Save America Research Articles

Study and Treatment of Coastal Alaskan Native Kayak Models

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak, Alaska, recently collaborated to study and conserve several nineteenth-century full-sized skin-covered kayaks and over one hundred Alaska Native ethnographic objects. This two-year project was partially funded through a Federal Save America's Treasures grant, and supported in part a public-interactive conservation workspace located in one of the museum's galleries. The project allowed the rare opportunity to fully study objects from the Alaska Native collections in the Peabody Museum in consultation with Alutiiq colleagues to build knowledge of Alaska Native technologies. Material analysis using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF-MS) and polarized light microscopy contributed to better understanding of the technology of these objects. As part of this project, the museum's collection of twenty small skin-covered kayak models from various Alaska Native groups were studied and conserved. Historical and technical information on the kayak models was gathered through research into the museum's archives, discussion with Alaska Native consultants, a review of current literature, and material analysis. This paper discusses the collection and donor history, cultural affiliation, fabrication technology, and preservation of these kayak models.

Constitutional Law - Freedom of Expression: Wyoming Says Protecting Children Comes Second to Protecting Freedom of Speech; Operation Save America v. City of Jackson, 275 P.3d 438 (Wyo. 2012)

Constitutional Law - Freedom of Expression: Wyoming Says Protecting Children Comes Second to Protecting Freedom of Speech; Operation Save America v. City of Jackson, 275 P.3d 438 (Wyo. 2012)

Meeting the Challenge from Totalitarianism: The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Global Model for Liberal Development, 1933–1945

Meeting the Challenge from Totalitarianism: The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Global Model for Liberal Development, 1933–1945

The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem, http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/. Created and maintained by the National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, Washington, D.C. Reviewed Sept. 2008

In 1998, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (nmah) launched a multimillion-dollar effort to preserve the Star-Spangled Banner. A victim of its own popularity, the flag had suffered from too many years on continuous display. With Polo Ralph Lauren providing significant funding (together with the Pew Charitable Trusts and Save America's Treasures at the National Trust for Historic Preservation), a tremendous conservation project commenced. The flag remained on display in a glass-walled lab that allowed visitors to watch as conservators working to undo years of damage cleaned and stabilized the fabric. The exhibit closed during the recent $85 million renovation to the museum; when the nmah reopens, the flag will become part of a new permanent exhibition, “For Which It Stands: The American Flag in American Life.”; Aimed at upper elementary and middle school children and their teachers, the Web site under review tells the story of the Banner's history, and of the U.S. flag more generally, while also describing the massive conservation effort required to preserve the artifact. A section titled “You Solve the Mystery”; presents three historical questions and supplies documents that users may read to formulate an answer, as well as a link supplying the Smithsonian's answer. Elsewhere, a quiz allows readers to check their comprehension of the site's material. The site also links to a teacher's manual developed by the History Channel, another supporter of the nmah effort.

Rudy and Mike: Will Either of the Mayors Who Saved New York Get the Chance to Save America?

The author discusses Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, the two most recent Mayors of New York City, and their prospects for the Presidency. While the New York mayoralty has historically been a ``political dead end," Giuliani is a front-runner for the Republican nomination and Bloomberg is being discussed as a potential independent candidate. The author briefly examines their leadership styles and offers some ideas about how they might deal with aspects of the Presidency. Finally, the author notes the possibility that two other ``New Yorkers" also are serious candidates: Senator Hillary Clinton, who was elected to the Senate while still First Lady, and Fred Dalton Thompson, the unannounced candidate for the Republican nomination. Thompson, who served in the U.S. Senate for eight years (1995-2003), and before that had come to national prominence as the Minority Counsel during the Senate's Watergate Hearings (1973), is known to many voters as ``Arthur Branch," the fictional Manhattan District Attorney, a character that he has played for the last five seasons (2002-2007) on the NBC television program, ``Law and Order."

Response to Anderson

I'm writing in response to “Can Public Schools Save America? Culture, Race, Academic Achievement, and the American Dream,” a review essay published in the Du Bois Review (Volume 2, no. 1, 2005, pp. 127–136) by James Anderson, which includes a discussion of my book (co-authored with Nathan Scovronick), The American Dream and the Public Schools (2003). We are, of course, very pleased to have the book reviewed in this journal since it is read by many people with whom we would like to discuss these issues. The review, however, distorts our argument in ways that warrant correction.

