depicts a scene from the domestic life of a Mexican indigenous woman, a favorite theme of the artist. Household work—without the aid of most, if any, electrical appliances—was a full-time job for many working-class and poor Mexican women, north and south of the border, well into the 20th century. Food preparation was especially labor-intensive. Corn had to be processed, wood gathered, and water fetched, in the midst of child rearing and other household duties. This was the daily fare of most women, who rarely worked outside the home after marriage. Mexican American women who found work in cities like El Paso in the early 20th century were either single or widowed. Many worked as domestic servants, others in industrial laundries or textile mills. Like today, some women turned to their kitchens to earn a living, making meager profits selling prepared food on the street to Mexican American workers and Mexican migrants.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1948
- graphic artist
- Charlot, Jean
- ID Number
- GA*23377
- catalog number
- 23377
- accession number
- 299563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Painting of the American Clipper Ship Coeur de Lion
- Description
- In the center, the American clipper ship Coeur de Lion sails from left to right in the standard pose of the classic portrait of a ship entering port. The main and topsails are set, except for the mizzen mainsail, which is furled to air the spanker (for steerage). At the ships head flies the inner jib; all other sails are either furled or being taken in. House, signal, and American flags fly from all three masts and the spanker gaff. Six crew are visible on deck; whimsically, one is waving to the artist (or viewer) from his post amidships. In the left foreground, a small, two-masted Chinese boat approaches Coeur de Lion; in the background is the port of Hong Kong. Numerous Western sailing vessels and steamships are anchored at port in the background.
- ID Number
- TR*309517
- catalog number
- 309517
- accession number
- 103202
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Ivory Whale Stamp
- Description
- Carved from the teeth of captured sperm whales, whale stamps were used to record the type of whale and number of barrels of oil they yielded.
- The stamps were inked onto the page of whaleship logbooks or sailors’ journals, with an empty space in the whale’s body for writing in the number of barrels. This example in the form of a sperm whale is decorated with steel pin heads and a turned handle.
- date made
- 1800s
- ID Number
- 1978.0052.06
- accession number
- 1978.0052
- catalog number
- 1978.52.6
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Wood and Ivory Parallel Rule
- Description
- Part of the navigator’s tool kit, parallel rules were used to transfer compass points, course lines and other directional information across large charts without change. This large wooden set has a carved ivory whale inlaid into its surface, with a brass tack for the whale’s eye.
- ID Number
- 1978.0052.08
- accession number
- 1978.0052
- catalog number
- 1978.52.31
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lewis Latimer Patent Drawing
- Description
- Electricity pioneer Lewis Latimer drew this component of an arc lamp, an early type of electric light, for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company in 1880.
- The son of escaped slaves and a Civil War veteran at age sixteen, Latimer trained himself as a draftsman. His technical and artistic skills earned him jobs with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, among others. An inventor in his own right, Latimer received numerous patents and was a renowned industry expert on incandescent lighting.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1880
- maker
- Latimer, Lewis H.
- ID Number
- 1983.0458.21
- accession number
- 1983.0458
- catalog number
- 1983.0458.21
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved wood block "Street View at Honolulu"
- Description
- Joline J. Butler (about 1815–1846, working in New York City between 1841 and 1845) engraved this printing block after a drawing called Street View of Honolulu by Expedition Artist Alfred T. Agate. The wood engraving illustration was published on page 415 of Volume III of the U.S. Exploring Expedition Narrative by Charles Wilkes, 1844.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1845
- ca 1844
- publisher
- Wilkes, Charles
- graphic artist
- Butler, Joline J.
- original artist
- Agate, Alfred T.
- graphic artist
- Armstrong, William G.
- printer
- Sherman, Conger
- author
- Wilkes, Charles
- ID Number
- 1999.0145.184
- catalog number
- 1999.0145.184
- accession number
- 1999.0145
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
"Benjamin Franklin with a Loaf of Bread" Engine Panel Painting
- Description (Brief)
- In the nineteenth century, volunteer fire companies often commissioned paintings to decorate their hand-pumped fire engines for parades, competitions, and community events. Sometimes framed with elaborate carvings, they adorned the tall air chamber located at the middle or rear of a pumper. The paintings would often feature patriotic, heroic, or allegorical images to associate the volunteer companies with these lofty ideals.
- This fire engine panel came from the Franklin Engine Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was active from 1792. The painting “Franklin with Loaf of Bread” is attributed to David Rent Etter and dates to around 1830. The painting depicts the young Benjamin Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia in 1723. As recounted in his autobiography, he mistakenly bought more bread than he could eat and gave the extra loaves to a poor woman and child. Benjamin Franklin was well known for organizing the first volunteer fire company in Philadelphia, and his image and his name were popular among the city’s fire companies. By invoking Franklin, volunteer firemen linked themselves to the progenitor of their trade, as well as someone who played a key role in the Revolution and securing America’s freedom. This painting and its companion piece (object 2005.0233.0307) would have adorned either side of the company’s engine.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1830
- depicted
- Franklin, Benjamin
- artist attribution
- Etter, David Rent
- ID Number
- 2005.0233.0018
- accession number
- 2005.0233
- catalog number
- 2005.0233.0018
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center