?????? ??? ?????????
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??????? ? ?????
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?????????? 
Smithsonian 
Institution
S C I E N C E ,  H I S T O R Y  A N D  T H E  A R T S
N U M B E R  2  ? A U T U M N  2 0 0 3  
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 1
2 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
? ? ? ? ? ?  ?  ? ?? ? ? ? ?  ? ? ? ?
Published quarterly by the Smithsonian Office
of Public Affairs, Smithsonian Institution
Building, Room 354, MRC 033, P.O. Box
37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, for
Smithsonian Contributing Members, scholars,
educators, museum personnel, libraries,
journalists and others. To be added to the
mailing list or to request this publication in
an accessible format, call (202) 357-2627, ext.
119 (voice) or (202) 357-1729 (TTY). 
John Barrat, Editor
Colleen Hershberger, Assistant Editor
Evelyn S. Lieberman, Director of
Communications and Public Affairs
Kathryn Lindeman, Associate Director
Telephone: (202) 357-2627
E-mail: insideresearch@publicaffairs.si.edu
Internet: www.si.edu/insideresearch
Contributing Members who seek information
about the Smithsonian or about their
memberships may write to The Contributing
Membership, Smithsonian Institution, A&I
1130, MRC 410, P.O. Box 37012, Washington,
D.C. 20013-7012, or call 1 (800) 931-32CM or
(202) 357-1699.
On the cover: With no harm done to the
animal, a blue crab is measured by researcher
Michael Goodison of the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center on the
Chesapeake Bay. Data are being collected from
crabs netted in the Chesapeake under the Blue
Crab Enhancement Project, a joint project of the
Smithsonian, the Virginia Institute of Marine
Science and the University of Maryland?s Center
of Marine Biotechnology. (John Barrat photo) 
??????????? ?????? 
Faces on the frontier. As Union Gen. Philip Sheridan was driving Confederate
troops from Virginia?s Shenandoah Valley in 1864, a young newspaper illustrator,
James E. Taylor, was close at hand, turning out battle scenes for the newspaper Leslie?s
Illustrated. After the Civil War, the public?s craving for
images of American Indians, gold miners, soldiers,
settlers and other wayfarers of the American fron-
tier kept Taylor crisscrossing the West. 
?Drawing the Western Frontier: The James E.
Taylor Album? is a site where you?ll find photos
of Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickock and a
stagecoach full of other fascinating characters
from the American West. This site from 
the National Anthropological Archives of the
Smithsonian?s National Museum of Natural 
History features more than 700 photographs col-
lected by Taylor during his career to use as references 
for illustrations. The richest vein running
through this album is its many stunning
portraits of American Indians.
?www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/taylor
Getting the picture. In this age of ephemeral e-mail, it is easy to forget that letters
can be visually captivating. On the Smithsonian?s Archives of American Art Web site
?Getting the Picture: The Art of the Illustrated Letter,? visitors are invited to peruse
the fine art of letter writing. From winsome declarations of love to lively reports of
current events and other personal communiques, each letter on this site is decorated
with an expressive illustration by the artist who wrote it. Artists whose letters and
artworks appear here include Alexander Calder, Howard Finster, Andrew Wyeth,
Winslow Homer, William Wegman and Betty Parsons. Collected entirely from the
holdings of the Archives of American Art, the illustrations in these letters ?represent
an irrepressible urge to picture language,? Curator Liza Kirwin says.
?artarchives.si.edu/exhibits/illusltr/illusltr.htm
Smithsonian 
Institution
?Sunset at Kergro?s? (detail), an artwork depicting a landscape in Brittany, was
included in a 1919 letter from writer R. Lortac to painter Edward Willis Redfield.
Jim Spleen, alias Kit Carson Jr., a young
Westerner who tried to enter West Point
by posing as Kit Carson?s son
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 2
served skeletons,? says this connoisseur
of bones after flipping through more
slides.
Owsley?s study of the bones of the
Hunley?s crew and their positions in the
sub may some day help solve the mystery
of why the Hunley sank after its success-
ful attack on the Housatonic. Using
measurements from crew members?
skulls, he also is working to re-create
their faces for an upcoming exhibit in a
Charleston museum.
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 3
C
onfederate General Pierre
Beauregard did not mince
words when describing the
H.L. Hunley, a 40-foot-long
submarine built from an iron boiler dur-
ing the Civil War. ?It is more dangerous
to those who use it than the enemy? was
his dark assessment of this secret weapon
of the Confederacy after 13 Rebels
drowned inside its cramped quarters
during training mishaps. Others dispar-
aged the sub as a ?peripatetic coffin.?
Still, in 1864, Beauregard was per-
suaded to relaunch the Hunley in de-
fense of South Carolina?s Charleston
harbor. At 8:45 p.m. on Feb. 17, the
Hunley rammed a barbed mine into the
hull of the Union steam sloop
Housatonic. The Housatonic sank in
(continued)
minutes, and five men were lost from its
crew of 155. But the Southern subma-
rine, Hunley, also perished that night,
with its entire crew of eight. 
In his laboratory at the Smithsonian?s
National Museum of Natural History in
Washington, D.C., Physical Anthropolo-
gist Douglas Owsley is examining color
slides of the recently recovered remains
of the eight men from the Hunley 
submarine. A light-table illuminates pho-
tographs of jaws and teeth and skulls and
hundreds of separate bones extracted from
thick silt inside the sub.
