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Miner, Minstrel, Memory: Or, Why the Smithsonian Has Bill Keating's Pants
| As an intern in 2003, while in the vast basement collections of the Smithsonian Institution, I found a folded pair of miner's blue jeans. Patched all over, and a brass colliery check-tag attached to one belt-loop, the pants were dirty with coal dust. Other artifacts in the same drawer—including a soft miner's cap, a mule whip, a lunchbox, and a water bottle—all had the same accession number, and all belonged together. I realized that I was looking at an assemblage of the everyday stuff of one long-dead miner. |
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More research revealed that the man's name was William Keating and that his collection of artifacts was unique in the museum. Keating was the sole representative in the storehouse of national memory of a particular form of important and grueling work that has all but disappeared from modern society.1 (Almost 2 percent of all workers in the United States—some 430,000 people—were employed as coal miners in 1900.2) His was a universal story about mine work that was embedded in the dirty patched blue jeans, in the grimy cap and rusty lunch pail. Anyone could see these pants and understand their resonance.3 These artifacts brought the story of working in a coal mine to life more vividly and authentically than anything else could. |
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Americans trust museums more than any other purveyor of historical information, even family members, in large part because "authentic" objects offer a more immediate, less mediated entry into history. Museum artifacts, especially in such hallowed halls as those of the Smithsonian, are powerful in part because they are trusted to be authentic. The authentic artifact can convey a kind of spirit of association with past people and events to the museum visitor, putting the viewer in close touch with the past.4 These clothes were certainly those sorts of artifacts. |
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The importance of their authenticity was also compounded by their rarity. The Smithsonian holds seemingly endless numbers of other kinds of mining artifacts—row upon row, drawer upon drawer of mining lamps, for example—but the pants of William Keating were the only example of miner's clothing in the collections. One of the challenges inherent in practicing social history in museums is the relative lack of objects with which to tell the story. Personal objects belonging to history museums overwhelmingly are from "people of comfortable means."5 Here, however, were authentic artifacts that could tell a story about industry and hard labor. That rarity made the clothes resonate even more with me. |
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But a chance encounter with the business files of a former curator complicated the story. A photocopied obituary of Keating revealed that he was not just a miner, but locally famous in the anthracite country as a troubadour. The grainy newspaper photo showed him in his "singing miner" garb—including dirty, patched pants, lunch pail, water bottle, and miner's cap. The artifacts in the Smithsonian were his costume (fig. 1). |
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