I wanted to highlight that intimate moment behindthescenes and the friendship that did transpire between a lot of the indian performers and cody. Learn more about the national oneum of American Indians american artifacts. Here on American History tv. Here at the American Museum of history, let me begin with the pandemic and how it has impacted the museum and your division in particular. We are working mostly. Our Museum Closed in march, but we began thinking about the pandemic in january. We are a division of medical historians and we tend to follow the news pretty carefully, especially news about Public Health. So we actually reached out and began speaking with the Public Health service in january because we began thinking about how to collect document this story. So it has been a long process and we have kind of ramped up as we have come home to think about collecting. At what point did you realize this pandemic would stretch into the fall and potential winter . As historians, we have definitely thought about difficulties inherent in making prettyne and we were sure this pandemic would last a fair amount of time and we would need to remain at home for some months while a vaccine was being created. They were keeping things week by week in the museum. What have you been doing the last few months . We were planning a history of medicine on the museum. Beginning,ndemic was we were actually very deep into the planning part of it and meet again to think about changing our exhibits. That meant that we needed to think about collecting related to covid19. We would need to do that anyway because we do collect objects but now it became an imperative especially in regards to the exhibit we are planning. We have asked them in harry potter is way find extra room so we could have a section on covid19, so that has become a center point of been of our exhibit. It is not that everything in American History leads up to covid19, but our visitors are going to want to understand the path of where we were before they come. So many ways, it has reshaped the exhibit. Harry potter, what you need by that . When they create an exhibit, they make a plan that accounts for every inch within the. We knew we needed an additional section to deal with covid19 and so we basically have to go to our designers and say we find and extra room in your plan they are wonderful in helping us to find that extra room. So they found the extra we needed to tell that story. That would include what . We are collecting objects around covid19 and we have done a lot of thinking about which objects are most iconic and will tell powerful stories about the events. The ventilator is something americans hear a great deal about grid they dont know what one looks like or necessarily how it works. To that is something we might think about putting in the exhibit. We feel that is a story that really represents all americans and so that might be an object we include their. We also think about test kits as beenas well as those have that have been much more effective. Depending on how long it takes a vaccine, we have even thought about leaving an empty space in an exhibit which suggests a vaccine is coming. It really depends on when our exhibit is able to open, what is happening and how the story spins out. Can clearly a lot will depend on vaccines and other therapeutics . When will this be available for the public to view . It was originally scheduled for 2021 and now were thinking 2022, ase pushed into all the work has really been stalled at the museum. Has been so much attention on 1918. Their habits only pictures, what do have that continues to tell that story . It is really not the last pandemic that we have had. Of course, we have seen an hiv aids pandemic but there west a baltimore aids pandemic in an influenza pandemic in 1968 and 1969. Ofs the pandemic that most us are most familiar with in the interestingly,nd we at the Museum Actually dont have any objects that relate to that and there are multiple reasons one is at the National Museum of American History did not really exist in the same way. But the other issue is that although we are very aware of a pandemic now and we talked great , theabout that pandemic truth is people really wanted to get what happened. Fact, they called the forgotten pandemic, with people really trying to move away from that to the fact that we dont have any objects is really not that surprising. Are other museums doing what you are doing right now to try to chronicle this moment . Yes. In fact many museums are trying to document covid19. We have been in touch and working with colleagues across the u. S. To talk to them because we think this is such a huge initiative that we really need to coordinate and talk to one another so that we understand what our colleagues are doing elsewhere so that we can document without replicating that others are doing. And as we imagine, all museums have limited space. So it has just been a fair amount of coordination. That point, are you processing material you think potentially could be used by some of your successors years from now . Absolutely. We know the object we bring end will be of interest to historians. We know that because we have a fabulous medical selection in the museum right now. We have collections that actually have object stating back several thousand years, not roman andcan but also we have always had scholars come in and use the objects and i also know that my colleagues in the future will also be using some of those objects to do in exhibit on the covid19 pandemic. It is such a huge about. It is hard for me to think they would not be thinking about doing an exhibit on covid19. When they walked through your exhibit, you want them to learn . One thing to learn is that pandemics have always been with us and will always be with us. A i mentioned, there were series of pandemics in the 20th century. It is probably hard for us, for covid19, to empathize or understand what would be like to live during a pandemic. Had,ind of fears people worries about how to protect themselves. So when we originally began planning the exhibit and the exhibit