The Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine Button: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This button is from the Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine in New York, New York. It is a round button with a black and white image of Louis Armstrong with a trumpet and blue lettering covered with a clear film, on a two-piece metal button with a pin back. The button is printed:

THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG CENTER FOR MUSIC & MEDICINE at Beth Israel Medical Center

The Louis Armstrong Department of Music Therapy at Mount Sinai has been funded by The Louis Armstrong Foundation since 1994. As per their webpage:

The music therapists at the Louis Armstrong Department of Music Therapy conduct daily sessions with patients at Mount Sinai receiving care in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), maternity unit, NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), pediatric emergency room, respiratory step-down, and at the Peter Kruger Clinic. Additionally, our music therapists work with patients receiving services in departments such as family medicine, oncology, and pain medicine and palliative care (including hospice).

Floyd Levin (1922-2007) was a Los Angeles textile manufacturer who turned his passion for jazz into a second career as an influential jazz journalist and historian. His numerous reviews, profiles, and articles were published in magazines such as Down Beat, Jazz Journal International, Metronome, and American Rag. He also authored Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians. Items in this collection (2011.3086) were acquired from Levin’s attendance at Jazz Festivals, conferences, and other music events.

Materials, dates and provenance

• user: Levin, Floyd
• Object Name: button
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 2 1/4 in; x 5.715 cm
• place made: United States: New York, New York
• ID Number: 2011.3086.152
• nonaccession number: 2011.3086
• catalog number: 2011.3086.152
• Credit Line: Gift of Lucille Levin
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.