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 295 items.
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Mexican Boy
- Description
- This lithograph of a boy at work was designed in the late 1930s by the Mexican American artist Ramón Contreras (1919-1940). Mexican-born, he grew up in San Bernardino, a major agricultural town east of Los Angeles. His career was tragically short. Before he died of cancer at the age of 21, Contreras became the youngest artist ever invited to the Golden Gate International Exposition, and traveled to Mexico to meet the famed muralist Diego Rivera. Contreras came of age during the Great Depression (1930s), a period of economic crisis for all Americans and for people around the globe. Much of the art produced during these difficult years reflects a political and aesthetic vision–to document and ennoble the lives of ordinary working people. Here, Contreras presents us with an idealized image of a confident young man in motion. Identifiably Mexican with his serape draped over one shoulder, the boy drawn by Contreras triumphantly at the center of the frame is perhaps a fruit vendor. He is probably not a fruit picker–note the non-Californian bananas arrayed with other warm-weather fruits in his basket. This lithograph was printed in about 1950 by Lynton Kistler–it is one of the 2,700 prints by this prominent Los Angeles printer that are housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1950
- graphic artist
- Kistler, Lynton R.
- original artist
- Contreras, Ramon
- ID Number
- 1978.0650.1130
- accession number
- 1978.0650
- catalog number
- 1978.0650.1130
- 78.0650.1130
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Plastic Scrimshaw Tooth (Fakeshaw), Late 20th Century
- Description
- This modern polymer tooth, or “fakeshaw”, was collected for comparative purposes. In recent years, authentic whale ivory and bone scrimshaw has become valuable on the folk art market. In the 1970s, companies began casting plastic replica scrimshaw teeth and other objects, usually with very elaborate scenes, dates and inscriptions. Many of these have made their way into antique shops and flea markets, where they are sold as authentic folk art instead of modern reproductions.
- On one side of this tooth, there is a vertical portrait of Napoleon, inscribed with his name on the bottom. On the other side is a horizontal scene of a three-man gun crew hauling a loaded cannon up to a gun port on a lower deck of a warship. This side has “1815” inscribed below the men.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- 1998.0004.01
- catalog number
- 1998.0004.01
- accession number
- 1998.0004
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Pan Bone Plaque, Mid-19th Century
- Description
- This section of oval bone was sliced from a large sperm whale’s pan or jaw bone, then shaved thin, smoothed, and polished. It is extremely unusual, in that the carved scene details a specific event with names and a date. An engraved three-line inscription across the top of the plaque reads:
- Joachn Pereiz July 20th 1839,
- Fast to a whale got a foul line which took the boat down
- American ship Averick in sight
- Below the inscription the large whaler Averick sails with four whaleboats in the foreground. The boat on the right is halfway underwater. On the left, smaller, more distant whaleship sails in the background behind a pod of five whales. The inscription describes a common mishap aboard whaleboats sent out from the mother ship to dart and kill a whale. After a whale was hooked with a harpoon, it would commonly sound, or dive deep, to get away from the whaleboat. Aboard the whaleboat, the harpoon line had to run free as long as the whale was active. In this incident, the line fouled and the sounding whale dragged the boat underwater. Since few whalemen knew how to swim in the 19thcentury, this sort of accident meant almost certain drowning. However, the proximity of the Averick and the other whaleboats, along with the existence of the plaque commemorating the incident, suggest a happier ending for the story. In the absence of other information, Joachn Pereiz is presumed to be a boat crew of the Averick in the center of the picture. The Averick belonged to John Avery Parker & Son of New Bedford, MA and is best known for transporting the Fifth Company of Boston Protestant missionaries to Hawaii in June 1832. It was sold into the Chilean whaling fleet in 1845.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*385967
- catalog number
- 385967
- accession number
- 177718
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Engraved Porpoise Tooth, mid-19th century
- Description
- The short length and slender proportions of this carved tooth indicate that it came from the mouth of a porpoise rather than a sperm whale. Its rough, dark and mottled surface was badly prepared for the craftsman’s sharpened tool, rendering the details of the carving difficult to see clearly.
- The obverse depicts a man standing inside a circular rope motif; his costume is reminiscent of a Near Eastern or Asian warrior, with padded pants and low hanging blouse and hair in a bun. The surface of the tooth above the figure has horizontal striations, almost like a metal file was applied. On the reverse is another man surrounded by an oval rope motif; he wears a more traditional Western waistcoat and holds a cane in his right hand. Atop his head is a tightly-wrapped turban.
