A very earnest looking fellow on bicycle with fan (or propeller, or tailwind) (1905). A very ugly Alopias vulpinus (Thintail Thresher) (1871), a very amorphous Himantura signifier (Stingray) 2002, and a very bony Pristigenys alta (Short big eye) (2002). A charming she-looks-just-like-my-older-sister shot of Amelia Earhart with a lovely white Cord Phaeton (1936). A smirking Charles Lindbergh with Plane (1927), and Duke Ellington filled with fun and song (1960).§ § §The photographs go all the way back to the very earliest printing experiments of 1840 or thereabouts, and include an 1846 shot of a model of the castle of the Institution. The early present is represented by some rather garish shots of Lucille Ball complete with pink veil, red lips, blonde hair, blue eyes. There is a winsome shot of Ansel Adams taken in a photo booth in 1930 (A self-portrait of Ansel Adams made in a photo booth!)
There are eight bombardiers hoisting eight 100-pound bombs to keep fit "for instantaneous action," just in case we were called to war and they had to heave these things from their cockpits (1950). There's Butch Cassidy and the gang looking just like turn-of-the-century bankers --- well, they were bankers, in a way. [See Fig. 4 below].There's Marian Anderson singing, in Washington, D. C., in 1939. Since she was black, and this was the time of segregation, the Daughters of the American Revolution, in what must be one of the great Public Relations moves of all times, refused to let her sing at Constitution Hall. Harold Ickes invited her to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. 75,000 people attended. Millions more listened on radio. Whatever became of the DAR, anyway? If you go to www.dar.org and type in her name, this is what you get:
Q. Why was famous black contralto, Marian Anderson, not permitted to sing at Constitution Hall in 1939?
A. The incident in 1939 was one of the first milestones in the struggle for Civil Rights in America. Washington, D.C., was a segregated city at that time and Constitution Hall limited performances to white artists. As the country began to tear down the barriers of race-discrimination, DAR followed suit and changed its policy for the Hall. Miss Anderson sang at Constitution Hall six times after 1939 and launched her farewell tour from our stage.
See: it wasn't the fault of the Daughters. It was the fault of society at large, or Washington D.C.
§ § §There are some 300 pages consisting of 150 photographs or so, drawn from the 13,000,000 photographs stored hither-and-yon in the sixteen museums that encompass the Smithsonian Institution. You figure it out: how does one go through 13,000,000 photos to cull a mere 150 for reproduction?
One thought on how this sumptuous book might have been even more so: dump the narratives --- the ho-hum history of photography in the Introduction and four other squibs ("Democracy of Images," "A New World," "Seeing as Believing," "Proofs Positive"). Let the pictures speak for themselves. We don't need words to tell us how fine and fascinating and interesting it all was and is. Another 150 shots might well have helped, at least to put a dint in those millions and millions looming over us, right now, as we speak.
Meanwhile, Tatta, young juvenile delinquent and tamer of beasts, meets with the young Chapra, and as they speak ("That's so cool!" "You're the best, Tatta," "I'm really impressed ") takes us on various adventures: meeting but not being eaten by man-eating tigers, a time of the plagues of locusts, and threatened immolation --- at which point we meet up with Naradatta. It's all fairly classic: war, plunder, contests, and being sold into slavery.