?Here?s a guy with a beautiful pipe
facet,? Owsley says, looking at a slide of
teeth showing a deep groove worn by a
smoker?s habit of clamping down on a
pipe stem. ?They?re beautifully pre-
P H Y S I C A L  A N T H R O P O L O G Y
Hunley submarine cedes secrets of crew to
Smithsonian anthropologist                  
By Michael Lipske
Special to Inside Smithsonian Research         
Above: This oil painting of the Hunley
submarine resting in Charleston harbor
was painted by Conrad Wise Chapman
around 1863. (Courtesy of the Museum of
the Confederacy)
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 3
4 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
Recovering a bottle
After the Civil War, showman P.T. Bar-
num offered $100,000 to anyone who
could find the Hunley. But the sunken
submarine stayed hidden until 1995,
when adventure novelist and marine ex-
plorer Clive Cussler located the vessel
under sand and silt in 30 feet of water a
few miles off Charleston harbor. 
On Aug. 8, 2000, the submarine was
raised from the sea by a team put to-
gether from the National Park Service,
the U.S. Navy, the nonprofit group
Friends of the Hunley and others. The
Hunley was then lowered into a 90,000-
gallon tank of fresh water at a state-of-
the-art marine archaeology laboratory,
the Warren Lasch Conservation Center,
in North Charleston. 
Since then, archaeologists have
painstakingly removed sediment from
inside the submarine, carefully exposing
the Hunley?s innards. Robert Neyland,
the archaeologist directing the Hunley
project, describes the effort ?like recov-
ering a bottle?everything is contained
inside the submarine.?       
?Everything? has included wool, linen
and silk items of clothing and eight pairs
of leather shoes, canteens, tobacco pipes,
even battlefield booty in the form of a
Union soldier?s dog tag. 
A diamond ring and diamond brooch,
an ornate gold pocket watch and an en-
graved $20 gold coin are believed to
have belonged to the Hunley?s skipper,
Lt. George Dixon. 
Oxygen-free environment
Dixon and the Hunley crew were ?in-
credibly brave men, a select group,?
Owsley says. Volunteers all, the sailors sat
shoulder-to-shoulder on a wooden
bench, turning a crank that rotated the
vessel?s propeller. It was hard labor made
harder by cramped quarters?a cabin
measuring just 4 feet high and 31/2 feet
wide.
?I could see somebody going nuts in
there,? says Owsley, who has spent many
hours squeezed inside the sub, identify-
ing bones in the black silt, a substance he
likens to ?gritty butter.?
The silt, however, was a savior. It pro-
vided an oxygen-free environment that
led to the remarkable degree of preserva-
tion of the human remains in the sub-
marine. A pathologist and a toxicologist
working on the project have even been
able to study brain tissue from the
doomed Rebels.  
Laser mapping
Before any bones were removed from 
the Hunley, their positions were mapped
with a system that uses computers and
laser signals to gather precise coordi-
nates for the location of any object. As
Owsley describes it, extending a special
wand containing a laser transmitter into
the sub, ?I would touch a given bone in
at least three different places,? thus 
triangulating the bone?s position in the
space inside the submarine. 
Left: Douglas Owsley surveys the interior
of the Hunley submarine before entering
it to begin recovery of the remains of the
crew. (Photo courtesy of Friends of the
Hunley)
Opposite top: The port bow of the Hunley
is seen here on Aug. 8, 2000, cradled in
the recovery truss that lifted it that day
from the ocean floor. (Photo courtesy of
Friends of the Hunley)   
Opposite bottom: Lt. George Dixon, the
24-year-old soldier who was command-
ing the Hunley on the night that it sank
the Housatonic (Photo courtesy of
Friends of the Hunley) 
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 4
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 5
Hunley project archaeologists then in-
corporated data on bone locations onto
digital maps of the overall submarine?
maps constructed using a laser-scanning
system. The resulting 3-D digital repre-
sentations of the submarine show bones
and other artifacts located exactly as
they came to rest before being covered in
silt. The maps may help scientists under-
stand what Hunley sailors were doing
when they died and thus determine ex-
actly why and how the sub sank.  
Stature, age
All of this information is complemented
by Owsley?s meticulous notes on and
study of the skeletons. ?Once we got
[each man?s] bones sorted, we would go
through a description of each person,?
the anthropologist says. It?s the same
methodology he has used in a long ca-
reer of identifying and studying a wide
variety of human remains?bones of
Native Americans, of settlers in Colonial
Virginia, of contemporary crime victims
and of victims of ?ethnic cleansing? in
the Balkans. 
Owsley searched for evidence of dental
disease and documented the presence of
gold and amalgam fillings in the teeth of
Hunley crew members. He measured the
stature of each skeleton and was sur-
prised to find men as tall as 5 feet, 11
inches. Experts had maintained that
sailors would have had to be short to
work inside the cramped submarine. 
Owsley had assumed the submariners
would ?turn out to be pretty young
guys.? After all, Dixon, the commander,
was only 24. But judging by their bones,
one appears to have been in his late 30s
and two in their 40s??old enough,?
Owsley observes, ?to have arthritis.? 
Faces from the past 
Owsley also is directing an effort to put
faces on the men of the Hunley. Detailed
plastic casts of the Hunley skulls have
been sent to Sharon A. Long, a Wyoming
forensic artist who has created facial re-
constructions from skulls for Owsley for
some 16 years. As with previous projects,
Owsley says, he met with Long ?to talk
about what we saw in the skulls.? 
?He reads them like a book,? Long ex-
plains of Owsley?s skill in interpreting
how the shape of eye orbits, the nasal
cavity, cheekbones, brow ridges and
other features determine physiognomy.
?One of the Hunley guys had his nose
broken a few times,? Long says. ?He got
hit with a right hook.? 