- The pinprick method for preparing the line infill is evident, suggesting that the original drawings from which these were derived was in a periodical of the period. Perhaps one day the source for these enigmatic figures will be identified.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*388606
- catalog number
- 388606
- accession number
- 182022
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth, Mid-19th Century
- Description
- Shoreside scenes were popular subjects for scrimshaw artists, lonely for their homes, families and friends. On one side of this tooth, two large merchant ships clear harbor, possibly embarking on long whaling voyages. To the right, a local coastal schooner sails around the point of land separating a town from the sea. Its simple rig would have been very old-fashioned by the mid-nineteenth century or later, when this piece was probably carved. The other side appears to derive from a print, for the engraving is much deeper and more shaded. Two warships sail to the left. The one on the right is flying an American flag. The flag on the stern of the left-hand ship—and the bow of the American vessel—are obscured by an immense explosion between the two fighting ships. Unfortunately, neither ship is identified, although such sea battle images between American frigates and English warships were popular subjects beginning around the time of the War of 1812.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*65.1129
- catalog number
- 65.1129
- accession number
- 256396
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth, Mid-19th Century
- Description
- Danger was never far away for the crew of a whale ship out in the middle of the ocean. One side of this large tooth is engraved with a ship in the middle of a storm. The waves are high, and most of the ship’s sails have been taken in. Many of the sails that are left out are tattered and torn, and the rigging lines are slack, indicating strong winds.
- The other side of the tooth has a whale on the surface of the ocean with two harpoons sticking out of its back. It has just knocked a whaleboat out of the water and into the air, breaking it in half. Two hapless crew are about to land in the water to swim or drown. In the distant background sails the mother ship, too far away to rescue the whaleboat’s crew.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*65.1130
- catalog number
- 65.1130
- accession number
- 256396
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth
- Description
- This carved sperm whale tooth is only engraved on one side, but it has an unusual subject. Instead of the more common full-rigged sailing ship, this tooth depicts a steamboat in profile moving from left to right. Below the vessel is engraved the legend “STEAMER RIGHT ARM”, which identifies the vessel as the wrecking tugboat RIGHT ARM. Measuring 135 ft. in length by 26.5 ft. beam (width), the ship was purpose built in New England in the early 1890s as a wrecker, or salvage vessel. These uncommon vessels helped to refloat grounded or stranded ships, or recovered useful parts from a ship that was wrecked. The forward deckhouse contained a powerful steam windlass and several tons of 2-in. chain, and the pumps were so strong that the ship could pump coal--as well as water--from damaged ships. The RIGHT ARM had the capability to support divers as well, with dive gear, air compressors and special equipment.
- The RIGHT ARM is best known as the salvage ship for the infamous wreck of the American warship USS MAINE in Havana harbor, Cuba, an early event in the Spanish-American War. The RIGHT ARM recovered some of the MAINE’s artillery; the ship’s safe containing ca. $25,000; valuable chalices from the chaplain’s stateroom, and sailors’ bodies from the colossal explosion on 15 February 1898 that sank the warship.
- Although this tooth was not carved by a whaler during the classical Age of Sail, it still represents the latter-day art of scrimshaw through its style, material and treatment.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- DL*65.1135
- catalog number
- 65.1135
- accession number
- 256396
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Street Musicians
- Description
- Jean Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) painted this scene of Pifferari or street musicians serenading an unseen image of the Virgin Mary in 1870. Camille Piton etched it for an auction catalog of works from the collection of J. C. Runkle, which were sold on March 8, 1883. The auction was organized by Samuel P. Avery, art dealer and print collector. Pifferari come from the mountains in Calabria, Italy, and from the Abruzzi to play bagpipes and reed instruments like the piffero, a kind of oboe, before images of the Virgin in Rome during the Christmas season. Jean Léon Gérôme was a favorite painter of Stephen Ferris, who named his son after him.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- 1883
- original artist
- Gerôme, Jean-Léon
- graphic artist
- Piton, Camille
- ID Number
- GA*14886
- catalog number
- 14886
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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
La Malinche
- Description
- La Malinche, the title of this lithograph, was the indigenous woman who translated for Cortés between Maya, Náhuatl, and Spanish during his first years in Mexico. Considered either as a traitor or a founding mother by some Mexicans, La Malinche was Cortés's lover and the mother of his favorite son Martín. She and Moctezuma are also central figures in the Matachines dances that are performed in Mexico and New Mexico. Originally commemorating the expulsion of the Moors from southern Spain in 1492, the dance was brought to Mexico where it was treated as a means for Christianizing native peoples. The historical figure of La Malinche, known in Spanish by the name Doña Marina, is also credited for playing an almost miraculous role in the early evangelization of central Mexico. This print, made by Jean Charlot in the 1933, shows a young girl in the role of La Malinche, holding a rattle or toy in one hand, and a sword in the other. Jean Charlot, a French-born artist, lived and studied in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. He depicted stylized scenes from the daily life of Mexican workers, particularly indigenous women.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1933
- graphic artist
- Charlot, Jean
- ID Number
- GA*23401
- catalog number
- 23401
- accession number
- 299563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center