<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Getting to know just under two million objects, almost 17,000 cubic feet of archives, and around 140 curatorial and collections staff is a big task. I started work on January 23 as the new associate director of Curatorial Affairs—I look after everything to do with the museum's collections and curatorial work. One hundred days on, here are a few of the things I've enjoyed, noticed, or learned.</p><p><img alt="Woman in black dress looking at a museum display featuring drums, painting, and other musical items." class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__21448 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/Eagleton_music_display.jpeg?itok=CzwoVlHp" style="width: 550px; height: 480px;" title="The author enjoys a few quiet moments (hard to find during cherry blossom season in Washington, D.C.) with some of her current favorite objects on display, musical instruments played by jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie, Mongo Santamaría, and Herbie Hancock."></p><p><strong>1. The collections are as amazing as you'd think</strong></p><p>One of the main reasons I took this job was because of the collections—the breadth of what they include and the extraordinary stories they can tell. Some provide tangible links to important moments in our history: a <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/scrap-suffrage-history" target="_blank">piece of a flag used in protests for woman suffrage</a> outside the White House, or <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/depression-holiday-greeting" target="_blank">a holiday greeting card sent during the Great Depression</a>. Others help us to understand big themes or topics: <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/one-womans-accelerated-art" target="_blank">artwork created using a particle accelerator</a>, or <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/money-origami" target="_blank">origami made from paper money</a>. All of them help us understand American history in all its richness and complexity.</p><p><strong>2. Research is vital (but the Brewing History Initiative doesn't need any research assistants)</strong></p><p>The Smithsonian was <a href="https://www.si.edu/about/mission" target="_blank">founded</a> for the "increase & diffusion of knowledge," and research is still a vital part of what we do. Museum staff members are researching a huge range of topics. We also have <a href="https://www.smithsonianofi.com/fellowship-opportunities/" target="_blank">fellowship</a> programs that bring interesting people to the Smithsonian to work with us and with our collections. Research helps us learn more about the objects we care for, gives a richer context to them, and sometimes helps add to the collections—for example, our ongoing projects on <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/collecting-history-hispanic-advertising" target="_blank">Hispanic advertising</a> or Latinos and <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/latinos-and-baseball" target="_blank">baseball</a>. Like everyone else, I asked if I could be a research assistant on the museum's <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/brewing-historian-hits-road" target="_blank">Brewing History Initiative</a>; I was gently but firmly told that my academic background wasn't quite what they were looking for.</p><p><a href="http://edan.si.edu/slideshow/slideshowViewer.htm?damspath=/Public_Sets/NMAH/NMAH-AC/AC0060/Beer" target="_blank"><img alt="Illustrated advertisement for brewing companies. The design features illustrations of brown glass bottles, a cup, and lots of fancy scroll work as well as a red wax seal featuring a beer." class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__21442 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/Greenway_Germania_Brewing.png?itok=dnQe8AJt" style="width: 550px; height: 402px;" title="Advertisement for Greenway and Germania brewing companies. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, around 1724–1977, Archives Center, National Museum of American History."></a></p><p><strong>3. It's amazing who you meet in Preservation Services</strong></p><p>Our team of conservators are a small but crucial group—every object is checked, and conserved if needed, before it goes on display. This means that visiting the labs is always a treat because you find our most extraordinary objects passing through there—like the <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/star-wars-force-strong-museum" target="_blank">C3PO costume</a>, or <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/miss-piggy-joins-kermit-frog-smithsonian" target="_blank">Miss Piggy</a>, which were there when I visited, waiting for attention from one of the conservators a little like patients waiting in the doctor's office.</p><p><strong>4. There's a lot of work on exhibitions in progress at the museum</strong></p><p>One reason I was excited about this job is that the museum is in the middle of an ambitious set of projects to transform our exhibitions. This spring we opened new temporary displays on <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/righting-wrong-japanese-americans-and-world-war-ii" target="_blank">Executive Order 9066</a>, the document that incarcerated 75,000 Americans of Japanese descent and 45,000 Japanese nationals during World War II. We also just opened other displays commemorating <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/topics/world-war-i" target="_blank">the 100th anniversary of the United States entering World War I</a>. In June 2017 we'll be opening the second floor of the West Wing, with new exhibitions on the theme <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/topics/nation-build-together" target="_blank">The Nation We Build Together</a>. Even before the second floor opens, work has begun on exhibitions on the third floor, which we'll begin to reveal in fall 2018 and will be themed around entertainment, culture, and the arts. Having moved here from London, I've got a lot to learn about baseball and American football before we get to developing the sports sections of those exhibitions.