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#17: The NMAP’s New Path to Completion


“Bringing All Americans Together.” With that new tag line and facing a revised national political and cultural climate, the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People is embarking on a new two-track, two-year plan to establish the Museum.

By early 2021 our goal will will be to complete a major feasibility study of the Museum and to pass legislation designating it as a “National” Museum and creating a governing body to guide the project forward.

The Museum’s governing body would plan and build the Museum as well as raise all of the money required to plan, build and operate it without seeking appropriated funds. The legislation creating the Museum would also transfer a prominent plot of land in Washington, DC to the Museum for the NMAP site.

To get to that point over the next two years we are exploring a feasibility study starting later in 2019 engaging some of our nation’s leading university museum programs, historians and a wide range of financial, building, fund raising, education and other experts to design this major new national institution and its many components programs. The model for the feasibility study would be the one that led to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. We estimate that it will take a year to complete the study.

Paralleling the feasibility track will be a legislative initiative with a resolution in the House and Senate that simply supports the study and anticipates future legislation to create the Museum.

Because of the significant economic benefits the Museum would have for the Washington area as it attracts visitors from throughout the nation and the world, we will approach the Congressional delegation from the DC Metro area, as well as members of key Congressional committees and the leaders and members of Congressional caucuses that are centered on ethnic, nationality and minority groups for their support.

Upon completion of the feasibility study, in 2020 it would be sent to the President and Congress and released to the public. We would then arrange to introduce legislation to establish the museum. We would seek to have the Presidential candidates from the two major parties endorse the Museum and work towards its creation in 2021.

In the meantime, there will be a variety of efforts to bring the National Museum of the American People to broader public attention, including this blog and the announcement of major milestones along the way.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

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#16: World Class Architecture Design Expected For National Museum of the American People

Architectural Rendering of National Museum of the American People

The design above at the Banneker Overlook site in Southwest Washington features four soaring structures arising from the grass covered roof of the central building. It evokes several aspects of the proposed National Museum of the American People’s story: waving flags of nations; books opening to reveal the four chapters of the story of the making of the American People; and sails over a landscape of waves recalling the vessels that brought so many to this land.

The maritime aesthetic also relates to the nearby marina where an extension of the museum could berth boats like those used by natives that plied nearby waterways and ships used to bring early European settlers, slaves and others to these shores.

During the day, the textures of the concrete “flags” will constantly change with the movement of the sun’s shadows across the facade. At night, films could be projected onto these surfaces. The design, conceived by MTFA Architecture, calls for a state of the art green building that would serve as a model for the Southwest Washington, DC Ecodistrict.

The building housing the National Museum of the American People would need to accommodate its core permanent exhibition. It would also need to have space for components including special exhibitions, a film theater, auditorium, bookstore and gift shop, dining facility, classrooms, genealogical center, and library and archives. In addition, there would be a need for offices for Museum administrators, scholars, curatorial staff, educators, security, maintenance and other staff.

The NMAP feasibility study, which we’ll discuss in our next blog, would develop preliminary space requirements for the Museum based on space required by other major museums with similar programs.

MTFA Architecture, an award-winning firm located in Arlington, Virginia, created this design for the National Museum of the American People on a pro bono basis. The firm specializes in projects that shape our culture, build on commerce and positively shape people’s lives. They have a long history of projects that build consensus for planning and design involving mixed use, commercial, cultural and educational functions and incorporate environmentally sound features. MTFA designed the recently built St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church just down the street from the Banneker site.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

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#15: Banneker Overlook Is Favored Site For National Museum of the American People


The gathering of peoples from throughout the world is the essential and ongoing American story. Yet there is little in our nation’s capital that tells the full story about all of the peoples that came to make this nation. This has left a monumental void in the midst of our capital that needs to be filled.

The favored site for the National Museum of the American People is the Banneker Overlook site. It is an eight-acre slope at the end of L’Enfant Promenade, an extension of 10th Street, S.W. The site is on a direct axis with the iconic Smithsonian’s Castle Building and reaches down to Maine Avenue and the Washington, D.C. waterfront along Washington Channel, an inlet of the Potomac River. It is adjacent to I-395.