News from the Hemingway Collection

Save America's Treasures: Preservation Update This spring with the support of our Save America's Treasures grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kennedy Library celebrated its first year of preservation work on the Ernest Hemingway Collection. All of Hemingway's letters that are housed at the Library—written from when he was nine years old in 1909 to the time of his death in 1961—were conserved at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) in Andover, Massachusetts. This preservation task included 2,500 letters, each one individually assessed and treated. In addition, we have updated the Finding Aid for Ernest Hemingway's Outgoing Correspondence and made it available for the first time online. The Finding Aid is located at: http://www.jfklibrary.org/fa_ehcat_outgoingcorr.html. Along with the outgoing correspondence, the Finding Aid for Ernest Hemingway's Manuscripts is now keyword searchable and is located at http://www.jfklibrary.org/fa_ehcat_mss.html. Among the items that NEDCC conserved was the diary of Agnes Von Kurowsky, Hemingway's Red Cross nurse at the hospital in Milan where he convalesced after his WWI injuries. She is the woman on whom the character Catherine Barkley of A Farewell to Arms was loosely based. Her diary entries describe her first encounters with her new patient, "Mr. Hemingway," who arrived at the hospital on 17 July 1918, only to celebrate his 19th birthday four days later. Agnes writes of the birthday party she and the other nurses and patients threw for him: "Mr. Hemingway's birthday, so we all dressed up and had gelati on the balcony and played the Victrola." Kennedy Library staff has also concentrated preservation efforts on the impressive collection of books from Hemingway's private library. The collection includes an unnumbered and unbound press copy of James Joyce's [End Page 151] Ulysses with Hemingway's signature on the cover page as well as a draft of Ezra Pound's Cantos published by Three Mountain Press printed specifically for Hemingway on handmade watermarked paper. These are among the books in the collection that are scheduled for conservation along with several signed first editions of Hemingway's works, some of which were donated to the Collection. Hemingway's handwriting is scrawled along the margins throughout his personal copies, providing a glimpse into his analysis of other authors. As one can imagine, Ernest Hemingway's library is filled with books on two of his favorite subjects: Spain and African wildlife. Each book in his personal library has been cleaned and precisely measured for a custom made, acid free box to ensure its preservation. Four of the books, including Los Proverbios by Francisco Goya, Portrait of Mabel Dodge by Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and the The Torrents of Spring, received conservation treatment at NEDCC. Preservation efforts have also been directed toward Hemingway's considerable collection of non-print materials. In the process of cleaning, cataloging, and re-housing the diverse objects, staff have revisited some of the wonderful pieces that comprise the Collection: a sterling silver baby spoon with "EH" engraved in the curved handle, a lock of Ernest Hemingway's hair cut in August of 1947 that has surprising tints of red blended with the shock of white that we have come to recognize as Papa's, and the Al Valore Militare Medal, the Italian medal of honor, awarded to Hemingway on 8 June 1918 for his heroism at the battle of Piave. 10th International Colloquium on Ernest Hemingway in Cuba In late May, the Kennedy Library's Ernest Hemingway Curator, Susan Wrynn, traveled to Havana, Cuba for the Ernest Hemingway Colloquium at the Ambos Mundos hotel. The conference, which celebrated the 65th anniversary of the first edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls, was attended by fifty plus scholars from Cuba, the United States, and as far away as Italy. Susan's presentation offered an overview of the...

Ralph Lauren donates $13 million for historic preservation

Clothing magnate Ralph Lauren received applause from President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for his $10 million contribution to pay for conservation of the Star Spangled Banner in Washington, D.C. The flag was flown at Fort McHenry during the British bombardment on Sept 13 and 14, 1814. Now housed at the Smithsonian Institution, it will be dry-cleaned with a combination of solvents to be determined by conservators. A new fire suppression system using FM 200 gas will also be installed in the museum's flag exhibition hall. In the event of fire, museum visitors would not have to be evacuated before the release of FM 200, says a museum conservator. The gas can extinguish fire at lower concentrations than, for example, halon gas, which is used in some nonpublic areas of the museum. Lauren gave another $3 million for a public awareness campaign by the Millennium Committee to Save America's Treasures. Another of ...

ENTERING THE WATERSHED : A NEW APPROACH TO SAVE AMERICA'S RIVER

Review by James K. Lewis Environmental Education Director, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 3900 Commonwealth Blvd., MS 30, Tallahassee, FL 32399-3000, USA. TEL: 904-488-9334. Bob Droppelt, Mary Scurlock, Chris Frissell, and James Karr. ENTERING THE WATERSHED : A NEW APPROACH TO SAVE AMERICA'S RIVER WATERSHEDS. Washington, D.C., Island Press, 1993. 462 pp. US$55.00 cloth ISBN: 1-55963-247-7, US$27.50 paper ISBN 1-55963-275-5. Recycled, acid-free paper. Do it upstream, and save the good spots first. That, in a nutshell, is the new approach to saving America's river ecosystems. There is more of course, but anyone who has a river basin to save should take those words to heart. Perhaps one of the most important contributions made by ENTERING THE WATERSHED is its detailed analysis and indictment of the failures of the current methods of river restoration. However, that may be one of its faults also; the authors may spend too much of their time casting indictments, and too little time explaining exactly how we might go about using this new approach. Part I, 33 pages entitled Forgotten Waters, is a description of the crisis in which America's waterways find themselves today, why and how they got into the shape they are in, and an overview of why our past and current attempts to fix these problems haven't worked, and won't work. The 100-page Part II, Recommendations, provides us with a number of broad-ranging recommendations. These include: Community and Ecosystem Based Efforts, Recommendations for New National Policies and Goals, Recommendations for Federal Lands, Recommendations for Private Lands, and finally, a section entitled Recommendations for a Comprehensive Solution, which calls for an unlikely new federal law and program. If I had to quibble over these recommendations (all of them based on long experience, and all of them clearly needed) it would be that, except for the community and ecosystem-based recommendations, they are based upon a vision of sudden cooperation on the part of Congress and the myriad federal (and state and local) agencies with responsibility for America's rivers. Such cooperation is unlikely in today's world. Here in Florida, our Ecosystem Management effort at the regional, watershed, and community levels, closely resembles the community and ecosystem-based approach recommended by ENTERING THE WATERSHED. Here, the recommendations seem to be right on the mark: 1) Begin by protecting and securing the healthy areas first. 2) Find and protect other hot spots in the basin (areas where there still remains some biodiversity or naturalness that can be improved upon). 3) Look for potential hot spots that are near one of the other areas. These are areas that can be colonized as upstream habitats improve. 4) Identify and begin restoration of downstream river reaches that once supported important biological habitats and may support them again after extensive restoration.