Hunger also leaves a record. Owsley
reminded Long that the Hunley sailors
had been at war for several years and
were probably undernourished. While
modeling the faces with oil-based clay,
the artist will adjust tissue thicknesses to
reflect the physical condition of the
Rebels. 
Further information collected by a
Hunley project genealogist may help
Owsley and Long decide details of skin
complexion and hair color. Eventually,
the rebuilt Rebels will be displayed,
along with their old submarine, at a
Hunley museum in the Charleston area.
On Saturday, April 17, 2004, the remains
of the Hunley?s crew will be buried in
Charleston.
In our media-saturated age, the names
and faces of the sailors involved in a con-
temporary Hunley-type incident would
be widely known. Owsley and Long
could work from photos. But the Con-
federate sub, for the most part, was
crewed by mystery men, appropriate for
a secret weapon.
As Owsley says, ?This was a true un-
dercover Stealth Bomber of its day.? ?
The Southern 
submarine also
perished that night,
with its entire 
crew of eight. 
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 5
6 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
D
ecember 15, 1959. Eisenhow-
er is president, a Rambler
sedan costs $1,795, and Jim-
my Stewart and Lee Remick
are striking romantic sparks in the movie
?Anatomy of a Murder.?
In Chicago, a drizzly, gray winter
workday has begun. Bundled against the
windy, raw weather, commuters and
Christmas shoppers on an elevated train
nap, chat and read in the Daily Tribune
about the opening of the Northwest Ex-
pressway. Some sit, some stand, all are
jostled by the movement of the car as the
conductor calls out stops??State, Van
Buren...Madison, Wabash??over the
public address system.
This routine commute, a rich slice of
Chicago life familiar to millions, has
been re-created some 40 years later in a
short film playing in a train car in the ex-
hibition ?America on the Move,? opening
T R A N S P O R T A T I O N  H I S T O R Y
Chicago train car rattles back   
to 1959 in new exhibition                  
By Daniel Friend
Special to Inside Smithsonian Research
in November at the
Smithsonian?s National
Museum of American His-
tory. The train car is one of a
dozen vignettes in this new
26,000-square-foot exhibition
showcasing some 300 vintage vehi-
cles from the popular Smithsonian trans-
portation collections in historic settings. 
With the aim of allowing visitors to
travel back in time and revisit the sites,
sounds and sensations of transportation
as it shaped American lives, ?America on
the Move? will bring to life the most sig-
nificant places and periods in America?s
transportation history. 
One of these is the Windy City in De-
cember 1959?and for good reason. 
Old 6719
?Chicago thrives on one of the oldest
and most expansive mass transit systems
in America,?
National Mu-
seum of American
History Curator Bonnie
Lilienfeld says. ?After
World War II, the elevated
train, or L, became an integral
part of the city?s enormous network of
rapid transit trains, streetcars and buses.?  
To re-create the experience of an ele-
vated train commute, Lilienfeld rescued
an actual L car from a rail yard in
Skokie, Ill., in 1999. Chicago Transit Au-
thority car No. 6719, which rocked,
lurched and rolled faithfully on
Chicago?s L and subway for nearly 30
years, is now installed in the museum.
One of the larger objects in the trans-
portation collection, it is 48 feet long
and has seating for 45 passengers.   
?It was about to be scrapped,? Lilien-
feld recalls of the car, built by the St.
Louis Car Co. in 1959. ?By the time we
bought the thing, it was like my baby. I
was in love with it.? 
Chicago Transit Authority staff loved
it,  too?they removed the graffiti cov-
ering its exterior. Alstom Transport and
the American Public Transportation As-
sociation restored the car to its original
beauty inside and out, including warm
layers of Croydon cream, swamp holly
orange and Colorado spruce green paint. 
Lilienfeld?s research into the thousand
miniscule details of a 1959 commute was
aided by enthusiastic CTA staff, volun-
teers at the Illinois Railway Museum and
CTA afficionados, who offered their
knowledge and resources. They also
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 6
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 7
helped her collect L artifacts, such as a
motorman?s control handle, destination
signs, a brass key that starts the car?s elec-
tric drive motor,  CTA decals and promo-
tional posters from inside the cars. 
Ravenswood Line
Museum visitors will enter No. 6719
through its folding doors and take a seat
on a 1959 commute into Chicago?vir-
tually elbow to elbow with laborers,
Christmas-shopping housewives, busi-
nessmen, department store clerks and
others who Lilienfeld determined would
have purchased a 25-cent token on the L
that morning.
The film follows an actual route on
the Ravenswood Line around Chicago?s
elevated loop. Lilienfeld rode the L lines
and took pictures and measurements in
stations along the line?s downtown loop. 
?The Chicago Transit Authority gave
me a map that shows the exact points in
the loop where the train lights flicker be-
cause of breaks in the track,? she says.
Light bursts inside the car are synchro-
nized to the flashing in the film. Special
effects also include a mechanized system
that jostles the car at turns and track
switches as they appear on the film?
just like the real thing.
Cars cut in
But the L is only one thread of Chicago?s
complex tapestry of transportation his-
tory. In 1959, as the exhibition points
out, ridership on the L was falling. De-
pendence on the automobile had been
shaping life in American cities and sub-
urbs for more than a decade. On Dec.
15, Chicago?s Northwest Freeway opened
to drivers. Commuters in Lilienfeld?s
film discuss the new freeway and the
prospects of buying a car. 
Along with the L, a vastly different slice
of Chicago life also gets a close-up look
in ?America on the Move?: Park Forest, a
suburb built around the family car.
As the suburbs spread outward beyond
the reach of the L, Chicago authorities
began building high-speed expressways
into the city to lure suburbanites and
their cars into the business district.
Chicago was the first city to lay down
subway tracks inside the median strips of
automobile expressways. 
