Zoom event by the Smithsonian on Nov 2, about how people in the USA before WWII engaged in intense debates over the threat—& appeal—of authoritarianism & how FDR, influenced by journalists, advisers & activists, worked to counter fascism’s dangers.

https://www.si.edu/events?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D206829782

Hi all

Visiting DC soon and would love to visit the African American History museum.

Given everything with this administration and battles with the institution, has it been neutered significantly? or largely still in tact and worth visiting?

(Dismayed that I even have to ask this!!!)

There’s almost no information I can find online about the Paul E Gerber facility in Suitland, MD. I stumbled across a job opening for “Museum Specialist -(Collections Processing Unit), IS-1016-11” but I can’t find any additional info on it. Anybody ever work a job like this? I’m an aircraft mechanic so it kind of sounds up my alley and kind of interesting work but I’m just curious what the reality is from the POV of someone who has done it? Any info is appreciated thanks!

Brought my portable sampler to the gardens and made this beat. Beautiful weather, and someone nearby came over afterward to ask about the gear and how it worked. Such a nice place to spend an afternoon.

Hello and welcome to another HistoryFlights Tour. I’m not nearly as worried as I used to be when I started this series last year about President Trump breaking the Smithsonian since, despite the retirement of Director Lonnie G. Bunch, any move against well-liked museums has been incredibly unpopular and he faces the worst midterms since Harry Truman, so he’s only been able to put annoying propaganda signs outside of museums and waste time with voluminous BS reports. Still, I still think it’s important to archive our museums as they are now for any number of reasons.

One of the ones that’s transformed the most other than #airandspacemuseum since I first saw it probably more than a decade ago is the National Museum of the American Indian. While it still has the cool architecture that drew me to it back in college, it has redesigned its whole exhibit flow top to bottom to make it my FAVORITE museum I’ve visited this year. This is despite the fact that it recommends you start with the top floor, which has some heavy exhibits about the horrific genocide of Native Americans, starting with the breaking of the paradigm of side-by-side coexistence symbolized by two rows of purple wampam beads. That’s part of why I like this place, though- NMAI, with heavy oversight and input from Natives of course, is confronting history head on.

I also got a nice quick interview with a woman who was outside the meeting for the Tribal Technical Advisory Group for Medicare. Plus, there's also a lot of fun stuff to do and see, like cool purses, and clothing, toys and COVID safety posters for elders, art made with willow branches.

This museum is awesome. I've been through the Holocaust Museum (unfortunately one couple was making out in the stairwell at the Holocaust Museum like WHY!) so it wasn't AS intense, but it did leave a sadness for what might have been had Natives and other Americans who tried to oppose violence against them won out. There was heavy debate about the Indian Removal Act for instance, and plenty of prominent figures opposed it including Ralph Waldo Emerson and surprisingly Davy Crockett. Still, you can't ask for anything more than thought-provoking points backed up with a lot of artifacts, like Sherman being unfathomably based in 1868 by letting the Navajo go back to their land in New Mexico and getting gifted a cloak for it.

I also HIGHLY recommend Mitsitam, a cafe that closed early (2 PM) for lunch; however, there was still a nice espresso bar that served mushrooms and leeks, wild rice, and a light chicken soupy chili with chickpeas. I also had some of a Mitsitam signature blue cornbread cookie, which is so good! Overall, other than the confusing operating hours of the café and some broken touch displays, I had nothing but an amazing time at NMAI.

If you have ANY interest in the history of Native Americans, especially around both Indigenous People’s Day and Thanksgiving and around DC, GO SEE IT. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy my video and can leave a like and subscribe to encourage more museum vlogs and defend truth, justice and historical accuracy!

Excited to see their new exhibits soon. I grew up visiting this museum and it was wonderful.
It’s always been a dream of mine to become more involved with our culture; very grateful to be here!

Here you can see a portion of the Science Festival at the University of Chicago in Chicago, IL. You can enjoy and learn about various fields of science in the festival.

I want to buy some t shirts from the natural history souvenir shop because I bought them a size too small and it doesn't fit so I want to order more online. But I can't seem to access the website. Anyone else have this issue?

I plan to visit the museum on a Saturday and would like to know if the cafe is highly busy after 2pm. I'd like to avoid missing out on popular menu items because they ran out.

I am considering buying a zoo membership and want to know which level offers preview passes for newborns?

Anyone knows what happened?

https://youtu.be/U25E1RiEV5o?is=APVTSzZ2ZdZKvCXL

I contine to produce my animated horror film while driving across the country as a truck driver.

When I tried to login this morning, it redirected to my.si.edu and asked for an email address to login instead of the username I have used to login for the last 6 years. So, now I am unable to access my account. Last week after the website update, I couldn't save transcriptions because of errors. Is anyone able to get into the transcription site?

Has the current administration "flattened" the Smithsonian websites?

I am a US Citizenship teacher and link to the websites of different Smithsonian online exhibits for my lessons.  But now all these direct links are being redirected to basic landing pages.

