StoriesHere Podcast

This episode is a conversation with Leslie Anderson, the Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs for the spectacular National Nordic Museum in Seattle. Leslie was a Fulbright scholar and worked at the National Gallery of Denmark. In this episode she talks about the importance of oral history, stories of the Sami people, and why museums collect. There is much to learn about what Nordic culture can teach us about today’s challenges.

Greetings, Wayne Parker here, with a conversation about Nordic culture, which is today more important than ever.  And we’ll get to that, and some intriguing stories in a moment.  First, some of you may be wondering, are Nordic countries the same as Scandinavian ones? 

For the answer we’ll go to Eric Nelson, CEO and Executive Director of the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, who was the 2019 Swedish American of the Year.  And previously Eric was recognized as a Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland by the President of the country himself.  

We have many more questions for Eric.  This is the StoriesHere podcast, which exists because museums hold some of our most important, and interesting, stories.  We talk with people who know those stories best, leaders from museums around the country.  Our episodes have included stories of science and nature, and cultures such as Latino, African American, Jewish and more.  

Today we get to talk about Nordic culture, which is really relevant today in ways you might not realize.  Did you know, for example, that Norway has the highest electric vehicle penetration of any country in the world?  In fact their very best selling car is electric, and that in a cold climate that people once said wasn’t conducive for EVs!

 

This episode is a conversation with Leslie Anderson, the Director of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programs for the spectacular National Nordic Museum in Seattle.  Leslie was a Fulbright scholar and worked at the National Gallery of Denmark.  In this episode she talks about the importance of oral history, stories of the Sami people, and why museums collect.  There is much to learn about what Nordic culture can teach us about today’s challenges.

Some remarkable stories from this conversation with Dan'l Lewin, a leader of the computer revolution. This episode ranges from Steve Jobs to professional wrestling to art, and the story and promise of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

This episode is also featured in Jonny Evans' wonderful article in Computer World.

Transcript

StoriesHere Podcast Conversation with Dan’l Lewin, President and CEO of the Computer History Museum

Parker: This is Wayne Parker of StoriesHere, and today’s episode is a remarkable conversation with the President and CEO of the Computer History Museum, in the heart of Silicon Valley. That’s Dan’l Lewin, and Dan’l is spelled d a n ‘ l. We’ll start with my question about the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, who was such a legend and an enigma to many people. And Dan’l knew him about as well as anyone, both professionally and personally. So I asked if Dan’l could sit down on the porch with him for a talk, what would that be like, what questions did he think they might ask each other?

You knew the late Steve Jobs professionally and personally about as well as anyone. If you could sit down with him on the porch for a talk, what would that be about, what questions do you think you might ask each other?

Lewin:

I think Steve would probably be focused very very intently on putting the control back in the person's hands. And right now some of the business models that have emerged have really relegated the individual to the product and I think he would have some sense of responsibility. It's trying to put that promise back in the system. That's what I would think and I would want to talk to him about that.

Parker:

That’s Dan’l Lewin, computer pioneer and now President and CEO of the Computer History Museum. Hello, this is Wayne Parker of the StoriesHere Podcast. And we’re speaking with him remotely at his office at the museum, in Mountain View, California in the heart of Silicon Valley. And Dan’l, that’s spilled D A N ' L ,was a leader at Apple, co-founder with Steve Jobs of NeXT, and later head of the Microsoft presence in Silicon Valley, along with a number of other roles.

And there are three related trivia questions in this episode. I put Dan’l on the spot and he got all of them right, so you can hear the answers from him a little later.

Here are the questions:

- What was the name of the first personal computer?

- When was it first sold, and

- Where was Microsoft founded (hint: it wasn’t in the Seattle area)

Let's get to this wonderful conversation.

Dan’l, thanks for being with us today.

Lewin: Glad to be here.

Parker:

So your background, for people that don't know, you were at Sony and Apple and you were at NeXT and Microsoft. Could you tell us about how you got to Apple and then how you got to NeXT from there?

Lewin:

Sure glad to again Wayne. Thanks for having me. Well as you mentioned I worked initially, it's Sony I was coming out of. College in 1976 in the very early part of 1977 went to work for Sony at a small office in Cupertino, California, which everything South of San Francisco down to Monterey Bay Area and it was the beginning of would consider the microprocessor Revolution which evolved very rapidly into the personal computer the irony of.

Taking that job which came about through serendipity and her college roommate. Was that a week after I started the two Steve's jobs and Wozniak left the garage and rented the office space next to my little 600 square foot office where there were were five people and within about a year of joining that office.

I was running the office and looking after what is the core of Silicon Valley and then again from South San Francisco down to Monterey.

This episode is an important and fascinating conversation with Judith Margles, Director of the Oregon Jewish Museum.