Despite a century of change, the L still
carries commuters into the city daily.
From 1896 to 2003, it has helped mil-
lions of Chicagoans with the most basic
of needs?simply to get around town.
As ?America on the Move? makes clear
in many ways, mobility is the defining
experience in American life. ?
Opposite top: A period Chicago Transit 
Authority decal once used on its rail cars 
Opposite bottom: A tractor-trailer care-
fully maneuvers the 1959 Chicago L train
car into the National Museum of Ameri-
can History. (Photo by Jeff Tinsley)  
Above: Bonnie Lilienfeld reads a 1959
Chicago Daily Tribune inside the Chicago
Transit Authority rail car, which is part of
the new transportation exhibition ?Amer-
ica on the Move.? (Photo by Jeff Tinsley) 
?America on 
the Move? will
bring to life the
most significant
places and periods
in America?s 
transportation
history.
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 7
8 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
D
ashed generously with special
seasoning and heaped on an
outdoor picnic table, a bushel
of hardshells at Captain Jack?s
Crab Shack in Spotsylvania, Va., runs
about $140. Customers crack the
steamed crustaceans with wooden mal-
lets and eat the semisweet meat with 
savory side orders of creamy cole slaw
and redskin potato salad.
Tastes are running high for
the blue crab these days, but
American appetites, pollu-
tion and habitat loss are
putting a serious dent in
their numbers. Since 1991,
blue crab populations in the
Chesapeake Bay have plum-
meted by 85 percent. Without in-
tervention, says Anson ?Tuck? Hines, an
estuarine ecologist at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center in Edge-
water, Md., the Chesapeake?s blue crab
fishery?like the oyster fishing indus-
try?will certainly recede into history.
Enhancement project
As a principal researcher for the recently
established Blue Crab Enhancement Pro-
ject, Hines and colleagues at the Virginia
Institute of Marine Sciences and the
E N V I R O N M E N T A L  S C I E N C E
Hatchery project may help halt decline of
the Chesapeake Bay blue crab
By Kimbra Cutlip
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
University of Maryland?s Center of 
Marine Biotechnology are rearing crabs
by the tens of thousands and releasing
them as juveniles into the Chesapeake
Bay. Their work is a test, Hines explains,
to determine if raising and releasing
crabs in large numbers ?is economically
viable and ecologically sound.? 
He emphasizes that the intent is not
to subsidize the Chesapeake?s
crab fishery by adding crabs
for fishermen to catch. The
project goal for Smithso-
nian Environmental 
Research Center scientists
is to determine if it is pos-
sible to increase the crab
population by contributing
to the breeding stock without 
altering the ecology of the ecosystem.
Launched two years ago, the Blue
Crab Enhancement Project already has
developed techniques that may form the
foundation of a new crab aquaculture
industry.
Last holdout
A dominant predator, blue crabs are an
important species in the Chesapeake
Bay. As a seafood delicacy, crabs repre-
sent a significant source of revenue for
Maryland and Virginia. The crab fishery
remains the last holdout of a series of
commercial fishing industries in the bay
that have been nearly abandoned due to
meager harvests, says Hines, who was
studying blue crabs for the Smithsonian
when large numbers of oystermen were
still plunging their tongs into the Chesa-
peake. 
?The demise of the other fisheries has
shifted pressure onto blue crabs,? Hines
explains. ?Today, crabs of reproductive
age are very few. Not enough little ones
are coming into the system to bring the
population up.?
Above: A small, dime-size crab is tagged with a tiny micro-wire at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center on the Chesapeake Bay. (Photo by Richard Strauss) 
Right: Alicia Young-Williams measures the carapace of a young crab that she has
captured in a seine net along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. (Kimbra Cutlip photo)
Opposite: An adult Chesapeake Bay blue crab (Photo by John Barrat)
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 8
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 9
Raising and tagging
Inside a high-tech Univer-
sity of Maryland hatchery
in Baltimore?s Inner 
Harbor, tens of thousands of
?little ones? are scrambling
around inside 1,000-gallon saltwater
aquariums. Researchers here have 
successfully induced female crabs taken
from the bay to produce eggs out of 
season and spawn millions of larvae. 
?For years, the dogma for the Chesa-
peake Bay blue crab was that each female
produced one brood and that was it,?
says Center of Marine Biotechnology 
Director Yonathan
Zohar. At this lab, ?we were able to 
produce up to four broods in captivity.?
Scientists at the Center of Marine
Biotechnology rear the crabs through
eight larval stages; one megalops, or
?pre-crab? stage; and about four molts.
At two months, the dime-size crabs
are transported to the Smithsonian 
Environmental Research Center?s wet lab
on the Rhode River, a brackish Chesa-
peake tributary. Each crab is tagged once
with a magnetic micro-wire and again
with a harmless injection of brightly 
colored, easy-to-see plastic before being
released at specific sites on the bay.
Checking in
After releasing the animals, Smithsonian
Blue Crab Enhancement Project re-
searchers Jana Davis and Alicia Young-
Williams and summer interns in Hines?
lab return weekly to check up on the
crabs. They trawl and seine the shores,
sift through the thick black muck and
pick out the tiny, pinching juveniles. ?It?s
an exciting time,? Young-Williams says.
?Pulling them up and seeing that they
are growing and surviving.?
Davis and Young-Williams measure
every crab, count missing limbs and 
distinguish wild crabs from hatchery
crabs. By recording this data over time,
researchers hope to eventu-
ally answer such critical
questions as: Are the hatch-
ery crabs surviving? Are they
competing as well as wild-born crabs?
