“So this is the humble paper clip here and its origins date back to the late 19th century,” said the museum’s Nicola Ryan.

Yes, that’s right – paper clips.
They are one of 36 items chosen for the Hidden Heroes exhibition.

Ryan said that these objects tell stories about our everyday lives and that we normally take for granted.
“When we start to actually look at how they are invented or why they are invented and how we use them and the fact that their design has lasted for hundred, maybe two hundred and in some cases three hundred years with very little alteration and it is a very simple design that’s hardly changed much at all,” Ryan said.

The items are all decidedly low-tech, including one of Ryan’s favorites, the teabag.

Ryan explained that the teabag was invented when an American tea trader was shipping samples of tea to his customers in small silk packets. His customers would put the tea, along with the silk pouch, into hot water to test the color, texture and taste.

“They did not realize they had actually invented the first teabag,” Ryan said.

The idea for the exhibit came from a company called Hi-Cone, the proud maker of the plastic six-pack holder for canned drinks.
Ton Hoppenbrouwers, Hi-Cone’s European director of sales said it wasn’t hard to choose the other everyday inventions.

“The secret behind it is that they have a great use to us but they are as the Americans call it, idiot-proof. Once you see them, you know how to use it and they are of great use to you in everyday life,” Hoppenbrouwers said.

Further down the hall is another example of invention by accident, according to Ryan; the wire coat hanger.

Ryan said one day a man named Parkhouse arrived at work to find that all the coat hooks had already been taken. As he looked around for a place to hang his coat, he noticed some wire lying on the floor and bent it into the shape of a coat hanger.

“That is the basic shape of the coat hanger we still use today,” Ryan said.

The curator of Materials Science at the museum, Sue Mossman, may routinely deal with higher-minded exhibit, but she says this one has left her intrigued.

“What is of interest are the people who thought it up, the stories behind it. And sometimes the story of this production and the process that went into the final moment; because sometimes it’s not a eureka moment sometimes it’s a few steps before you get the perfect product,” Mossman said.

The full list of featured inventions
ring binder, barcode, pencil, bubble wrap, paperclip, shipping container, snap fastener, rawl plug, egg box, preserving jar, rubber band, light bulb, reflector, adhesive tape, coat hanger, Velcro, tin can, corkscrew, tissue, ballpoint pen, Lego, ear plug, Post-it Note, sticking plaster, zip, umbrella, baby’s dummy, six-pack carrier, safety match, tea bag, milk carton, clothes peg, folding ruler, condom, carabiner

Ryan said that is what happened to the simple but oh-so-useful rubber band, jointly credited to a British man, Thomas Hancock and an American with a familiar, rubber related name, Charles Goodyear.

Both of them invented a way to vulcanize rubber which means you can make it sticky and stretch it. And back on November 21, 1843 they obtained a patent to make rubber bands and ever since then it’s demonstrated the elasticity of rubber and a combination of its simplicity and aesthetic appeal.
“Where would we be today without the simple rubber band?” Ryan said. “It hasn’t changed in design. It still looks and feels exactly the same and we just take it for granted but it’s been around for over a hundred years.”

Today’s technological wizardry produces gizmos that catch our eyes and our imagination, but chances are a lot of them won’t have the staying power of the things we consider mundane. The things we can’t do without.

While the painting was on display, the museum found out it may have been stolen from an Italian family by the Nazis during World War II.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, this is The World. Today in Washington US officials formerly returned a painting to the French government. It was a nineteenth century canvas stolen from a French town by German troops at the end of WWII. The painting changed hands many times before ending up in a New York art gallery. That scenario has played out many times in recent years at various American art institutions. It’s happening right now at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, Florida. A sixteenth century Italian painting on display there is at the center of an ownership dispute. Chucha Barber is the Brogan Museum’s Chief Executive Officer. She says the painting came as part of a loan from a museum in Milan, Italy.

Chucha Barber: The Brogan Museum borrowed from the Pinacoteca di Brera 50 beautiful masterpieces. And one of them is alleged to have been stolen by Nazis from a private family. And so when the exhibition concluded 49 of the paintings were returned to the Pinacoteca di Brera, but one remains on display at the Brogan Museum.

Werman: So tell us about the painting, what’s its name, who painted it and what do we see in it?

Barber: Well, the translation of the title of the painting was presented to us as Christ with a cross and a Rascal. But the painting has other titles. And it is a beautiful painting by an artist known as Romano, and the cloak that Christ is wearing in the painting is a beautiful tangerine satin. And what makes this painting so brilliant in my opinion is that the artist truly captured the sheen of the satin with his brush strokes. It’s just amazing painting.

Werman: So the painting is on display now. Is it attracting more visitors to the museum?

Barber: It is indeed. The US Attorney’s office wanted the painting to stay in the United States, and so we have an extension for this painting through November 20. When we received permission to maintain custody of the painting and put it on display, we relocated the painting from where it was originally hung in the gallery to a very secure environment. And before we could finalize its relocation we literally had people lining up at the door wanting to come in to see the painting. So yes, it has generated interest and people are coming to the museum expressly to see the painting.