The site is a short walk from the L’Enfant Metro stop. It is the only Metro stop that serves 5 of the system’s 6 lines. Washington’s Spy Museum is relocating to L’Enfant Promenade. There would be auto and bus access and parking nearby.

The large site affords an opportunity for the design of an architecturally significant building along with an inviting landscape. It is already one of the major sites in Washington designated as a location for a future national museum by three federal agencies that oversee the capital and the look it presents to the world — the National Park Service, National Capital Planning Commission and U.S. Commission on Fine Arts. The Overlook site is now under NPS jurisdiction.

The site also sits at the nexus of a major municipal effort to invigorate the DC waterfront area adjacent to the city’s bustling fish market. Across Maine Avenue from the museum site is the Southwest Waterfront project which opened in 2017 and includes condos, shops, restaurants, a river walk and other amenities to draw visitors from the Mall to the waterfront.

While the Banneker site is already joined to Washington’s core tourist area by a roadway and pedestrian walkway across I-395, there could be an effort to build a lid over the freeway to offer a stronger connection to these two sides of Washington. Such a lid could incorporate a park and sculpture garden to reflect the themes of the Museum. The proximity to the waterfront would also be used to extend the Museum’s exhibition reach to a pier where boats — actual and replicas — used for the migration and immigration to the U.S. are moored for visitors to explore.

While the Arena Stage theater anchors Maine Avenue at one end, this museum could anchor the redesigned waterfront at the other end. The Museum’s international food court and plaza, with a mix of restaurants and a gift shop along Maine Avenue, could remain open after museum hours and help to stimulate nighttime street life.

The site could include provisions for landscaping that could include major water features and flora to enhance the beauty of the Museum building and its property. It could also include works of commissioned art relating to the subject matter of the Museum.

Legislation would be required to transfer the Banneker Overlook site to the National Museum of the American People. The Museum at this site would present the opportunity to create a unique and lasting addition to our capital that tells our American story in an unforgettable manner.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

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#14: Celebrating the African American Museum On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Coming into Montgomery (Collection of the SI NMAAHC)

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the greatest story-telling museums in the world; the proposed National Museum of the American People will do well to emulate it.

The NMAAHC depicts the 500 year struggle of African Americans beginning with their enslavement first in Europe and then soon after in the Western Hemisphere. A century later when the first permanent European colony in what is now the Untied States was established by the English at Jamestown in 1607, the first slaves followed 12 years in 1619.

The African American Museum carries that history of enslavement forward through the Civil War, a brief post-war period of reconstruction followed by the imposition of segregation for another century until the Civil Rights Movement go underway in the 1950s and continues through the early years of the 21st Century.

Martin Luther King, Jr., who we celebrate today, is a central figure in this segment of the story.

The NMAAHC begins its story after carrying visitors three stories below ground level and proceeds with its narrative as visitors wind upward through the difficult history of African Americans emerging into a space of contemplation before arriving again at ground level. From there, visitors are ready to explore the broad and deep accomplishments of African Americans on the Museum’s upper floors.

The story of African Americans, told so poignantly in the NMAAHC, will also be told in the National Museum of the American People in the context of the story of the making of all Americans. That segment of the story will be the same in both museums.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

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#13: Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Organizations Back NMAP


The National Museum of the American People has support from a variety of national religious-related organizations. They include:

While many of these organizations focus on assisting refugees and asylum seekers coming to the United States to escape persecution, including religious persecution, they all have an interest in telling about the religious component inherent in the making of the American People.

In a 2017 Gallup survey, American religious affiliation was:

38%             Protestant
21%              Catholic
9%                Non-denominational Christian
2%                Mormon
2%                Jewish
5%                Other religions
20%             None
4%                Undesignated

The Museum’s story begins with the history of indigenous Americans and will discuss their spiritual practices which are largely tribal-based. After first contact with Europeans in the hemisphere from predominantly Catholic countries, the story of extensive missionary activity will be discussed.