Are they out-competing wild crabs and
replacing their populations? Are they
surviving long enough to contribute to
the breeding population? 
Scaling up
To date, the project has released 35,000
crabs. To have a true impact on the
Chesapeake?America?s largest estuary
with a surface area of some 7,000 square
miles?millions of crabs will need to be
raised and released. So far, crab popula-
tions at the release sites have doubled,
but the releases have been on a small
scale and in select waters. 
To determine if this will work for the
entire Chesapeake, ?we will need to be
able to scale things up,? Hines says.
?That will require another big research
effort and more money.?
Data and techniques compiled under
the Blue Crab Enhancement Project 
also will help provide sound facts for 
decision-makers faced with tackling the
causes of the crab?s decline?over-
fishing and habitat loss. 
Responsible management coupled
with an aquaculture industry may ensure
that the blue crab remains a healthy 
resident in the Chesapeake and on the
menus of seafood restaurants nation-
wide. ?
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 9
10 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
C
oy geishas. Paper fans. Flow-
ering trees. For many, these 
images are what come to
mind as the common charac-
teristics of Japanese art.
Then again, most of us aren?t familiar
with the woodblock prints of Yoshitoshi
Tsukioka (1839-1892). During his career,
this late-19th-century genius created
colorful and exotic images, ranging from
the human slaughter of war and highly
sexual images of geishas to comical an-
thropomorphic animals and dramatic
incidents from Japanese legend and his-
tory.    
Thanks to a windfall gift in April, the
Smithsonian?s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
now owns more than 100 prints by this
passionate artist of Japan?s Ukiyo-e pe-
riod, as well as some 4,000 works by
other Japanese printmakers, including
Ito Shinsui (1898-1972), Yoshikawa
Kanpo (1894-1979), Natori Shunsen
(1886-1960), Kawase Hasui (1883-1957)
and Ohara Koson (1877-1945).  
Bequeathed by Connecticut art collec-
tor Robert O. Muller, who died in April,
the collection is accompanied by a de-
tailed card catalog and many original
woodblocks. Selected works from the
collection will be unveiled in an August
2004 exhibition, and plans for a dedi-
cated research center and fellowship pro-
gram centered on Muller?s collection are
now under way.
Beardsleyesque
During his lifetime, Yoshitoshi witnessed
great political change, instability and up-
A S I A N  A R T
Yoshitoshi artworks in collection of prints
show less austere side of Japanese art  
By Hope Cristol
Special to Inside Smithsonian Research 
heaval in Japan, much of it bloody. He
knew extreme poverty and struggled with
depression and mental illness. 
A better understanding of the career
and artworks of Yoshitoshi is guaranteed
to challenge popular perceptions of
Japanese art as calmative and sparse.
?The austerity of Zen that people often
think of is only one tiny sliver of what
Japanese art is all about,? Sackler Chief
Curator James Ulak says. Yoshitoshi?s
works ?have a certain Beardsleyesque
quality,? Ulak explains, referring to
British art nouveau artist Aubrey Beard-
sley, known for his ornamental illustra-
tions with sexual and violent overtones.
?Muller loved birds and animals and
landscapes,? especially ?romantic, ideal-
ized views of nature,? Ulak says. So many
of Yoshitoshi?s images stand out.
Some of Yoshitoshi?s prints resemble
the illustrated pages of Aesop?s fables.
Subjects in his print series ?100 Phases
of the Moon? are drawn from Japanese
history, theater and legend. For example,
in the print ?100 Phases of the Moon:
Hotei? (1888), Yoshitoshi depicts the
most popular of the Japanese seven gods
of luck, a jolly fat man with thick hairs
sprouting from his chest, belly, toes and
fingers. His name is Hotei, and he?s hap-
pily reclining on a sack of treasures,
pointing at the moon. 
Other Yoshitoshi prints might have
been pulled from a modern-day comic
book. In ?100 Phases of the Moon: Kama
in Moonlight? (1886), two skinny
scoundrels with tattered clothes are up to
no good. One stands in the foreground
Detail of ?Fujiwara-no-Ahira, Minister of
the State? (1885), by Yoshitoshi (Image
courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery)
The austerity of
Zen that people
often think of is
only one tiny sliver
of what Japanese
art is all about.
w21916  12/11/03  1:10 PM  Page 10
In addition to lovely portraits of
Japanese women and disturbing images
of many-eyed monsters, Yoshitoshi also
illustrated important public figures. In
one version of his ?Fujiwara-no-Ahira,
Minister of the State? (1885), the viewer
looks down on the minister?s large rain
with the posture of a question mark,
pointing toward an enormous ?kama,? or
iron kettle. The rascal in the background
wields an absurdly large mallet. Muller?s
notes on the print explain that the two
are presumably breaking apart the kettle
to steal pieces of iron.
hat and yellow wrap as he hurries down
the street in a storm.
Ukiyo-e and Shin-Hanga
The Robert O. Muller Collection doesn?t
include Yoshitoshi?s earlier and charac-
teristically dark works depicting savage
cruelty, the torture of a pregnant woman
or bloody wartime scenes, for instance.
But, Ulak says, that is not what Muller
collected. 
?Bob loved a great composition, and
his eye was wonderfully attuned to
graphic subtleties. He cared a great deal
about excellence in craft, the quality of
registration??how well the paper lined
up with the inked block? ?the nuance
of the pigments and how carefully the
blocks were carved. He was totally im-
mersed in the beauty of his prints,? Ulak
explains.
Muller recognized the historic value of
collecting prints by Yoshitoshi, one of
the last masters of the final printmaking
movement in pre-industrialized Japan?
Ukiyo-e.
