American History's Greatest Hits Play In a New Venue

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, November 18, 2006; Page C01

Sometimes a good de-cluttering is just what the home of an insatiable collector needs. In the case of the National Museum of American History, its curators have taken a hard look at their millions of objects and set out just 150 of the best in an illuminating display.

The extreme culling was needed because the museum on the Mall closed Sept. 5 for a two-year renovation. It has borrowed a rambling gallery at the National Air and Space Museum for a new exhibit called "Treasures of American History."

During its official opening yesterday, every case appeared to evoke the same reaction: "They have that?!"

"That" includes Albert Einstein's briar pipe, Muhammad Ali's red Everlast gloves, Irving Berlin's upright piano, the telephone designed by Alexander Graham Bell, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's radio microphone, Benjamin Franklin's gold-capped walking stick, a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth, Julia Child's handwritten recipe for sandwich bread, and Jim Henson's Kermit the Frog.

The show is not only a reminder of the museum's depth but an experiment in how it could better tell stories about the American experience. The museum has been criticized in the past for being a jumble of interesting things that needed to be connected to broader themes on what makes the United States unique.

The new exhibition is organized around four story lines. In one section -- labeled Creativity and Innovation -- Samuel Colt's 1839 Colt Paterson Revolver No. 5 is front and center. In the American Biography cases, it's clothing that catches the eye, including a purple velvet gown worn by Mary Todd Lincoln, a champagne silk gown and cape of Jacqueline Kennedy's and a black union jacket worn by labor activist Cesar Chavez, with a button urging "No Grapes."

A third section called National Challenges incorporates the American Revolution, the Civil War, western expansion, women's suffrage, the Great Depression, World War II and the civil rights movement.

The last section, American Identity, covers faith, music, television, fashion and even toys. Here's more evidence that Thomas Jefferson was the ultimate hobbyist: He cut out verses of the New Testament from various sources and languages, edited out all references to miracles and created his own bible, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Other items that have rarely been displayed include the Liotta/Cooley artificial heart, a Buddhist shrine made by an interned Japanese American in the 1940s, the manuscript of musician John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and an early pair of Levi's jeans.

"This is foreshadowing a way of making American history more accessible and making the themes of American history stand out," said Brent D. Glass, the museum's director. "We are working on an intellectual change as well as an architectural change."

The history museum needs an additional $45 million to complete its $180 million fundraising campaign. The renovation will include a new central atrium, a dramatic gallery for the original Star-Spangled Banner and 10-foot-high cases to display artifacts. The exhibit at Air and Space will close a few months before the scheduled reopening of American History in the summer of 2008.

At the moment, the new exhibition isn't the easiest thing to find. It's located on the second floor at Air and Space, but there aren't many signs to point the way. Museum officials say they intend to create outdoor kiosks with LED displays of one of its most popular artifacts -- Dorothy's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" -- that will direct visitors.

The placement of the artifacts at the Air and Space Museum is not as jarring as one might expect. Abraham Lincoln's top hat, worn the night he was assassinated, is as much of a showstopper as the Spirit of St. Louis. Some objects have taken on expanded meaning. The Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth's lunch counter, the site of one of the most famous civil rights sit-ins of the 1960s, rested on the history museum's floor. It is now elevated. "It makes it more like a memorial but also humanizes it by showing the scuff marks around the bottom of the stools," said Glass.

As he walked around the gallery yesterday, Glass said he was particularly pleased that the curators included so many artifacts about religion. For years, the museum has displayed a sun stone from a Mormon temple in Nauvoo, Ill. "It was so high before people never noticed it," he said.

Yesterday's mainly school-age visitors had plenty of questions. "What is buckskin?" someone shouted, looking at the tan buckskin coat worn by George Armstrong Custer in the 1870s. "Helen Keller had a watch?" asked another. Yes, the famed woman, who became deaf and blind in infancy, had a watch with pins around the edge, which enabled her to tell time. "They have a piece of the levee?" was another question, as visitors peered into a case with items from Hurricane Katrina.

Some objects made better photo ops than others. For instance, no one was looking to have his picture taken next to the vial of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine. But visitors posed in front of the scarecrow costume from "The Wizard of Oz" and the "Star Wars" robots R2-D2 and C-3PO. Or they danced at the listening stations, pressing the button for "When Doves Cry" by Prince.