Werman: Where are the grandchildren of the painting’s presumed owners today? Do you know and what are they saying about where it should be?

Barber: I have only had direct contact with one of the grandchildren and he live in London. I know from my conversations with him that he has a sibling that lives in France, and I know he has another sibling that also lives in the United Kingdom. And what Lionel Salem, one of the grandchildren, has shared with me is that he and his family are immensely grateful for the opportunity to have discussion about the recovery of the painting for the family, but he says there are five family members that have a vested interest in the painting and you can’t cut the painting into five pieces. So I believe that the family is very receptive to an opportunity for the Pinacoteca di Brera to continue to have ownership of the painting and display it with some mutually agreed upon text about its history if they receive appropriate compensation.

Werman: And you, Ms. Barber, do you secretly hope this masterpiece by Girolamo Romano will never leave the Brogan?

Barber: No, I do not hope that. I hope that if what is alleged to be true, and I personally believe that it is, I believe that the family deserves to have this matter resolved in their favor. And I believe that the family very much wants this to be a teachable moment. This is a great opportunity to have students and teachers talking about the roles of museums in their communities and repatriation of objects to Native Americans, objects that are deemed to have been stolen from one government or another, it’s all a very, very interesting conversation and I hope it drives home the importance of museums in our communities and in our nation.

Werman: Chucha Barber with the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, Florida. Thanks so much for your time.

Barber: You’re so welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: It was on this day in 1922 that British archeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutenkamen in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. It was filled with extravagant treasures that made both the pharaoh and the man who discovered his tomb famous. Today Howard Carter’s headquarters was opened as a museum. The BBC’s Yolande Knell took a tour.

TOUR GUIDE: We are in the office of Howard Carter. He used to sit in the office to write his own diary.

YOLANDE KNELL: Conveniently close to the entrance of the Valley of the Kings Howard Carter stayed in this rest house during the difficult years when he was employed by Lord Kanavan, owner of a vast collection of Egyptian artifacts obsessively searching for the burial place of a relatively unknown pharaoh named Tutenkamen. His discovery of the tomb exactly 87 years ago was to make the boy king and the archeologist famous around the world.

TOUR GUIDE: He was the most famous and the most luckiest to find a tomb like Tutenkamen with all the treasures inside almost intact. It is the same story as Tutenkamen, why he’s famous. How about the rest of the kings and queens like Rameses II, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut – they were more important than Tutenkamen. But Tutenkamen he became the most famous because of the treasures inside his tomb.

KNELL: Mustafa Wasari from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities oversaw the restoration of the house now reopened as a museum. Among the first visitors were cousins of Howard Carter and the great grandson of Lord Kanavan who inherited his title. He says a lot of work went in to the eventual discovery.

LORD KANAVAN: It’s rather forgotten that there were many years here spent working on the West Bank before Tutenkamen – before anyone even heard of Tutenkamen. But they persisted right into the concession in the Valley of the Kings and to be honest it was their last year of work when they found Tutenkamen’s tomb. They really weren’t going to on and spend anymore time after that because money was really running out.

TOUR GUIDE: We are standing now so close to the Tomb of King Tutenkamen.

KNELL: Every day thousands of international visitors come to the Valley of the Kings. It’s a short decent to the underground chamber where Tutenkamen mummy still lies. Although this is the smallest tomb here it remains a big attraction. It was through this doorway that Howard Carter finally made a tiny breach. Peering in he said he could see wonderful things. But those wonderful things over 5,000 objects were destined to stay in Egypt. Many including the golden burial mask are on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Museum director Wafaa el-Saddiq is grateful to early legislation on antiquities.

WAFAA EL-SADDIQ: Thank God because without this law it was in 1991 that collections can’t be divided and at the same time unique objects cannot leave the country. I know that Howard Carter and Lord Kanavan want very much to have some objects or the whole collection even to bring them back to Britain but because of that law we saved Tutenkamen.

[APPLAUSE]

KNELL: New archeological discoveries are still being made across Egypt. But increasingly now Egyptians themselves are responsible. This applause greeted the announcement of several finds by the first all-Egyptian team to carry out excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Salima Ikram who teaches Egyptology at the American University in Cairo says it’s a sign of the times.

SALIMA IKRAM: There are more opportunities for the Egyptians to work and so they are now taking up the work because before that I think frequently they either didn’t have the training or were denied the permission to do this. So this is really sort of the democratization and accessibility for people to learn themselves and teach others about their own history.

KNELL: Egypt’s chief archeologist believes most of the country’s monuments still lie under the sands. With his protégés now searching for several missing royal tombs, there is hope they will lay claim to yet more famous finds. For The World this is Yolande Knell in Luxor, Egypt.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.