Mailbox
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
label: Associated Date
content: 2005-08-2005-09
notes: label: Description
content: Thousands of homes were obliterated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. One of those homes stood at 2005 Lizardi Street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. This mailbox is all that remained, except for the front steps and a field of debris.
label: Description
content: The hand-painted green flowers and butterflies on this mailbox, and the carefully lettered name and address of the Alexander family, evoke the domestic serenity that was shattered by Katrina's waters. Inside the mailbox a thick layer of dried mud recalled the wall of water that washed over this neighborhood August 29, 2005, when everything in its path was either submerged or destroyed.
label: Description
content: The Lower Ninth Ward was a victim of the over-burdened Industrial Canal, whose concrete flood walls collapsed beneath the weight and force of the water. Further afield, a manmade navigation canal, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ("Mr. Go"), offered a short cut not only to ships leaving the Gulf headed for New Orleans but for storm water moving inland from the Gulf. It was this water that in large part flooded the Industrial Canal and devastated the Lower Ninth Ward.
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: Government, Politics, and Reform
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Engineering, Building, and Architecture
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content: National Treasures exhibit
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: Artifact Walls exhibit
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Kendrick, Kathleen M. and Peter C. Liebhold. Smithsonian Treasures of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2006.3059.01
label: nonaccession number
content: 2006.3059
label: catalog number
content: 2006.3059.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: mailbox
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 in x 21 in x 7 in; 30.48 cm x 53.34 cm x 17.78 cm