As the country turned from a Far East-
ern culture to an industrial society,
printmaking guilds were replaced by
mass-production techniques, such as
lithographs and the printing press.
After Yoshitoshi?s death in 1892, the
woodblock print was revived in Japan in
the early 20th century by Shin-Hanga
printmaking guilds. These artists por-
trayed a new, romanticized view of
Japanese women, one that became
widely familiar to most Westerners. In-
stead of erotic images of prostitutes in
the pleasure quarters, these works
?sought to depict more generalized no-
tions of feminine beauty,? Ulak explains.
?Shin-Hanga women were part coquet-
tish, part erotic, part domestic?new
roles for women to be playing [in Japan-
ese art].?
But before Shin-Hanga was Ukiyo-e
and Yoshitoshi. His works in Muller?s col-
lection represent an earlier Japan and an
artist balancing tradition and change. ?
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 11
?100 Phases of the Moon: Kama in Moonlight? (1886), by Yoshitoshi (Image courtesy of
the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery)
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 11
12 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
Red siskins
A previously unknown population of red
siskins, a federally listed endangered bird
species, has been discovered in Guyana
by researchers from the Smithsonian?s
National Museum of Natural History and
the University of Kansas. Closely related
to the goldfinch, the siskin is a popular
pet in Europe and America. Trapping
and trading have decimated their wild
populations. Red siskins once occurred
widely from eastern Colombia through
northern Venezuela, but they now exist
only in small, isolated populations. The
new population, whose numbers may
reach a few thousand, were found during
a survey of birds of Guyana. Their loca-
tion is being kept confidential.
Robert Emmet
In a ceremony on Sept. 17 in Washing-
ton, D.C.?s  Emmet Park, the Smithsonian
American Art Museum celebrated the
completed restoration of ?Robert Em-
met,? a 1916 bronze sculpture of the Irish
patriot created by American sculptor
Jerome Stanley Connor. The sculpture,
which is part of the museum?s collection,
depicts Emmet making an impassioned
speech at his trial in front of a British
special court in 1803, the day before he
was executed. Treatment of the statue?
which is on long-term loan to the Na-
tional Park Service?included washing,
applying a corrosion inhibitor and brush-
ing on a protective hot-wax coating.
Da Vinci Medal
Bart Hacker, a curator in the Division of
Armed Forces History at the Smithso-
nian?s National Museum of American
History, has been awarded the Leonardo
da Vinci Medal from the Society for the
History of Technology. The medal is pre-
sented annually to a person who has
made an outstanding contribution to the
history of technology through research,
teaching, publishing and other activities.
Hacker came to the Smithsonian in 1998
and was co-curator of the National Mu-
seum of American History exhibitions
?Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines
in the Cold War? and ?West Point in the
Making of America.? 
Botanical exploration
A new Botanical Exploration Fund has
been established at the Smithsonian?s
National Museum of Natural History to
permit Smithsonian scientists to exam-
ine the flora of habitats and regions
around the world and establish mainte-
nance and conservation plans. Dedicated
to furthering the discovery, documenta-
tion and conservation of the Earth?s
plants, the first gift to the fund was made
by Shirley Sherwood, a renowned collec-
tor of botanical art, whose collection
made up the recent Natural History Mu-
seum exhibition ?A Passion for Plants.?
Enola Gay
The Smithsonian?s National Air and
Space Museum unveiled in August the
newly reassembled Enola Gay, the Boe-
ing B-29 Superfortress used to drop the
first atomic bomb in combat on Aug. 6,
1945. Restoration of the aircraft began in
1984 and involved 300,000 staff hours.
The Enola Gay will be on display at the
museum?s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
in Chantilly, Va., when the center opens
to the public on Dec. 15. 
???? ??? ?????
?Sunflower,? by Paul Jones, from
?A Passion for Plants? at the National
Museum of Natural History 
The Enola Gay, with its 141-foot wingspan, in place at the Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center 
A red siskin
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 12
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003 13
When the residents of Boley, Okla.?one of the oldest all-African Amer-
ican towns in the United States?turn out
to celebrate the town?s anniversary, they
parade on Main Street, barbecue nonstop
and host a rodeo of the area?s best black
cowboys. In Lerty, Va., a full-immersion
baptism gets the faithful exultant with
dancing and tables of heavenly food. 
In big cities and small towns across the
United States, African American celebra-
tions, from the mainstream to the little-
known and from the sacred to the secu-
lar, are being visited by the staff of the
Smithsonian?s Anacostia Museum and
Center for African American History
and Culture. The result of this research
will be ?Jubilee: African American Cele-
bration and Memory,? an exhibition
opening in 2004.
Vaccines and mosquito control ap-pear to have helped deliver a knock-
out punch to the West Nile virus at the
Smithsonian?s National Zoological Park
this year.
In 2002, the virus sickened and killed
some 20 birds at the National Zoo. This
year, it has not been found in a single
animal in the Zoo?s collection.
A few hundred Zoo animals?mostly
birds, along with rhinos, zebras and
tapirs?were vaccinated against West
Nile virus in 2002 and 2003. Zoo med-
ical staff, however, are reluctant to credit
vaccinations as the sole factor in the 
decline of this virus. ?Although we aren?t
seeing the disease in our vaccinated 
animals,? Associate Pathologist Donald
Nichols says, ?we are not seeing much in
wild birds either, and they were not vac-
cinated.?
Zoo staff stepped up mosquito control
measures this year, using bug traps and
removing standing water on National
Zoo grounds. ?We also are using a bio-
logical control derived from otherwise
harmless bacteria that eliminate mos-
quito larvae? in areas such as the Zoo?s
duck pond, says Richard Montali, chief
pathologist at the National Zoo. 