After 1607, many of the first English settlers to cross the Atlantic settling in New England were fleeing religious persecution. In Pennsylvania, it’s leader William Penn, a Quaker, welcomed Germans who were practicing Lutherans and a variety of other sects as well. Pennsylvania became known as “an asylum for banished sects.” Virginia came under the provenance of the Church of England. In the 18th Century, Evangelism, Baptist and Methodist denominations gained strength and influential preachers spread across the land, especially in the South.

A number of significant denominations were founded in the Untied States including the Church of Latter Day Saints also known as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Christ, Scientist.

While Catholicism came with Spanish explorers, Maryland became the focus of the Catholic Church in the English colonies. Since then, most Catholics came to what is now the Untied States with the large scale immigrations from Ireland, Eastern Europe and Italy, and more became US citizens after the U.S. took over Mexican and Spanish lands.

Jews largely came in three cycles: Sephardic Jews who settled in five East Coast port cities in the 1600s, German Jews who came starting in the 1820s and Jews from Eastern European and Ottoman lands in the late 19th and early 20th Century.

With the First Amendment to the Constitution paving the way, the United States established a home for peoples of all religions. The story of the religions of the American people played a significant role in forging the nation and it will be told in the National Museum of the American People.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

 

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#12: Together the Components of the NMAP Will Constitute a Major New National Institution


Components of the National Museum of the American People will be focused on discovering and disseminating information about the making of the American People and their contributions to the nation and to the world. These components, some of which will be sources of income for the Museum, will combine to create a major new national institution that can unify our nation and propel it as a force of good in the world.

At the core of the Museum will be its Permanent Exhibition telling the central story of peoples coming from every corner of the world and becoming Americans. That story begins with the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and continues through today. It includes every ethnic, nationality and minority group in our nation.

To more deeply understand and disseminate that story the museum will house a variety of major components. These could include:

1)  CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDIES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

The Center for Advanced Studies of the American People is envisioned as a major academic institution housed in the Museum. In addition to conducting and supporting scholarly research, the Center could publish a scholarly journal and relevant articles as well as sponsor seminars, conferences, workshops, courses and lectures to advance knowledge in this field. Although the Center could maintain a core staff of scholars, it could also sponsor a scholars-in-residence program and create affiliations with colleges, universities and related research institutions.

2)  NATIONAL GENEALOGICAL CENTER

The National Genealogical Center could be a national repository of genealogy information where Museum visitors – and others online – would have an opportunity to gather information about their ancestors as well as about the descendants and antecedents of famous Americans.

The Museum could also explore having visitors participate in a DNA contribution program that could enable researchers to trace a person’s migration patterns.

 3)  ARCHIVE AND LIBRARY OF AMERICAN MIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION

The Museum could incorporate an archive and library of American migration and immigration within the Museum. It could have one of the premier holdings of books, maps, documents, photographs, oral histories, film and video, music, art and other publications and information that touch on the subject matter of the Museum. It could work in concert with the Library of Congress and the National Archives on this component.

4)  EDUCATION AND RESOURCE CENTER

The Museum’s Education and Resource Center could have a two-pronged mission: to teach the story of the American people to students visiting the Museum, and to foster the teaching of that story in schools throughout the nation and the world.

5)  SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS

Several spaces within the Museum could be designated for special exhibitions. These exhibition spaces could allow the Museum to explore selected permanent exhibition subjects in more depth. The special exhibitions could also present contemporary issues, art, new discoveries and stories about peoples not covered in the Permanent Exhibition.

6)  TRAVELING AND ONLINE EXHIBITIONS

Special portable exhibitions of different sizes and scopes could be prepared for exhibition at museums and other public spaces throughout the United States and the world. The Museum website could incorporate a variety of online exhibitions even as the Museum is under construction.

7)  FILM CENTER

Complementing the research center, the Museum’s film and video library could include documentary and fictional productions encompassing all aspects of the Museum’s story. The Museum could maintain a regular movie schedule in a state-of-the-art movie theater and could study the feasibility of including an IMAX-type theater.

8)  COLLECTIONS

The Museum could endeavor to gather significant authentic objects from throughout the world to help tell its story. These artifacts could come from gifts and donations from individuals, museums and other institutions, and other nations, as well as from long-term loans from various institutions. Selected objects from the collection would help the Museum tell its story. As in other museums, a relatively small share of its collections would be on display at any one time. A secure off-site facility might be required to store these objects. Curators there would be able to research, catalog, authenticate and preserve these objects for posterity, future study and display.

