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5. Building a “National Shrine” at the National Museum of American History
- University of Wisconsin Press
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186 5 Build ing a “Na tional Shrine” at the Na tional Mu seum of American His tory Today there is greater need than ever be fore in our his tory for reach ing all of the peo ple with the story of our country’s her i tage and the de vel op ment of the American way of life. The Smith so nian In sti tu tion is es pe cially stra te gic in dis semi nat ing this mes sage. Smith so nian In sti tu tion, inter nal re port, 1953 Pride in the ex hibit ex tends to the el e va tor girl—“At last, we’ve got some thing mod ern.” Matt McDade, “Smith so nian Bright ens Up An cient Hall,” Wash ing ton Post and Times-Herald, April 18, 1954 More than ever be fore, Americans in the 1950s vis ited and learned his tory from mu seums. Dis semi na tion in creas ingly sup planted pres er va tion as the pri mary pur pose of the mu seum, as cu ra tors sought new ways of reach ing the pub lic, and mu seums be came prom i nent tour ist at trac tions.1 A “new mu se ol ogy” that em pha sized inter ac tion, ed u ca tive func tion al ity, and pop u lar iza tion swept the field. Pat ron age of mu seums in creased dra mat i cally, as did ef forts to in struct the new vis i tors.2 The Smith so nian In sti tu tion played a lead ing Building a “National Shrine” E 187 role in these ef forts while con struct ing a func tional American his tory de signed to meet the prop a ganda needs of the Cold War. Sim i lar to the Free dom Train, and also linked in sev eral ways to the his tory pre sented by Du Pont, the post war Smith so nian be came the site of an in tensely pa tri otic, pro-military, and pro-business his tory created through the coop er a tion of cor po ra tions and the state. The Mu seum of American His tory de vel oped out of a spe cific his tor i cal mo ment that fol lowed the end of World War II and the be gin ning of the Cold War. As one would ex pect, a na tional story forged at a mo ment of both tri umph and anx iety ab sorbed char ac ter is tics that would be in con gru ous at other times. Fo cus ing on the or i gins of the mu seum, this chap ter ex plains how the po lit i cal con cerns that mo ti vated the post war de mand for more “his tory” were felt and acted upon on Cap i tol Hill and the Na tional Mall. In ad di tion to its ca pac ity for stim u lat ing inter ac tions between vis i tors and orig i nal ma te rial from the past, the mu seum was val ued as a bul wark against an age of re pro duc tions and mass com mu ni ca tion.3 Mu seums con tained some thing “real,” per haps even some fun da men tal truth, and dur ing the 1950s the Smith so nian pro vided rap idly in creas ing num bers of vis i tors with semi-official truths of American his tory. The mu seum as sumed a key role in the con struc tion of na tional iden tity and the defi ni tion of the “American Way of Life”—not in ci den tally a po si tion from which re quests for fund ing could be more eas ily made. In 1957, leg is la tion signed by Pres i dent Ei sen hower created the Na tional Mu seum of His tory and Tech nol ogy (MHT), later re named the Na tional Mu seum of American His tory (MAH). This act cul mi nated the exhibits’ mod ern iza tion pro gram that spanned the 1950s, as well as a dozen years of in ten sive plan ning and cam paign ing by cu ra tors and their sup port ers. It re flected a dra matic new ap pre ci...