</p><p><a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/topics/nation-build-together" target="_blank"><img alt="Illustrated rendering of a large space with panels on walls with graphics. In center/back of room, statue of George Washington wearing a toga. " class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__21443 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/Nation_We_Build_Together.jpg?itok=mCz0C-dQ" style="width: 550px; height: 309px;" title="Visitors to our new West Wing displays on the theme The Nation We Build Together will rediscover the 12-ton marble statue of George Washington by Horatio Greenough in a new setting. This is just a rendering. Come back on opening day, June 28, to see the real thing."></a></p><p><strong>5. When there's 1.8 million objects, documentation is never finished</strong><br><br>The museum has an extraordinary and broad-ranging collection, and hundreds of new acquisitions are added every year. Some <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1403255" target="_blank">objects are tiny</a>, while others are (literally) <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/smithsonian-tells-200-years-history-through-one-house" target="_blank">the size of a house</a>. It is a constant effort to keep track of what they all are and where everything is. We have a <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections" target="_blank">collections database</a>, but not everything is entered into it yet, and there are a range of old card catalogs and other hard-copy listings of the collection. Converting decades of careful curatorial and cataloging work from typewritten and ink- penned records into searchable digital records is a big task—but one we have ambitious plans to tackle. Once the basic documentation for a collection is in place, we can push forward our plans for mass digitization, to open up the collections to people everywhere.</p><p><img alt="Photo of lined notebook open to a middle page. Each line has a few words on it. There are bookmarks." class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__21444 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/handwritten%20catalog%20book%20%281%29.JPG?itok=z3O8h2IE" style="width: 550px; height: 474px;" title="Who knew there were so many varieties? This accession book records the arrival of a large number of hairpins and combs at the Smithsonian in 1884."></p><p><strong>6. Everyone loves jokes</strong></p><p>All these different aspects of curatorial work come together sometimes. When Phyllis Diller gave a collection of objects to the Smithsonian almost 15 years ago, the "gag file" of more than 52,000 cards with jokes on them <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1218385" target="_blank">was cataloged</a>, and put on display as the <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/diller/3.html" target="_blank">centerpiece of a temporary exhibition</a>. But looking at the drawers just isn't as likely to get a laugh when compared to actually looking through the cards. Thanks to support from Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan, we were able to digitize the cards. Then <a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/help-us-transcribe-phyllis-dillers-jokes" target="_blank">thanks to help from volunteers online</a>, all the cards have been transcribed, and that data is now feeding back into our database so that people can search the collection more easily. However, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/03/11/519807672/phyllis-diller-s-file-of-53-000-jokes" target="_blank">as NPR found</a>, whether the jokes are funny is still all in the delivery.</p><p><a href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/help-us-transcribe-phyllis-dillers-jokes" target="_blank"><img alt="Index card with a joke typed by a typewriter. "The best way to make a milk shake is to put a cow in a haunted house." "Ed O'Neill." "Jan. 9, 1965"" class="auto-caption media-image img__fid__21447 img__view_mode__media_large attr__format__media_large" rel="lightbox" src="https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/blog_image/public/Diller_joke.jpg?itok=DtBtd3Q7" style="width: 550px; height: 334px;" title="Sometimes jokes are so bad, they're good, like this one from the Phyllis Diller archive."></a></p><p><em>Catherine Eagleton is the associate director of the Office of Curatorial Affairs.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-related-user field-type-user-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Related Staff Member: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/users/eagletonc">EagletonC</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-posted-date field-type-datetime field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Posted Date: </div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single">Saturday, April 29, 2017 - 08:00</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Categories: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/blog-tags/collections">From the Collections</a></li><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-1"><a href="/blog-tags/food-history">Food History</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?i=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?i=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?a=0x080TVE6_4:PKu-9IL04B8:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OSayCanYouSee?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OSayCanYouSee/~4/0x080TVE6_4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
