Back-Support Belt
date: label: Associated Date
content: 2005
name: label: user
content: Zuniga, Francisco
notes: label: Description
content: Day laborers found plenty of work in New Orleans in the weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Mammoth quantities of trash removal from devastated homes and businesses, clean-up, and reconstruction offered the promise of gainful employment to anyone willing and able to undertake heavy labor. The possession of technical skills was less important than pure muscle power and persistence.
label: Description
content: Mexican immigrant Francisco Zu&ntild;eiga, wearing this heavy, tooled leather back-support belt, was waiting in a downtown gas station in December 2005 for drive-up labor needs when he was approached instead by a Smithsonian team looking for something to acknowledge this aspect of the human response to Katrina. Much has been made of the outpouring of volunteerism after the hurricane, but another form of service was the individual with an aching back willing to labor under very adverse conditions for the hope of a small wage.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: referenced
content: United States: Louisiana
label: referenced
content: United States: Louisiana, New Orleans
topic: label: related event
content: Hurricane Katrina
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
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content: Health & Medicine
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content: Clothing & Accessories
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Work
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content: Art
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of David Shayt
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.0018.01
label: catalog number
content: 2006.0018.01
label: accession number
content: 2006.0018
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Belt
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: leather (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 in x 1 in x 11 in; 10.16 cm x 2.54 cm x 27.94 cm