BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Glorious Burden

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Glorious Burden:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIAHGB_100212_003.JPG: This unremarkable briefcase, used during the Clinton administration, is commonly referred to as "the football." Carried in the shadow of the president, it contained materials that might be needed in case of a military emergency.
2. SIAHGB_100212_014.JPG: This is the summer uniform worn by Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II. By the end of the war, Eisenhower was one of the most popular figures in America. New York City honored him on June 19, 1945, in a victory parade. Although not a registered member of any political party, he was sought as a presidential candidate by both Republicans and Democrats. Refusing to enter the race in 148, he was persuaded in 1952 to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency and was swept to victory, with the nation declaring "I Like Ike."
3. SIAHGB_100212_023.JPG: The Declaration of Independence Desk: In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence on this portable desk of his own design. Featuring a hinged writing board and a locking drawer for papers, pens, and inkwell, the desk was Jefferson's companion as a revolutionary patriot, American diplomat, and president of the United States. The drafts of the Declaration of Independence were among the first documents Jefferson penned on this desk; the note he attached under the writing board in 1825 was among the last: "Politics as well as Religion has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with time, may, one day, give imaginary value to this relic, for its great association with the birth of the Great Charter of our Independence."
4. SIAHGB_100212_041.JPG: President Thomas Jefferson's polygraph, made by Hawkins and Peale. Patented by John Isaac Hawkins in 1803, a polygraph's pens create simultaneous copies of a writer's manuscript. Jefferson acquired his first polygraph in 1804 and suggested improvements to Charles Willson Peale, owner of the American rights. A prolific letter writer, Jefferson called the polygraph "the finest invention of the present age."
5. SIAHGB_100212_075.JPG: "Full dinner pail" lantern from William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt's 1900 campaign.
6. SIAHGB_100212_078.JPG: Chaps worn by Theodore Roosevelt on his Dakota Territory ranch, 1884-86
7. SIAHGB_100212_090.JPG: Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. wore this suit during the first US manned mission in space. Developed by the BF Goodrich Company from the navy's MK-IV full-pressure suit, it was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1959 for use in Project Mercury. Shepard's May 5, 1961, suborbital flight in the Mercury Freedom 7 capsule lasted a little over fifteen minutes. Although brief, it was a major step in a race with the Soviet Union for dominance in space. Encouraged by the overwhelming response to Shepard's slight, President John F. Kennedy announced his goal of sending a manned spacecraft to the Moon.
8. SIAHGB_100212_111.JPG: Silver junk presented by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 by Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi of China. The gift followed China's forced acceptance of an open-door policy for trade with the United States.
9. SIAHGB_100212_131.JPG: Telegraph key made for President William H. Taft to use in the White House to open the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in 1909. It was used again by President Woodrow Wilson when he opened the Panama Canal in 1913. The marble slab is set with gold nuggets from the Klondike region.
10. SIAHGB_100212_140.JPG: The Nixon administration established a secret-operations unit known as the Plumbers. On September 3, 1971, they broke into the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. They were looking for damaging information against Ellsberg, who had leaked Pentagon papers concerning the Vietnam War to the press. This file cabinet was damaged in the search. It was the first in a series of Plumbers' break-ins that included the famous escapade at the Watergate Hotel that eventually brought down Richard Nixon's presidency.
11. SIAHGB_100212_149.JPG: Dollhouse, about 1896, made by a White House gardener and given to the children of Grover Cleveland during his second administration.
12. SIAHGB_100212_159.JPG: Objects owned by or associated with Lincoln quickly became relics, reminding Americans of Lincoln's greatness and challenging them to keep his ideals alive. The bronze life mask, cast by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1886, was made from the original mold taken from Lincoln's face by Leonard Volk in Chicago in 1860. The flag was flown on the funeral train as it traveled between Albany and Utica, New York.
13. SIAHGB_100212_172.JPG: As the doctors struggled to understand the extent of Garfield's wounds, Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, used this machine that he called an "induction balance" to try to locate the bullet. Wen found, the machine was to send a sound to the attached telephone receiver. Despite attempts on July 26 and August 1, 1881, Bell could not situate the bullet.
14. SIAHGB_100212_178.JPG: Equipment currently issued to Secret Service agents includes earpiece and digitally encrypted two-way radio, Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and extendable baton.
15. SIAHGB_100212_194.JPG: Miniature plastic sculptures of the presidents, manufactured by Louis Marx & Co, and hand-painted by Joe Wiley as a young boy in the 1960s.
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Description of Subject Matter: The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden
This exhibition explores the personal, public, ceremonial and executive actions of the 43 men who have had a huge impact on the course of history in the past 200 years. More than 900 objects, including national treasures from the Smithsonian’s vast presidential collections, bring to life the role of the presidency in American culture.
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2010 photos: My office at the main Commerce Department building closed in October and I was shifted out to the Bureau of the Census in Suitland Maryland. It's good to have a job of course but that killed being able to see basically any cultural events during the day. There's basically nothing of interest that you can see around the Census building. Overnight trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences (Lexington, KY and Nashville, TN), and my 5th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Los Angeles). Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs until the third one broke and I started sending them back for repairs. Then I used either the Fuji S200EHX or the Nikon D90 until I got the S100fs ones repaired. At the end of the year I bought a Nikon D5000 but I returned it pretty quickly. Number of photos taken this year: about 395,000..
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Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].