9)  PEOPLING OF AMERICA CENTER

A Peopling of America Center could study sites throughout the nation where events of significant migration and immigration history took place and, in conjunction with the National Park Service, designate such sites as Peopling of America national historic landmarks.

10)  PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Two theaters, one large and the other smaller, could be housed in the Museum to accommodate a variety of public programs including lectures, films and a range of performances and productions touching on histories and cultures reflecting the diverse audiences of the Museum’s constituency.

11)  RESTAURANTS

The Museum could explore including restaurants for the public. A food court, specializing in relatively inexpensive authentic foods from throughout the world and nation, would be able to serve visitors to the Museum. In addition, a separate Museum destination dining room could offer premium meals from different parts of the world and could feature visiting foreign and regional chefs.

12)  BOOK STORE AND GIFT SHOP

Popular and recent books and videos relating to the Museum’s subject as well as posters, photographs, CDs, DVDs, digital content, replicas of Museum artifacts and a variety of other appropriate gifts and souvenirs fitting a range of tastes and budgets could be sold at the Museum’s book store and gift shop.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

 

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#11: NMAP Has Broad Support From Organizations Representing All Americans


The 248 ethnic organizations (and counting) that have signed on to support the National Museum of the American People all want one thing: they want their stories told about how and when and why they came to this land and nation and became Americans. And they want them told in a major national museum near the center of our nation’s capital.

The will tell the story of the making of the American People starting with the first humans in the Western Hemisphere and continuing through today. The organizations that have signed on represent 73 different ethnic/nationality/minority groups that together represent virtually every sizable group in the nation, well over 95 percent of all Americans. The museum will embody our original national motto – E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One).

The museum will tell all of our stories through four chapters of the museum’s permanent exhibition:

1) First Peoples Come (15-20,000 years ago to 1607;

2) The Nation Takes Form (1607-1820);

3) The Great In-gathering (1820-1924); and

4) And Still They Come (1924-Today).

Of the 248 organizations backing the museum, there are 135 representing groups whose ancestors came from every part of Europe, 37 who came from throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands, 36 from the Americas, including 14 Native American organizations, 18 from Africa and a variety of others from throughout the world.

Italian, Scandinavian and Scottish Americans each have 10 organizations backing the museum; Irish, Russian and Polish Americans each have 9 organizations signed on; and there are 8 German, 7 Jewish and 6 Baltic American organizations. All of the organizations are listed on the museum’s web site.* Generally, people who put down “American” on the Census form have ancestors who came from England, Scotland, Ireland and Germany during the 17 and 18th centuries. They and their descendants thoroughly intermingled and 200 years later they describe their ethnicity as American.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

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#10: Would the NMAP be Part of the Smithsonian … or Not?


Museums in Washington, DC fall under three forms of governance:

  • Part of the public Smithsonian system
  • Public but independent of the Smithsonian
  • Private

The National Museum of the American People could be governed in any of these ways … or in a new way.

The Smithsonian Institution, with ## museums and other facilities in and around Washington and other facilities elsewhere, is obviously the dominant model in this region. Two of its newest museums both focus on groups of Americans, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian. Most of its museums focus on art, several on science, both physical and natural, and three on history of people, the National Museum of American History as well as the African American and American Indian museums.

There are efforts to have the Smithsonian build two more museums, one about the history of American women and the other about the American Latino. The NMAP also requested that the Smithsonian undertake a feasibility study for a museum about the making of the American People.

While the Smithsonian would undoubtedly like to be able to take on all these projects it is being pushed to the wall financially by significant unplanned costs. The biggest is the unexpected need that came to light in the last couple of years to completely renovate the most visited and largest museum in its system, the Air and Space Museum.

Engineering studies of that museum revealed that its entire façade needs to be replaced by new and significantly thicker marble cladding along with other extensive renovations taking place in concert with the new façade. The price tag is around $1 billion for this work. In addition, the extraordinary success of the African American museum has led to a range of unanticipated expenditures.