A drastically reduced population of
wild crows, hit hard by the virus last
year, as well as natural immunity, may
be additional factors in the low West
Nile infection rate among Zoo animals.
?Last year, the disease was spreading
through the area and susceptible birds
were dying,? says the Zoo?s Chief Veteri-
narian Suzan Murray. ?West Nile is now
considered endemic here. Most animals
already have been exposed and have
some level of immunity.? 
? Carolyn Martin
African American celebrations are
?about family, community, shared his-
tory and people finding a way to connect
to something bigger than themselves,?
says Museum Specialist Anthony
Gualtieri, who has documented a variety
of African American celebrations for the
exhibition. 
One of his stops was a Pinkster 
celebration in Tarrytown, N.Y. Derived
from ?Pfingster,? the Colonial Dutch 
observance of Pentecost, ?the black pop-
ulation of Albany, N.Y., so transformed
this holiday that, by the mid-1800s, it
was virtually considered a black celebra-
tion,? Anacostia Historian Portia James
explains. 
?Many celebrations originating in the
18th and 19th centuries and observed
for generations, such as Election Day,
African American celebrations shape a 
uniquely American identity
Vaccines help stop West Nile virus among National Zoo animals
Pinkster and John Canoe, no longer exist
in their original forms,? James points
out. ?Others, including Big Quarterly,
camp meeting and Shrove Tuesday, are
celebrated regionally and are not well-
known.?
Holidays and traditions, James says,
were used by early African and African
American communities to shape a
uniquely American identity. 
? Fleur Paysour
A full-immersion baptism in Lerty, Va.
(Photo by Steven Cummings) 
Flamingos at the National Zoo
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 13
14 INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN 2003
One Fish, Two
Fish, Crawfish,
Bluefish: 
The Smithsonian 
Sustainable
Seafood Cook-
book, by Carole C.
Baldwin and Julie
H. Mounts (Smithsonian Books, 2003,
$35). This cookbook is filled with delec-
table and ecologically sound seafood
recipes by some of America?s top chefs,
including Alice Waters and Jacques Pepin.
At First Sight: Photography and the
Smithsonian, by Merry A. Foresta
(Smithsonian Books, 2003, $60). A 
senior curator of photography at the
Smithsonian examines for the first time
the extraordinary collections of photo-
graphs owned by the Institution. 
Lost Highway:
The True Story
of Country
Music, by Colin
Escott (Smithso-
nian Books,
2003, $26.95).
Singing cowboys,
love-struck
songsters, rough-
neck rebels and Nashville icons populate
this definitive celebration of the raw
spirit of authentic country music.
Snakehead: A Fish out of Water,
by Eric Jay Dolin (Smithsonian Books,
2003, $24.95). The amazing story of an
invasive species that went from obscurity
to fame, spawning ?snakehead summer?
and becoming a topic of David Letter-
man?s Top 10 list. This book explores
many serious questions about invasive
species in America while bringing to life
this enthralling tale.
????? ??? ??????????
Studies of Halictinae (Apoidea: 
Halictidae), II: Revision of Spheco-
dogastra Ashmead, Floral Special-
ists of Onagraceae, by Ronald J.
McGinley (Smithsonian Contributions to
Zoology). A scientific update of the tax-
onomy of the bee genus Sphecodogastra.
One Nation Under Goods: 
Malls and the
Seductions of
American
Shopping, by
James J. Farrell
(Smithsonian
Books, 2003,
$24.95). A lively,
fast-paced history
of the hidden se-
crets of the shopping mall that explains
how retailers make goods ?irresistible.?
Senator Mansfield: The Extra-
ordinary Life of a Great American
Statesman and Diplomat, by Don
Oberdorfer (Smithsonian Books, 2003,
$32.95). A spellbinding biography of one
of the most powerful and dignified men
to ever come to Washington, D.C. 
The Eye of War: Words and 
Photographs From the Front Line,
by Phillip Knightley (Smithsonian
Books, 2003, $60). An unforgettable
tableau of 200
of the most
powerful war
photographs
accompanied
by poignant
testimonies
from soldiers
and witnesses.
Cubano Be,
Cubano Bop:
One Hundred
Years of Jazz
in Cuba, by
Leonardo Acosta
(Smithsonian
Books, 2003,
$29.95). Testi-
mony from
scores of Cuban
musicians enriches this first history of
jazz in Cuba. Written by an acclaimed
Cuban musician, musicologist and writer.
Pete Seeger: American Favorite 
Ballads, Vol. 1 (Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings, $15 CD). This CD features
28 classic American ballads recorded by
Seeger in the 1950s and 1960s.
Lord Invader: Calypso in New York
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, $15
CD). Inspired improvisation and com-
pelling rhythms fill these 1940s and 1950s
recordings by Rupert Westmore Grant.
Books published by Smithsonian Books
can be ordered from P.O. Box 960, Hern-
don, Va. 20172-0960, or by calling 1
(800) 782-4612. There is a $3.50 postage
and handling fee for the first book or-
dered and $1 for each additional book.
Smithsonian Contributions publica-
tions can be requested from Smithsonian
Books, Series Division, Victor Building,
Suite 4300, MRC 953, P.O. Box 37012,
Washington, D.C. 20013-7012.
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings can
be ordered from Smithsonian Folkways
Mail Order, Victor Building, Suite 4100,
MRC 953, P.O. Box 37012, Washington,
D.C. 20013-7012. To order by phone,
call (202) 275-1143 or 1 (800) 410-9815.
There is a $5.50 fee for shipping and
handling.