opened with a pandemic that occurred in the United States before 1860, we talked a lot about how do we get our visitors to understand what it is like to live through a pandemic. We know they will come through with a very different understanding of what that feels like so what we are really trying to do is show them the different approaches medicine has taken over the years, the theher we take and except idea of germ theory, that was a very long time before people really began to inform the practice of medicine. They really want to understand the idea of change and how change happened. Revolutions are fairly slow. And another thing i wanted to understand is the very different way that disease has impacted different groups in america. Obviously, if you are part of the native American Community in your9th century, experience with disease is very different. This is that a Public Health issue and medical issue and also a political issue in 2020. A way to deal with all of that . There is, as historians, the weather politics and culture always shapes the response to pandemic. The tension we are seeing over mask wearing, that was fairly widespread in 1919. Vaccine, thea technological element, that occurred in 1957 and 1958 as we were trying to control and plan the pandemic, but there are a lot of parallels in a lot of ways in which these pandemics are shaped pretty much by the issues. Health care represents Racial Disparities that have a long history and we want our visitors to understand that at all as well. What has intrigued you the most were surprised you the most . That is an interesting question because multiple things have surprised me. When we first began, we were somewhat uncertain as to whether this would emerge into a fullblown pandemic. As you know, there was a sars outbreak and so we were a little uncertain as to whether it could become quite as widespread in the way it has become. That was oddly surprising to us because we all knew we were long overdue for a pandemic. We still were shocked by how and that isscalated obviously the result of rapidity, the rapid nature of travel in the world today. So it is shocking for us to see that play out, even though we expected to see it. It is one thing to think about it theoretically and another to see it play out. I have been surprised about the pushback that is happened over mask wearing. Previously, i think the pushback was understandable because people did not grab germ theory and the way we do today. Surprised. Een we have asked americans to contact us with their story or objects they may have. That will be very interesting for us and we are also planning to do oral history in the long run. We like to see them as practitioners and also ordinary americans. That is a longrange project for us as we historians always like to have hindsight whatever we do a story. We are obscene looking to budget for that and so we will need to plan ahead. That is a major part of the project. And what is your background . Why do you decide to pursue this . I went to the university of wisconsin we had a separate department in the history of medicine. I became really fascinated by this when i was an undergraduate that was studying not American History, but italian history, looking at the medici family in florence. I was really struck by the prevalence of disease and the weather disease shapes peoples lives on a daytoday basis that it did not do for us today and thats partly what fascinates me. Germ theory, the introduction to has changed the world we live in. We dont think about Running Water or sanitary measures, take this offer granted. That leads us to having a difficult time empathizing. To understand that world of the we have to think about how different disease was. Would not have been uncommon for most. There would have experience the death of a sibling or parent and we just dont have those appearances today. So i thought about people in the past, for me that is one of the largest differences in the way that they live in the way that we learned today that just fascinates me. Leslie lori is with thesis money and museum of American History. Thank you for joining us on cspan3s American History tv. Thank you for having me. Youre watching american , archival films, lectures and College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic basis all weekend every weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. Coming up this Labor Day Weekend today at 6 p. M. Eastern, historians kevin live in and Hillary Greene discuss how we remember the civil war and whether to remove or contextualize confederate monuments. Eastern,ay on 6 p. M. We preview photographs of native americans from the sicilian National Museum the american collection. Presidency, athe look at president ial retreats. Including herbert hoovers fishing camp and stories of the kennedys. Vineyard,d marthas and at 8 p. M. Eastern, august marks the anniversary of the bombing of here shema and nagasaki. We look back at the events that led to the bombing and their legacy with ian troll and president trumans grandson, exploring the american story. Tv thiserican history labor day history tv is on cspan3 every weekend, and all our programs are archived on our website at cspan. Org history. Watch lectures and College Classrooms, tours of historic sites, archival films, and see our schedule of programs at cspan. Org history. Bookshelf,history erik larson talks about his book, isaacs storm a man, a time, and the deadliest hurricane in history. And come of the writing and Research Behind it creation. It chronicles the life of scientist isaac cline and the galveston, texas hurricane of 1900, which killed more than 6000 residents and destroyed 3700 building and remains buildings and remains the nations deadliest disaster. This program was recorded in 2000, shortly ahead of the anniversary of the storm. Thank you, for joining us. I see some familiar faces. Did anybody get real get up really early this morning . Im alone in that. Of one say footnote of warning. The weather has a funny way about it, going 24 7 and never gives a
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