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Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

‘It Reminds You of a Fascist State’: Smithsonian Institution Braces for Trump Rewrite of US History

Normally staid historians sound alarm at authoritarian grasping for control of the premier US museum complex.
by David Smith via The Guardian on March 30, 2025
Collage of images of death certificates and related images.

Smithsonian Targeted D.C.’s Vulnerable to Build Brain Collection

The Smithsonian museum’s collection of human remains contains dozens of brains from vulnerable Washington, D.C., residents, many taken without consent.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy via Washington Post on December 14, 2023
Visitors at the National Museum of Natural History in D.C. take in the exhibits.

Human Bones, Stolen Art: Smithsonian Tackles its ‘Problem’ Collections

The Smithsonian’s first update to its collection policy in 20 years proposes ethical returns and shared ownership. But will it bring transformational change?
by Peggy McGlone via Washington Post on July 27, 2022
Hungerford Deed

New Analysis Reveals More Details About Smithsonian Founder's Illegitimate Family Tree

The newly recovered 1787 Hungerford Deed, detailing a contentious squabble over property and prestige, can now be viewed in a new virtual exhibition.
by Alice George via Smithsonian on August 10, 2021

At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History

The urge to police the past is hardly an invention of the Trump Administration. It is the reflexive obsession of autocrats everywhere.
by David Remnick via The New Yorker on April 6, 2025
Scaffolding around the statue of President Theodore Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History as it is prepared for removal on December 2, 2021 in New York City

A New York Museum's House of Bones

The American Museum of Natural History holds 12,000 bodies — but they don’t want you to know whose.
by Erin L. Thompson via Hyperallergic on October 15, 2023
Painting of a valley with storm clouds

Storm Patrol

Life as a Signal Corps weatherman was dangerous: besides inclement weather, they faced labor riots, conflicts with Native Americans, yellow fever outbreaks, fires, and more.
by Alyson Foster via Humanities on October 11, 2023
An illustration imagining Maura, an indigenous Filipino woman.

Searching for Maura

A Filipino woman died after coming to the U.S. to be put on display at the 1904 World's Fair. A Smithsonian anthropologist likely took part of her brain.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy, Ren Galeno via Washington Post on August 16, 2023
Portrait photo of Elsie Robinson.

A Woman Who Composed the First Draft of History Finds Herself Written Out of the History Books

Prominent institutions, such as the Smithsonian, have historically erased or omitted US women from archival records.
by Allison Gilbert via CNN on August 14, 2023
Maps and photos of the Smithsonian and its anthropologicl collections.

Revealing the Smithsonian’s ‘Racial Brain Collection’

The Smithsonian’s human brains collection was led by Ales Hrdlicka, a museum curator in the 1900s who believed that White people were superior.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy via Washington Post on August 14, 2023
Visitors sit before the Benin plaques exhibit (known as the Benin Bronzes) at the British Museum in London.

Museum Reparations

Should museums only exhibit work of their own culture, or should they bring the world to visitors?
by Katrina Gulliver via Law & Liberty on June 7, 2023
Polar bear walks across melting ice in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
partner

Did One Photograph Change the Fate of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?

What the political fight over a photo teaches us about the power of art, grassroots activism and images.
by Finis Dunaway via Made By History on March 3, 2023
Men standing around an archaeological site.

America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains

The remains of more than 100,000 Native Americans are held by prestigious U.S. institutions, despite a 1990 law meant to return them to tribal nations.
by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz, Ash Ngu, Graham Lee Brewer via ProPublica on January 11, 2023
The front cover of Peter Manseau's new book, featuring a photo of Jefferson's bible.

Doubting Thomas

Is Jefferson's Bible evidence that the Founding Fathers engaged with scripture to birth a Christian nation? Or that they sought to foster a new secular order?
by Ed Simon via Los Angeles Review of Books on November 6, 2022
original

Our Flag Was Still There

How is the first half of the 19th century depicted in and around the nation’s capital? Ed Ayers hits the road to find out.
by Ed Ayers on July 19, 2022
Trump from behind, and the Washington monument.

How Trump Wants to Change History

Late last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history.”
by Adam Rowe via Compact on April 24, 2025
Exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

A Truly Patriotic Education Tells Many Stories

Trump’s executive orders can’t define diversity out of history.
by David M. Perry via Foreign Policy on March 31, 2025
Phil Little Thunder, a great-great-grandchild of the Lakota chief whose village was attacked in 1855.

How Recovering the History of a Little-Known Lakota Massacre Could Heal Generational Pain

The unraveling of this long-buried atrocity is forging a path toward reconciliation.
by Tim Madigan via Smithsonian on October 22, 2024
original

The Era Without a Name

There’s no one place to learn about the early decades of the 19th century. So I set off to see how that history is being remembered in the places where it happened.
by Ed Ayers on January 17, 2024
Joel Roberts Poinsett (left). The poinsettia, which takes its name from Poinsett (right).

Poinsettia Day, the Monroe Doctrine, and U.S.-Mexican Relations

The troubled history of the famous poinsettia plant.
by Lindsay Schakenbach Regele via Origins on December 9, 2023
Martin Luther King, Jr. at podium, with three men sitting behind him

Tuskegee University’s Audio Collections

The archives of the historically Black Tuskegee University recently released recordings from 1957 to 1971, with a number by powerful civil rights leaders.
by Evan Towle, Karyn Anonia, Dana Chandler via JSTOR Daily on October 5, 2023
Drawing of Anthea Hartig with insurrectionist memorabilia behind her

Insurrectionabilia at the Smithsonian

In 2026, we will celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, and also the fifth anniversary of the January 6th uprising.
by Bruce Handy via The New Yorker on August 21, 2023
Illustration of McCormick at his desk, hunched over a typewriter.

Hellhounds on His Trail

Mack McCormick’s long, tortured quest to find the real Robert Johnson.
by Michael Hall via Texas Monthly on April 4, 2023
Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington in a toga.

The First Statue Removed From the Capitol

Long before monuments to enslavers were removed, lawmakers decided to relocate a scandalous, half-naked depiction of George Washington in a toga.
by Ronald G. Shafer via Retropolis on January 22, 2023

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