There's No Place Like 'Oprah'

Treasures From American History Museum Will Get Star Treatment on Winfrey's Show

The Smithsonian is taking Dorothy's ruby slippers down the yellow brick road to Oprah-land.

Tomorrow the slippers and several other iconic samples of American culture will be featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show's" segment on treasures, airing at 4 p.m. on WJLA (Channel 7). The full list of Smithsonian items to get the Oprah treatment was still being finalized yesterday, but also included are a pair of boxing gloves from heavyweight champion Joe Louis and a pair used in the film "Rocky."

All of the artifacts are coming from the National Museum of American History, which is closed for renovation but has a temporary space at the National Air and Space Museum. The Web site on that showcase provided a shopping list for Winfrey's staff.

Brent D. Glass, the history museum's director, will step forward to discuss what becomes a treasure. "It is an opportunity to reach a large audience and talk about the value of what we do at American History, what the Smithsonian does and what museums do," Glass said yesterday. "It is rare for a museum to reach that kind of audience" (about 7 1/2 million people daily).

The tiny slippers were Winfrey's first choice, "because of what they mean to America and Oprah," said Melinda Machado, a spokeswoman for the museum. "The part that resonates with her is when Glenda tells Dorothy, you always had the power in you to get home." Along with the slippers, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem and the collection of the first ladies' gowns are the most popular attractions at the museum.

Glass said the items are being shipped to Chicago on a commercial flight, with the expenses picked up by Harpo, Winfrey's company. The Harpo offices were closed yesterday for the holiday, and representatives could not be reached for comment.

Each artifact has a special carrying case, some of which were designed during a Smithsonian national traveling show in 1996. Glass said the museum follows a strict protocol of packing and escorting the items, but he declined to elaborate on the specifics of the transport plan.

The boxing gloves, Glass said, are signature items in the museum. "Museum collections are important because of the stories they tell and how we project our own imagination and our own experiences onto those stories," he said. The Rocky character had an American dream and went the distance, Glass said, and Louis's story had its own arc of defeats and triumphs. "The gloves are from the first fight he lost to Max Schmeling. It allows us to tell the story of how Louis came back."

This will be Glass's second step in the last few days out of the nation's attic and into the living room. Last week, he served as a foil to Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," who was trying to get his portrait into the Smithsonian. Glass showed him around and used his typical understated manner to answer all outrageous questions. "It was a little riskier than I expected, because he is unpredictable. I was determined to be his straight man," Glass said.

The appearance on the Oprah segment was an unexpected invitation. "Part of our overall strategy since the museum is closed is to remind people we are still around," he said, even if in temporary quarters until the museum's expected reopening this summer.