Smithsonian Struts More of Its Stuff With Affiliations

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The Apollo 13 space capsule has been to Hutchinson, Kan.

Kermit the Frog has gone to Dubuque, Iowa.

A triceratops skull went to Anniston, Ala.

Lincoln's top hat, the one he was wearing the night of his assassination, visited Danville, Calif.

The four trips are part of a plan to get the Smithsonian Institution to empty its closets. In exchange for a $2,500 annual fee, museums may become Smithsonian "affiliates" and borrow artifacts. Some are less important items. Some are icons. Some go out on a short-term basis. Some, long-term. Now 146 museums and cultural organizations are part of the program, called Smithsonian Affiliations. The latest is the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington, Ky., which has its eye on a famous stuffed steed from the Civil War.

The Smithsonian owns about 136 million objects. Ninety-nine percent of them are in storage. Through the affiliates program, more than 7,000 have gone on the road in 10 years.

The loans give local museums a stamp of approval and can help boost attendance.

The California Science Center in Los Angeles borrowed an Apollo command module from the National Air and Space Museum and meteorites from the National Museum of Natural History. The Oklahoma Historical Society borrowed the Gemini 6 spacecraft, piloted by Tom Stafford of Oklahoma. The Museum of Discovery in Little Rock borrowed Jim Lovell's flight suit from his Apollo 13 mission and John Glenn's foil-wrapped malted-milk tablets from his Friendship 7 flight.

"We make it clear they are not mini-Smithsonians or satellites," says Harold A. Closter, a longtime Smithsonian administrator who directs the affiliations office. "They are independent and responsible for administration and finances. They are good partners."

The Smithsonian achieves one of its goals -- going beyond the Mall -- and builds better relationships with smaller museums. It also sends its specialists out for talks and consultations. Additionally, visitors to the affiliates receive a Smithsonian membership when they join the local institution, which means they get Smithsonian magazine (and boost its circulation).

Some affiliates have sent exhibitions to Washington, too. At the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, curators used objects from the Smithsonian and 11 countries to create a show about the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War. The exhibition is now in Ottawa and will come to the Smithsonian in December.

Some of the affiliates have extra clout. The Lincoln hat was lent to the Blackhawk Museum, which was founded by Kenneth Behring. The Behring family has given $100 million to the Smithsonian, the largest gift it's ever received.

A few museums decided the affiliation wasn't working. The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk belonged for several years and built special cases for Stradivarius instruments it borrowed. The museum later dropped out.

"As the Chrysler's program has evolved in the last several seasons . . . we have discovered that -- with good will on all sides -- the museum's needs and the offerings of the affiliations program have not matched up," says William J. Hennessey, the museum's president.

Some of the affiliates go the extra mile to get an item. When a replica of a triceratops skull was available, folks from the Anniston Museum of Natural History sent a refrigerated truck to haul it back to Alabama.

Others make the loans a centerpiece of their displays. The prototype for the first Jeep truck was built in Butler, Pa., in 1940. The nearby Heinz Museum borrowed it from the Smithsonian's American History Museum and placed in right in the entry hall, underscoring its industrial importance.

Andy Masich, the museum's president, said that after becoming an affiliate in 1999, the Heinz added 70,000 square feet for traveling shows from the Smithsonian.

"We have seen a more than 30 percent increase in attendance since our affiliations," Masich says.

Curators for the Heinz found an English flintlock pistol Gen. Edward Braddock gave George Washington in 1755 in the Smithsonian's collection.

"The Smithsonian curators said, 'We didn't know we had that!' " Masich says.

The pistol is important to Pittsburgh because Braddock was killed near Pittsburgh during the French and Indian War and Washington took command of his army. The Pittsburgh museum borrowed it for 3 1/2 years, but eventually Smithsonian curators asked for it back. It is now on display in the American History Museum's military wing.

Now about the horse museum. Closter says nobody raised an eyebrow when the application came in.

"No chuckles," he says. "We have gotten used to the fact that there are so many kinds of museums devoted to so many topics that it doesn't surprise us that museums are being devoted to one topic."

Bill Cooke, the Kentucky museum's director, knew a link with the Smithsonian would raise its profile.

The largest horse museum in the world, the International has 52,000 square feet and owns 50,000 items, from bits to carriages. It focuses mainly on the history of the horse and especially thoroughbred racing.

The museum has equine mannequins but no preserved horses. The Smithsonian, however, has one famous animal: Winchester, the beloved mount of Civil War Gen. Philip Sheridan. Winchester was preserved by taxidermists and eventually landed at the Smithsonian in 1922.

But there is another artifact Cooke covets more, the skeleton of the famous racehorse Lexington.

"I've got my eye on Lexington. He was a tremendous horse and sire and helped establish Lexington as a horse capital," says Cooke.

The Kentucky museum didn't get promises from the Smithsonian, but Cooke is ginning up an e-mail campaign. And he's making a trip to Washington in the fall with a wish list.