has a vivid recollection of Kellogg's taking him there 

 and telling him to get whatever he needed in the way 

 of office supplies. Billy Knowles was the building's orig- 

 inal purchasing agent and supply clerk, still remem- 

 bered by a few for his friendliness and efficiency. He 

 never wore an overcoat, regardless of the weather, and 

 one winter he caught a chill and died. Both Henderson 

 and Perrygo remember what a contrast he made to a 

 taxidermist who had been to the Arctic with Peary and 

 could not wait for winter so that he could wear his furs 

 to work. 



Even with the new wings, there was insufficient space 

 for the shops as the Institution and the Museum grew 

 during the 1960s. In the 1970s, when the kinds of 

 exhibit cases changed, the glass shop disappeared. The 

 electric shop moved several times before ending up in 

 the old awning shop. The plumbers dispossessed by 

 sedimentologists who needed the groimd floor for lab- 

 oratories, moved to the basement, only to be dispos- 

 sessed by ever-growing collections and by volunteer 

 restorers of old pots. Today it is virtually impossible to 

 find the plumbing shop. One must go into the east 

 courtyard and through the air-conditioning building 

 to enter their cinderblock lean-to. Perhaps the plumbers 

 feel that if the scientists find otU where they are hiding, 

 they will be dispossessed again. 



Painting is more complicated now than in the days 

 of solid "government green." The liberalized 1950s 

 brought a choice of six colors, and now there are 1,200 

 possible color combinations. Repainting an office or 

 touching up an exhibit can be a nightmare. The paint 

 shop has calctilated that if the Mtisetun of Natural His- 

 tory were placed on, say, a three-year schedule of re- 

 painting, it would require more painters than are now 

 employed to cope with all the buildings. The Institu- 

 tion's growth has not been reflected in a swelling main- 

 tenance force, only partly because of more-efficient 

 machinery. Some work is contracted out. While it is 

 generally agreed that work done by the Smithsonian 

 shops is better, the waiting list is long. 



Since the 1970s, when they started wearing unif orms, 

 the shop employees have been color-coded. The labor 

 force wears blue; painters and plasterers, the traditional 

 white; groundskeepers, green. Mechanics, plumbers, 

 sheet-metal workers, carpenters, and engineers are in 

 brown. Anyone with a white shirt is a foreman or su- 

 pervisor, just as any male guard with a white shirt is a 

 sergeant or above. 



The Main Mail Room 



The Museum building remains the center for many 

 support activities of the Institution, all very important 

 and all occupying space that the curators would love 

 to fill. For example, the area of the west loading dock 

 is the main mail room for all buildings. Mail for the 

 Museum has increased about 75 percent in the last 

 fifteen years; mail for the Institution overall has more 



Croxudcd sturai^r near ihc loading duck (di llir ground floor, 

 west wing of mam building. January 1950. 



than doubled. The mailroom workers, who wear what- 

 ever they like, are always kind enough to reopen the 

 last mailbag of the day for scientists running in late 

 with manuscripts. 



"Lanier," who delivered mail office-to-office in the 

 1930's, felt that taking responsibility for the U.S. Mail 

 was important enough to warrant a uniform. On his 

 days off he played the trumpet at Laurel Raceway to 

 signal the start of each race, and one day he showed 

 up at work in his scarlet jacket. A few days later. Wet- 

 more saw that he was issued a jacket and cap. In spite 

 of a good memory, Lanier had a problem with his job 

 in that he could hardly read. He judged names by length. 

 When he walked in and handed a curator the mail, the 

 person would shuf fle through and hand back the pieces 

 not addressed to him, being careful to say to whom 

 those letters were to go. 



Housekeeping 



Not everyone on the ground floor is involved with the 

 shops. As a result of reorganization in 1973, the re- 

 sponsibility for managing the Museum building was 

 decentralized and came again to be under the director. 

 Today the building is well managed, and this is no small 

 task. Of the more than five million tourists each year, 

 how many arc likely to use the public rest rooms, and 



Shdps and Maiiilniance 



161 



