Who Owns America's Past?: The Smithsonian and the Problem of History - Paperback

by Robert C. Post (Author)

When preserving our history, what do we choose to value, why, and who decides?

Honorable Mention for the National Council on Public History Book Award of the National Council on Public History

In 1994, when the National Air and Space Museum announced plans to display the Enola Gay, the B-29 sent to destroy Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, the ensuing political uproar caught the museum's parent Smithsonian Institution entirely unprepared. As the largest such complex in the world, the Smithsonian cares for millions of objects and has displayed everything from George Washington's sword to moon rocks to Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Why did this particular object arouse such controversy? From an insider's perspective, Robert C. Post's Who Owns America's Past? offers insight into the politics of display and the interpretation of history.

Never before has a book about the Smithsonian detailed the recent and dramatic shift from collection-driven shows, with artifacts meant to speak for themselves, to concept-driven exhibitions, in which objects aim to tell a story, displayed like illustrations in a book. Even more recently, the trend is to show artifacts along with props, sound effects, and interactive elements in order to create an immersive environment. Rather than looking at history, visitors are invited to experience it.

Who Owns America's Past? examines the different ways that the Smithsonian's exhibitions have been conceived and designed--whether to educate visitors, celebrate an important historical moment, or satisfy donor demands or partisan agendas. Combining information from hitherto-untapped archival sources, extensive interviews, a thorough review of the secondary literature, and considerable personal experience, Post gives the reader a behind-the-scenes view of disputes among curators, academics, and stakeholders that were sometimes private and at other times burst into headline news.

A detailed insider's look at growth and change across the institution. The book offers a rich and readable intellectual biography of the Smithsonian.--Journal of American History

The Smithsonian finally gets its Washington insider-tells-all memoir. Who Owns America's Past? documents the value of the Smithsonian's distinctive culture--and also the way it has kept the institution from being all that it might be.--The American Historian

Weaves original primary source research, scholarly synthesis, and personal experiences into a highly readable study of the cultural history of America's most popular museum institution.--Museums and Social Issues

Here is an eyewitness account of many of the personalities, controversies, artifacts, and interpretations that most of us know in their final, burnished form, upon the walls of the world's greatest history museum. Who Owns America's Past? is a needed book.--American Historical Review

Honorable mention, National Council on Public History Book Award
Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

Author Biography

Robert C. Post, now curator emeritus, was employed by the Smithsonian for 23 years, beginning in 1973. He was responsible for several technological collections and story-driven exhibits. The author of Urban Mass Transit: The Life Story of a Technology and High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-2000, he has been the recipient of the Society for the History of Technology's Leonardo da Vinci Medal. He also edited the quarterly journal Technology and Culture.