Last Looks At Some National Treasures

By Eve Zibart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 25, 2006

The Smithsonian museums have long been considered "America's attic," but surely it's the Museum of American History, stuffed with mementos of wartime, peace, play, popular television shows and musicians, highways, byways and banquets, that most deserves that title. It's the sort of place one wanders at will, sometimes awed, sometimes amused and nearly always beset by a stray recollection or other.

But at the end of business Sept. 4, the museum will close for a major renovation scheduled to take two years (but remember, the work on the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum complex took more than six years instead of the planned three). When the American history museum reopens, it will have a central atrium with skylight and grand staircase designed to showcase the Star Spangled Banner, less labyrinthine exhibit spaces, new elevators and additional restrooms, improved electrical, ventilation and alarm systems -- and, one hopes, better lighting and more legible captions.

In the meantime, here are 25 neat, cool or creepy things to find in the building. Not all are permanent, so not all will return. A few will be on loan to the National Air and Space Museum. (Many exhibits have been packed up, so a few of these treasures may slip away, too.)

1. The Star-Spangled Banner, of course. According to the exhibit, many people assume this is the flag created by Betsy Ross, which presumably means they think the national anthem was around during the American Revolution. But of course it was during the War of 1812 and the shelling of Fort McHenry in September 1814 that Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was inspired to karaoke new and patriotic lyrics to his favorite drinking song. (Here's a clue against ol' Betsy: This flag has 15 stars and stripes, not 13.) The Banner -- made, ironically, from imported English wool -- was sewed by Baltimore's Mary Pickersgill, a 37-year-old widow (of rather formidable countenance) and professional flagmaker.

2. The pegboard in Julia Child's kitchen, with the outlines of every pot and pan in its place, transported in entirety from the home she shared with her husband, Paul, in Cambridge, Mass., and from which she launched what is likely the most popular series of TV cooking shows. (You'll hear her unmistakable voice on video, too; clips of "The French Chef" run continuously.)

3. The statue of Warren Harding's Airedale Laddie Boy, cast in 1923 from "the pennies of newsboys who considered Harding their friend."

4. Winchester, the preserved and stuffed black gelding of Gen. Philip Sheridan, who died in 1878 but is still in S-monogrammed Union army harness.

5. A reliquary locket ring given to Abraham Lincoln containing a bit of wood from George Washington's casket.

6. The mantelpiece that serves as backdrop for the mannequins wearing the inaugural gowns of the first ladies. The mantel is the one that stood over the fireplace in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House when FDR delivered his fireside chats.

7. A fabulous 1930s art deco necklace and matching bracelet made of aquamarines and rubies "buckled" through faux clasps.

8. Dorothy's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" (a special pair with sound-muting felt soles worn in dance scenes by Judy Garland in the 1939 classic).

9. A lace fan with amber frame and sapphire and diamond "E" given to first lady Edith Wilson by Queen Elizabeth of Belgium; in the lace are the bear of Russia, the lion of England, the rooster of France and the eagle of the United States.

10. The Skeksis, from puppeteer Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal," which took five people to maneuver, and whose hand was manufactured by harpsichord-makers.

11. The absurdly floral horse-drawn carriage with firehose reel made about 1850 in Philadelphia for a Bethlehem fire department.

12: The ornate etched glass and carved wood 1902 Automat, originally installed in Philadelphia (and housing replica sandwiches) behind the counter in the ice cream parlor.

13. An old-fashioned chemistry set like the ones that were holiday gift traditions in the 1950s and '60s.

14. The giant copper pot, rather like a small bathosphere, in which Gail Borden first condensed milk. (Among Borden's less successful concepts: A refrigerator large enough to house the population of Galveston, Texas, in the heat of summer.)

15. Almost any of the several dozen lovely model ships.

16. The streetcar placed at the intersection of Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street NW, with the knife-grinder's cart, horse-drawn cab and green market vendor alongside (and the map of the long-destroyed trolley lines that crisscrossed the city).

17. A 1941 cherry-red Indian motorcycle.

18. A 1934 wooden-frame Trav-L Coach camper.

19. Horatio Greenough's monumental 1814 statue of Washington as Zeus (which was deemed too adulatory for the new republic and moved from the Capitol to the grounds to the Smithsonian).

20. Washington's impressively long (even today) and characteristically modest blue wool uniform coat.

21. Mary Gasperik's 1930s quilt of Colonial women quilting flags.

22. The "bullet-shaped" lipstick and rubber-free brassiere from patriotic women's fashions in World War I (and a nearby propaganda poster of a German in helmet looking exactly like Darth Vader).

23. The huge "beehive prism" bulb from the Bolivar Lighthouse, which shone out over Galveston through the great hurricane of 1900, thanks to the keeper who cranked it by hand.

24. Miles Davis's Versace coat of many colors, a cross between "Fantasia" and a Matisse "Jazz" collage, with sleeves.

25. Henry Horenstein's photos of the back room at Tootsies Orchid Lounge in Nashville, where all the would-be stars who borrowed money wrote their IOU's on the wall (and where Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock were just married. Again).

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY Constitution Avenue and 14th Street NW. 202-633-1000 (TDD: 202-357-1729). http://americanhistory.si.edu. Metro: Smithsonian or Federal Triangle. Open daily 10-6:30 through Sept. 4.