This advertisement for the Ford "Midget Mustang" pedal car appeared in November 1964. The full-size model was introduced at the New York World’s Fair on April 17, 1964.
The I Made My Own Fortune Cookies: Fortune Factory is a stove top fortune cookie specialized pan with four circled grooves. The “Fortune Factory” letters are printed with the stereotypical “chop suey” font. Embossed on top of the pan are the letters “Fortune Factory” with an Asian styled palace. A figure in a conical hat and a shirt with oversized sleeves and a mandarin collar stands off to the side smiling, his eyes and eyebrows expressed with lines. To the right are these Chinese characters: 祝你幸運, meaning “good luck to you.”
The dorsal side of the box features a photograph of an East Asian man giving the universal OK sign in tacit approval of a smiling Caucasian woman holding the pan in one hand and a fortune cookie in the other.
Included with the pan is a sheet of paper detailing the recipe, warranty, and fortune writing advice. A panel features the same Asian man on the box in midst of fortune cookie creation, while the opposite panel features a cartoon of two presumably Caucasian male and female in formalwear delighting in reading fortunes.
Although fortune cookies are an American phenomenon, there is nonetheless a disparity between how both ethnicities are presented in the illustrated form. The biggest telltale is the expression of the embossed Asian man on the pan. Although the Asian man’s facial features are devoid of geometry and are absent of a nose, the illustrations of the Caucasian countenance (to whom this product would have been marketed to) are presented with clarity. The eyes are either circles or lines overlapped instead of a single linear line; the nose is expressed in a protruding manner from the bridge to the snout. The Asian man’s clothing consists of an exotic conical hat and an oriental shirt with ostentatious buttons. The Caucasians’ clothing is composed of Western formal wear: earrings and a black dress for the lady, and a turtleneck and a blazer for the gentleman. It is clear that fortune cookies were thought of as being extensively foreign and exotic, often attributed to characteristics that are representative of non-American origins.
Charles K. Langley’s and W. A. Ogden’s song book was a popular source of music for schools. It was distributed by Hope Publishing Company in 1897 and contained 292 songs. Later versions were produced by the Union School Furnishing Company. Both the front and back covers are patriotically decorated in keeping with the Americanization movement in the schools.
The I Made My Own Fortune Cookies: Fortune Factory is a stove top fortune cookie specialized pan with four circled grooves. The “Fortune Factory” letters are printed with the stereotypical “chop suey” font. Embossed on top of the pan are the letters “Fortune Factory” with an Asian styled palace. A figure in a conical hat and a shirt with oversized sleeves and a mandarin collar stands off to the side smiling, his eyes and eyebrows expressed with lines. To the right are these Chinese characters: 祝你幸運, meaning “good luck to you.”
The dorsal side of the box features a photograph of an East Asian man giving the universal OK sign in tacit approval of a smiling Caucasian woman holding the pan in one hand and a fortune cookie in the other.
Included with the pan is a sheet of paper detailing the recipe, warranty, and fortune writing advice. A panel features the same Asian man on the box in midst of fortune cookie creation, while the opposite panel features a cartoon of two presumably Caucasian male and female in formalwear delighting in reading fortunes.
Although fortune cookies are an American phenomenon, there is nonetheless a disparity between how both ethnicities are presented in the illustrated form. The biggest telltale is the expression of the embossed Asian man on the pan. Although the Asian man’s facial features are devoid of geometry and are absent of a nose, the illustrations of the Caucasian countenance (to whom this product would have been marketed to) are presented with clarity. The eyes are either circles or lines overlapped instead of a single linear line; the nose is expressed in a protruding manner from the bridge to the snout. The Asian man’s clothing consists of an exotic conical hat and an oriental shirt with ostentatious buttons. The Caucasians’ clothing is composed of Western formal wear: earrings and a black dress for the lady, and a turtleneck and a blazer for the gentleman. It is clear that fortune cookies were thought of as being extensively foreign and exotic, often attributed to characteristics that are representative of non-American origins.
This object is jointly stewarded by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and was purchased with support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.
The language used to describe this object is inherently sensitive. The Museums are currently working to refine how to describe it accurately and ensure that the object is searchable and accessible.
The Vitullo Evidence Collection Kit for Sexual Assault Examination (the Kit), is an early example of what is commonly known as a “rape kit.” The Kit includes standard supplies such as labeled envelopes and bags for samples, swabs, a comb, paper bags for clothes, and glass slides for semen specimens. It also includes a checklist of protocols, a form for examiners to record their findings, and a form for the victim's consent to release the evidence to the authorities. Another form includes treatment and counseling resources for survivors of assault.
The Kit’s concept and design was developed between 1972 and 1978 by Martha “Marty” Goddard (1941–2015) while working as an advocate and founder of Citizens Committee for Victim Assistance (CCVA) in Chicago, Illinois. In 1972, Goddard became aware of the tens of thousands of sexual assault cases unprocessed by law enforcement because of a lack of standardized protocol to collect and present forensic evidence, and a bias against accepting the traumatic nature of these crimes. Goddard and colleagues began interviewing survivors, policy makers, law enforcement, attorneys and hospital workers - primarily female nurses who were typically given no information or materials that would allow them to immediately collect evidence in support of victims' claims. Her intention was to understand the treatment of survivors and the use of evidence in the hopes of designing a standardized system that would increase the probability of suspect identification and prosecution.
In 1978, Goddard and CCVA finalized the design for a kit that standardized the process of collecting and preserving evidence. The kit gathered the tools and instructions for evidence collection and documentation into one box. Goddard intended for the kit to be adapted and used by hospitals and police precincts around the country.
Goddard presented this design to Louis Vitullo (1924-2006), a Chicago police sergeant who was the chief microanalyst in the city’s crime lab. Soon after, he introduced the Vitullo Evidence Collection Kit for Sexual Assault Examination. The initial funding, assembly of the kits, and graphic design was organized by the Playboy Foundation.
Goddard committed herself to advocating for the Kit’s implementation. Within two years, the Kit was in use in over two hundred hospitals across Illinois. Such kits are standard protocol in hospitals in the United States today.
References:
Kennedy, Pagan. “The Rape Kit’s Secret History.” The New York Times. June 17, 2020.
Oral Interview: “Oral History Project Interview With Marty Goddard” by Ann Seymour, Oral History of the Crime Victim Assistance Field. February 26, 2003. Video: https://sonix.ai/r/AK7imJevnbsuNAj4zwJc4xqe/share (last accessed 4/25/2020)
Ravitz, Jessica. “The Story Behind the First Rape Kit”, CNN , November 21, 2015. https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/20/health/rape-kit-history/index.html (last accessed 4/25/2022)
Shelby, Renee. “Whose rape kit? Stabilizing the Vitullo Kit through positivist criminology and protocol feminism.” Theoretical Criminology, December 2018. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480618819805
Sotheby's New York. History of Science & Technology, Including Fossils, Minerals, & Meteorites. New York: Sotheby's, 2021. Auction catalog.