OJMCHE

In June 2017 Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education opened the doors of our permanent home at 724 NW Davis Street, on the North Park Blocks in downtown Portland. The museum’s main gallery features rotating exhibitions of national and international stature. Three core exhibits anchor the museum: Discrimination and Resistance, An Oregon Primer, which identifies discrimination as a tool used to affect varied groups of people over the history of this region; The Holocaust, An Oregon Perspective, a history of the Holocaust that employs the stories of Oregon survivors; and Oregon Jewish Stories, an installation focused on the experience of the Jews of Oregon. The museum also features a robust series of public programming including films, lectures, musical events, and programs in support of exhibitions. In addition, OJMCHE has a museum shop, a café, and a children’s play area.

OREGON HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

The Oregon Holocaust Memorial situated in Portland’s Washington Park is free and open to the public from dawn until dark every day of the year and is ADA-accessible. The Memorial serves as a permanent reminder of the Holocaust, the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators from 1933 to 1945. By teaching the lessons of the Holocaust and visiting the Memorial, we pay homage to those who lost their lives during that period.

This is Wayne Parker, having an important conversation today remotely with Judy Margles, who is in her office in Portland, Oregon, where she is Director of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

The Museum tells the important stories of many oppressed peoples, and she’s going to start today with one about African Americans in Oregon.

This episode is an important and fascinating conversation with Judith Margles, Director of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in Portland, Oregon.  It includes a frank discussion about the rise of anti-semitism and hate in this country, and how leaders benefit from dividing people, even within their own nation.  It is also an interview of hope, based on all the people committed to a better world.

The ComputerWorld blog described this episode:

” ‘What does it mean to be a human in a world of computing?’ asks Dan’l Lewin, President and CEO, Computer History Museum in the latest StoriesHere podcast.”

In the first few minutes you’ll hear what Apple co-founder Steve Jobs might have thought about the privacy issues in so much discussion today.

And more remarkable stories from this conversation with a leader of the computer revolution who was at Apple, was co-founder of NeXT, leader of the Microsoft effort in Silicon Valley and more.  This episode ranges from Sony to Apple to professional wrestling to art, and the story and promise of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

This episode is an important conversation with Kevin Cabrera, Executive Director of the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Learn more at their website at https://heritagemuseumoc.org/.

Heritage Museum of Orange County is home to the H.Clay Kellogg House and John Maag Farmhouse. Heritage Museum of OC is dedicated to preserving, promoting and restoring the heritage of Orange County and surrounding region through Hands-on, Minds-on interactive education.

Heritage Museum of Orange County…

Is a cultural and natural history center in Southern California. The centerpiece of the museum, which covers nearly 12 acres in all, is a historic plaza featuring several buildings from the 1890s set amid extensive floral gardens and citrus groves. Among the buildings is the Kellogg House familiar to teachers and students throughout Orange County as a favorite field trip destination for over 30 years.

Recent additions to the museum include our Gospel Swamp Farm and the restoration of our Blacksmith Shop. The farm project is maintained by local high school and college volunteers. We’re currently installing a “Borrowing Barn” for tool lending and we utilize produce from the farm for our children’s educational programs and other museum events. Previously on site there was a fully operational blacksmith shop that was headquarters for the Orange County Blacksmith Guild and guild members held regular blacksmith classes. Unfortunately, the shop burned down in the wee hours of July 4, 2019 and it is now necessary to rebuild the shop. Demonstrations are still being provided for our educational programs, however no definitive schedule has been assigned for the completion of the rebuild.

The latest major campaign for the museum is to restore the John A. Maag Farmhouse. The home, built in 1899, features three stories in 5,600 square feet of interior living space and is planned for the housing of museum archives, offices and exhibitions. Two original outbuildings of the Maag Farmhouse currently house offices, meeting space and our gift shop.

This episode is an important conversation with Kevin Cabrera, Executive Director of the Heritage Museum of Orange County.

You’ll hear stories of the history of Orange County, how the Museum came to be, the cultures that are native to that area, and some important advice about the roles of mentors in our lives. Listen in, and learn more at heritagemuseumoc.org.

Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site Conversation with Sean Kelley – Senior Vice President and Director of Interpretation.  This is Part 2 of our conversation.

These are remarkable stories....here's a bit of history that's discussed in the episode:

“A group of prominent Americans were horrified by the conditions in the jails. They met, just after the American Revolution, in the home of Benjamin Franklin. They had a great 18th century name for their organization: “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons" and they were the first prison reform group in the world. They believed convicts needed time alone—in silence, to rediscover their good nature. The early prison reformers saw solitary confinement, not as a punishment, but an as opportunity for reflection. A chance to become penitent.”

....but they were wrong, at least in the way Eastern State was built and operated:

"There is but one step between the prisoner and insanity.” Inmate James Morton

Senator and POW John McCain - "It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” 

Charles Dickens - "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body". 

As Hawthorne relates, Dickens visited several prisoners, including one who was about to be released after two years in solitary confinement. Dickens remarked to his guide that “they trembled very much.”

Charles Dickens wrote that the two sites in the United States he most wanted to see were “The falls at Niagara” and the Eastern State Penitentiary.