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 14
INSIDE SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH ? AUTUMN  2003 15
Lewis and Clark: Across
the Divide
By Carolyn Gilman, with an introduction by
James P. Ronda (Smithsonian Books, 2003,
$60 cloth)
T en minutes after she swallowed adose of ground rattlesnake tail, 
Sacagawea gave birth to a son, Pomp, in
the winter of 1805. In the absence of a 
doctor or modern medicine, Meriwether
Lewis had to trust this Choctaw 
remedy for his young Shoshone guide?s
difficult childbirth. 
?This was the first child which this
woman had bourn [sic], and as is com-
mon in such cases her labour was te-
dious and the pain violent,? Lewis
wrote in a journal in which he also
chronicled many other incidents of the
exhilarating 1804 to1806 expedition
that opened the American West. 
Two centuries have passed since
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark?s
Corps of Discovery were the first to
chronicle the varied landscapes and di-
verse Native cultures of the West. Now,
in Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide,
Carolyn Gilman meticulously examines
the artifacts gathered during the expedi-
tion, as well as the equipment used to
carry out the journey. She brings history
to life in this engaging chronological
narrative. 
The book is a companion to the Mis-
souri Historical Society exhibition
?Lewis and Clark: The National Bicen-
tennial Exhibition,? which will begin a
national tour next year. Gilman is 
curator of the exhibition, which reunites
artifacts from Lewis and Clark?s journey
that have not been seen together since
1806. Using 400 color illustrations, Lewis
and Clark: Across the Divide draws upon
the storytelling power of these artifacts,
??? ??? ?????
lent by more than 50 individuals and 
institutions. 
Gilman expands and transforms this
familiar story by exploring the social and
cultural landscapes the explorers tra-
versed. Two perspectives on America
came together from 1804 to 1806. Lewis
and Clark, men shaped by Jefferson?s En-
lightenment ideals, encountered an In-
dian world they only partly understood.
Traveling through Native lands, the ex-
plorers experienced moments of discov-
ery that revealed the contrasts, similari-
ties and creative exchange of ideas that
occur when different worlds meet face-
to-face. This navigation across the social
divide is a story as tense and complex as
the crossing of the physical landscape. 
Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide pro-
vides intricate details of the journey?s
preparations, such as Lewis? purchase of
a set of dental tools for $2.25?including
keys for pulling teeth and various blades
and scalpels?and a pair of $10 pocket
pistols with secret triggers that pop out
when the flintlock hammers are cocked.
Equally intriguing are Gilman?s expla-
nations of the customs of the tribes
Lewis and Clark encountered, including
the head-flattening methods of the 
Clatsop and Chinook of the Northwest.
Their infants were placed in tight wooden
cradles equipped with a basketry attach-
ment that was tightened gradually to
flatten a baby?s forehead.
Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide
offers a new view of the equipment the
Corps used, the artifacts they collected
and the complexity of the cultures they
encountered. It was an experience that
gave the young Republic its first glimpse
of what it was eventually to become ?
a cross-continental nation.
?Daniel Friend
This George Catlin painting from Lewis and Clark: Across the
Divide, titled ?Scalp Dance, Sioux, 1832,? was created almost
30 years after Lewis and Clark?s expedition. It depicts a scene
similar to Sioux firelit evening performances witnessed by the
expedition members. (Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian
American Art Museum)  
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 15
Jim Thorpe Wheaties
boxes come to Indian
Museum collections
F ew foodstuffs from grocery storeshelves ever find their way inside a
museum?s collection storage rooms, where
eating and drinking are strictly prohibited.
But when Joseph Campbell, of Welsh,
Okla., offered to donate two unopened
boxes of Wheaties breakfast cereal to the
Smithsonian?s National Museum of the
American Indian, the museum gladly ac-
cepted. The reason: Native American ath-
lete Jim Thorpe was featured prominently
on the outside of the boxes. 
Each box also bears the signatures of
Campbell; Thorpe?s daughter, Grace
Thorpe; his great granddaughter, Tena
Malotte; and Anna McKibben, a former
Miss Indian U.S.A., who came up with
the idea to have Jim Thorpe honored by
Wheaties. 
After an initial request to put Jim
Thorpe on the cover of the cereal box
??? ?? ??? ???????????
Presorted Standard 
U.S. Postage Paid 
Smithsonian Institution
G-94
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
MRC 033 PO Box 37012
Washington DC 20013-7012
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use $300
? ? ? ? ? ?  ?  ? ?? ? ? ? ?  ? ? ? ?
was turned down, these four American
Indians organized a successful letter-
writing campaign to General Mills,
maker of Wheaties, petitioning the com-
pany to honor Thorpe. ?It was a real
grass-roots effort,? recalls Grace Thorpe,
now 82. ?We had entire grammar-school
classes writing directly to the chairman
of the board.?
The Jim Thorpe Wheaties box was un-
veiled by General Mills in a special cere-
mony in Jim Thorpe, Pa., on Nov. 20,
2001. They were then offered for sale in
grocery stores nationwide. 
The National Museum of the Ameri-
can Indian acquired the boxes, because
?our collection includes a number of ob-
jects associated with ?famous? Indians?
Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Osceola?but
the 20th century is not well-repre-
sented,? Museum Specialist Mary Jane
Lenz explains. In addition, she says, ?the
campaign to have Jim Thorpe recog-
nized, originated and orchestrated by
Native people, speaks to a successful ef-
fort to present Native people in nontra-
ditional roles.? 
?John Barrat 
Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and
Fox tribe, won gold medals in both the
pentathlon and decathlon during the
1912 Summer Olympics. He excelled in
professional baseball and football and
became the first president of what is now
the National Football League. 
w21916  12/11/03  1:11 PM  Page 16