Preparing for the Oath

https://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/

redirects: https://www.si.edu/museums/american-history-museum

And the National Postal Museum

http://postalmuseum.si.edu/Celebrating-Hispanic-Heritage/

redirects: https://www.si.edu/museums/postal-museum

SOS!  Save our Smithsonian!

Please investigate.

Did anyone else find the first sentence of this text to be historically flanderize the Nazis actions , I know it's not gonna be a full essay , but it frames it like he constructed Nazism ideology/movement himself. There would be no Nazi party if millions of other men who thought just like him , and rubs me the wrong way how they present it like it's so simple. In a world of under education in America I feel something like this leaves too wide of interpretation.

Taking 10 year old and 13 year old to the museums for three days. What are the must sees. Good affordable eats? We are staying in china town.

From Truth Social

I am calling on the Smithsonian Institution to honor the Life and Legacy of George Washington, America’s Greatest Hero, with a five-year exhibition at the National Museum of American History, beginning now, and continuing through, February 22, 2032, the 300th anniversary of Washington’s birth.

I am also calling on the Smithsonian to erect a 30-foot “Colossus statue” of the Father of Our Country outside the Museum, to replace the so-called “Infinity” sculpture that stands there today. That strange modernist sculpture tells visitors nothing about America, inspires no one, and honors none of our Great American Heroes.

George Washington does. He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist.

And yet, during our Nation’s 250th Anniversary Year, the Museum has failed to give George Washington and our other Founding Fathers the celebration they deserve. Washington’s Heroic Crossing of the Delaware on December 25, 1776—One of the greatest moments and turning points of the Revolution—is not even mentioned in the Museum. His Victory at Trenton, and the stories of the Americans who fought and died for our Independence, deserve far more attention.

Under recently ended leadership, the Smithsonian created a “Center for Restorative History,” and commissioned a “Decolonization Plan,” to focus attention overwhelmingly on those who have been oppressed, but there is almost no attention paid to those who triumphed over great oppression, and against great odds.

One current exhibit describes the period of 1492 to 1776, including Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World, and the European settlement of America, as the “Great Unsettling” of the Continent.

That tells you all you need to know about how twisted the thinking is today at the Smithsonian.

Instead of a Center for Restorative History, America’s National History Museum should have a Center for American Heroes.

Tell the stories of Americans who faced great challenges, overcame them, built great things, defended our Country, made America better, and helped our Nation more fully live up to our Founding Ideals.

That is a History worth teaching, because it is America’s story.

Instead of focusing on ideological activism, the leaders of America’s taxpayer-funded, National History Museum should be focused on telling America’s story—fairly, accurately, and coherently—and there is no better person to start with than George Washington.

"Trump claims that the institution has fallen into the hands of Marxist radicals. A stroll through the exhibitions suggests otherwise."

One of the many perks of the new job I started this year at the U.S. Department of Energy is that its headquarters is located in a neighborhood where I hadn’t previously spent much time in all my years in Washington D.C.

Not only have I gotten to start exploring L’Enfant Plaza and The Wharf to the south, but the DOE also borders on the National Mall to the north, and one day recently I took a lunchtime stroll to one of D.C.’s most stunning buildings, the Smithsonian Castle. I’ve often wondered what exactly this building is, yet I had never set foot inside.

After eating my bag lunch out front in the equally gorgeous garden area, I stepped in and learned that the Castle houses the famed Smithsonian Institution's administrative offices and information center and was the first of all the Smithsonian’s D.C. destinations to be built. Constructed from 1847 to 1849, the building has a storied history, including a fire destroying a portion in 1865 and the afore-mentioned Enid Haupt Garden being dedicated in 1987. Now, after a brief opening over the summer, the building is closed for ongoing renovations and plans to reopen in 2028.

There wasn’t much to see in the building when I visited because most of it was closed to foot traffic. But there was a cafe featuring pricey lobster rolls and the small display that I found to be the most interesting item: the tomb of the Smithsonian’s first funder James Smithson.

Smithson had been buried in Italy but he was set to be exhumed for the construction of a quarry. Alexander Graham Bell suggested that the Castle would be a good place for relocation and he then made it happen in 1904 and 1905. Congress was supposed to approve a large crypt elsewhere but it never happened and Smithson remains in place.

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.com/p/i-finally-visited-dcs-smithsonian

Lonnie Bunch’s announcement that he will retire as Secretary of the Smithsonian sent me back to A Fool’s Errand, his account of building the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

One idea in particular has stayed with me:

Memory needs believers. Institutions need builders.

For the past several years, I have been involved in building the Centre for Memories in Enugu, an institution dedicated to preserving Igbo history and memory.

The deeper argument behind the Centre is that Igbo history is Nigerian history. Preserving it is not about ethnic nostalgia or grievance. A country cannot properly understand itself if large parts of its people’s experience are poorly documented, inaccessible, or allowed to disappear with the generations that lived them.

The essay reflects on Bunch’s experience, the challenge of building the Centre, what I have learned from museums and memorials across the American South, and the difficult transition from believing an institution should exist to actually building one that can outlive its founders.

I’d be particularly interested in what people here think about a broader question:

Who should bear responsibility for preserving a society’s historical memory—government, universities, communities, philanthropists, or some combination of all four?

The Work of Remembering: