Abstract
Washington, D.C., is a city known for its museums. Drawing visitors from around the nation and the globe as well as local residents, the capitals museums are among the most visited in the world.1 But in addition to its most popular sites—the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the National Gallery, and others located on the National Mall—there are many, many others. Seventeen Smithsonian Institution museums and art galleries, over forty historic houses, and dozens of other public and private museums on topics as diverse as espionage, medical research, and postage stamps are located in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.2
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Notes
For more about the changing role of visitors in the museum experience, see Graham Black, The Engaging Museum: Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement (New York: Routledge, 2005), 7–74.
For more about this concept, see chapter 6 in Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum (Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, 2010). Simon, an advocate of such inclusion of visitors in the process of exhibit creation, argues that visitors’ voices can inform and invigorate project designs and public programs in museums.
“All visitors to the Luce Foundation Center discover something that captures their interest … In conceiving the center, we wanted to provide visitors with a genuine behind-the-scenes experience—an opportunity to walk through art storage and see thousands of artworks that are normally kept off-site.” Georgina Bath, “Visible Storage at the Smithsonian American Art Museum,” in The Manual of Museum Management, second edition. Eds. Gail Dexter Lord and Barry Lord (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2009), 180.
For more information about the history of the Smithsonian Institution, see Heather Ewing, The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian (New York: Bloomsbury, 2007)
and Nina Burleigh, The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America’s Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).
Heather Ewing and Amy Ballard, A Guide to Smithsonian Architecture (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2009), 30, 40; United States National Museum, http://siarchives.si.edu/history/exhibits/arts/usnm.htm.
Catherine Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and the Transformation of An American Museum (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005), 7–8;
Steven Lubar and Kathleen M. Kendrick, Legacies: Collecting America’s History at the Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 206.
The famous 1969–1970 rodent exhibit, designed by museum director John Kinard, was called The Rat: Man’s Invited Affliction. See Edmund Barry Gaither, “‘Hey! That’s Mine’: Thoughts on Pluralism and American Museums,” in Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift, ed. Gail Anderson (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 113–114.
Portia James, “Building a Community-Based Identity at Anacostia Museum,” in Heritage, Museums and Galleries: An Introductory Reader, ed. Gerard Corsane (New York: Routledge, 2005). For more information about the Anacostia Community Museum, see Smithsonian Institution Archives, “Anacostia Community Museum,” http://siarchives.si.edu/history/anacostia-community-museum and The Anacostia Community Museum, http://anacostia.si.edu/.
Amanda J. Cobb, “The National Museum of the American Indian: Sharing the Gift,” American Indian Quarterly 29, nos. 3 and 4 (Summer and Fall 2005): 375; Ewing and Ballard, A Guide to Smithsonian Architecture, 137;
Julia M. Klein, “Two New History Museums Put Their Ideals on Display,” Chronicle of Higher Education 51, no. 6 (October 1, 2004): B15–16. An example of this is in the Our Lives exhibition, where visitors are invited to play the traditional game of peon with four natives on the screen. The visitor learns the rules of the game and then chooses each move by using a touch screen. After each choice, the players on the screen respond with their move. This “choose your own adventure” approach allows the visitor to feel as if he is actually playing the game.
Andrée Gendreau, “Museums and Media: A View from Canada,” The Public Historian 31, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 35–45.
For more information about the Enola Gay controversy, see Edward T. Linenthal’s “Anatomy of a Controversy” and Richard H. Kohn’s “History at Risk: The Case of the Enola Gay” in Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt, eds, History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 9–62, 140–170.
For a detailed history of the process of creating this museum, see Edward Linenthal, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
Arcynta Ali Childs, “Tour the American History Museum with an American Girl,” March 1, 2011, Smithsonian.com , http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2011/03/tour-the-american-history-museum-with-an-american-girl/; J. Gruber, “Smithsonian Remakes Its Transportation Exhibit: Corporate Sponsors Help with First Major Change in Four Decades,” Trains 63, no. 3 (March 2003): 76–77; Robert L. Jackson, “Smithsonian’s New Ocean Planet Exhibit Catches a Wave: Corporate Sponsorship,” The Baltimore Sun, June 7, 1995; I. Michael Heyman, “Museums and Marketing,” January 1998, Smithsonian Magazine, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/heyman_jan98-abstract.html.
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© 2014 Matthew N. Green, Julie Yarwood, Laura Daughtery, Maria Mazzenga
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Green, M.N., Yarwood, J., Daughtery, L., Mazzenga, M. (2014). A City of Magnificent Museums. In: Washington 101. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137426246_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137426246_4
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