While the Smithsonian is run as a public-private partnership and receives corporate and other private support, the largest share of its annual operating income is from federal appropriations.

There are also other significant public museums in the Washington area that are independent of the Smithsonian. Museums in this category include the Unites States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Gallery of Art, both its main building and its East Wing. All three are on or just off of the National Mall.

Other public non-Smithsonian museums in the DC area include those operated by the National Park Service, the Army, Navy and Air Force and some others operated by federal agencies and local governments. Some of these are also operated as public-private partnerships.

Three of the newest museums in Washington are private: the Newseum, the Spy Museum and the Bible Museum. They have been supported by some combination of private organizations and wealthy individuals.

Given the Smithsonian’s fiscal issues and the current fiscal climate in Washington a new approach is needed now: A public museum paid for and operated with private donations. The planning and construction of the US Holocaust Museum was paid for by private funding and while it continues to receive significant gifts for a variety of special programs and exhibitions, the bulk of its annual operating expenses are from federal appropriations and it is considered a public museum.

National Museum of the American People is proposing a new public-private relationship where all of the funds to plan, build and operate the museum would come from private donations and other non-federal sources, it would be designated a public museum by Congress and land for the museum, a priceless commodity in Washington, could be transferred from one federal agency, the National Park Service for example, to the museum’s governing entity. At the same time, all of the funds to plan, build and operate the museum would technically be gifts to the government earmarked for that purpose.

In this model, private funding would pay for a feasibility study which in turn would pave the way for Congressional action designating the museum as a national museum, transferring the land for it, setting up the museum’s governing body and requiring all of the funds to come from private or other non-federal donations.

The governing body for the NMAP could be selected by a process involving public and private sector officials as designated in the legislation creating the museum institution.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

 

 

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#9: Ch. 4 — AND STILL THEY COME: 1924-2024


This is the fourth of four blogs to describe how the National Museum of the American People will tell its story through four chapters.

The 4th chapter of this story will take us from 1924 through 2024. The National Museum of the American People will portray the changes that mark the dynamic rich mixture of people that we label “American” as it continues to evolve.

Taking Citizenship Oath at Naturalization Ceremony in Seattle

Immigration slowed to a trickle after 1924 until the end of World War II due to the imposition of quotas. These were based on already existing subpopulations of the United States. While it remained relatively easy to emigrate from Western Europe, those from Eastern and Southern Europe, Africa and Asia had a much more difficult time getting into the U.S. This slowdown was exasperated by the Great Depression and there was even a net emigration away from the U.S. during the deepest four years of the Depression.

Following the Second World War, America became the preferred home for refugees from Europe, including Holocaust survivors. From 1941 to 1987, the U.S. accepted 4.4 million immigrants from Europe, 4.3 million from Asia, and 5.5 million from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico.

From 1948 through 1980, some 2.3 million persons were admitted to the U.S. as humanitarian and political refugees, including about 450,000 persons displaced after World War II from 1948 through 1952; 692,000 Cubans from 1962-79; and 400,000 Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians from 1975-79.

The fourth chapter of the NMAP’s permanent exhibition will continue to tell the story of migrations within the country. It will include the forced migration of Japanese to internment camps during World War II, the continuing westward movement, the movement of African Americans from the South to the industrialized North as well as the movement of vast numbers of Americans from cities to suburbs, and the current movement of young people to cities.

In the post-War years, immigration from Mexico and Puerto Rico became major parts of this story. During recent years, immigrant groups in significant numbers have included Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, South Asians and Vietnamese. Others have included Caribbeans, Central Americans, Soviet Jews, Dominicans, Haitians, Africans and a variety of Europeans. Over the last few decades, one of the biggest national stories has been the steady flow of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, from Mexico and Central America. The compelling story of new immigrants to our nation is still writing itself.

Today, immigration is an issue that has opened a significant rift in our nation’s body politic. One of the goals of the National Museum of the American People is to help bring our nation back together by telling the story of the making of the American People … all of us.

NOTE: Some of the material herein is based on Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life by Roger Daniels. Leading scholars are expected to develop a detailed outline of the Museum’s story following the establishment of the Museum.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People