History Museums – Bringing All Americans Together!

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019

#40: The U.S. Holocaust Museum and the National African American Museum Are Models for the National Museum of the American People

From left: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Museum of the American People

In a series of blogs over the next several months, we will look at a broad range of subjects to show how the proposed National Museum of the American People compares to and diverges from our nation’s two best story-telling museums, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This blog simply lists the topics that will be discussed in future blogs. Topics will include:

The feasibility studies that led to creation of the USHMM and the NMAAHC and how the NMAP will follow the lead of the African American feasibility study.

How both museums tell their stories and how the NMAP will follow their examples.

An exploration of the timeline to build both museums and why the NMAP will aim to follow the USHMM lead in this area.

The USHMM is independent of the Smithsonian Institution; the NMAAHC is a part of the Smithsonian. This blog will discuss the governance structure that might work best for the NMAP.

Both the NMAAHC and the USHMM have notable buildings in which they are housed and a local architecture firm (MTFA) has developed a rendering of what the NMAP could look like (see photos above). The role of the architect for these museums and how the building design relates to their stories will be discussed.

As story-telling museums, the visitor at both existing museums are on a chronological path telling a dramatic story about significant historic events with a beginning, a middle and an end. Both museums employed the same exhibition designer. This blog will examine how both museums will inform how the NMAP tells its story.

The USHMM and the NMAAHC used two different models to raise money to plan and build those museums. The NMAP plans to follow the lead of the USHMM to plan and build the museum.

Both existing museums receive significant annual federal appropriations to operate their institutions. The NMAP plans to follow a different path without federal appropriations to operate the museum.

This blog will explore the importance of location and a prime location being sought for the NMAP. The USHMM and the NMAAHC are both located In Washington between 14^th and 15^th Streets (renamed Raoul Wallenberg Place on the Holocaust Museum block). The African American Museum is on the north side of the National Mall and the Holocaust Museum is just to the south of the Mall, both prime locations.

We will explore the visitor experiences at the NMAAHC and the USHMM and examine what that experience will be like at the NMAP.

This issue will discuss the purpose of both existing museums and how they achieve it and will discuss the purpose of the NMAP and the plan to meet its purpose.

The USHMM and the NMAAHC deal with the historic and contemporary ravages of genocide, racism, xenophobia, slavery and anti-Semitism. So will the NMAP.

The USHMM has a scholarly Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. The NMAP will have a Center for the Advanced Study of the American People with connections to scholarly institutions throughout the nation and the world.

Both the USHMM and the NMAAHC welcome school groups and provide curricula material focused on their respective subjects. The NMAP will have a vigorous program to welcome students on their visits to Washington and plans to have a national outreach program to help teach civics that incorporates the history of every group that has come to this nation from the first to the present no matter where on Earth they or their ancestors came from.

How much do visitors to the USHMM and the NMAAHC see their own stories told in those museums? The NMAP will tell the story of every American group and visitors from every country will learn about peoples from their nations who became Americans.

The African American Museum’s story starts in Africa and in Europe and then quickly transfers to the New World and the United States. The Holocaust story focuses on the nation’s where the Holocaust was perpetrated and brings in the United States along the way and finishes with the two nations where most Holocaust survivors settled, Israel and the U.S. That museum has relations with nations throughout Europe. The NMAP will have relationships with nations throughout the world with countries that fed people into our nation over the eons and centuries through today.

Both the NMAAHC and the USHMM have had strong bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. The NMAP will endeavor to have bipartisan support from all of our nation’s political leaders.

How do all three museums compare with the National Museum of American History?

How do they compare with the National Museum of the American Indian?

How do they compare with the proposed National Museum of the American Woman?

There are proposed national museums for Asian Pacific, Irish and Latino Americans. How would they fit in with the NMAP?

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

May 20, 2019September 12, 2019

#39: Creating the National Museum of the American People Without Federal Funding

There are three funding phases anticipated to plan, build and operate the National Museum of the American People. None of them foresee using federal appropriations.

The first phase is to cover the cost of a study to explore the feasibility of creating the Museum, which we talked about in Blog #18. We estimate the cost would be up to $1.75 million for this study which would take approximately a year to produce. We plan to obtain support later this year from a handful of prospective major donors and foundations to cover this entire cost.

The second fundraising phase will be to raise all of the funds required to plan and build the Museum. Our model for this phase is the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum which raised all of its money to plan and build that museum from private sources. The work done in the feasibility study will let us know approximately how much money we will need for the NMAP and the time frame required to raise it. We expect it to be in the $600-800 million range.

While we will not be seeking federal appropriations for this phase, we will want legislation passed to create a self-funding entity charged with planning and building the Museum and raising all its funds required to do so. This legislation would officially designate the institution as a national museum.

That legislation would also do two other things to expedite the Museum. One would be a transfer of a prime piece of land in Washington from the National Park Service to the Museum entity. The particular plot we seek, the Banneker Overlook site, is already on NPS books as a site for a future national museum.

Another element of the legislation would allow the Museum to accept gifts from foreign governments. A senior U.S. diplomat, possibly a former secretary of state, could be recruited to obtain gifts of $1 million to $20 million, but with a cap so that no single nation could contribute an inordinate amount.

The Museum, telling about the origins of all Americans, can draw U.S. relationships with other nations closer. The heads of state from across the globe could be expected to participate in the Museum’s opening and the gifts from nations’ would be acknowledged in the Museum.

Another significant fund-raising element of the second phase is to seek seven-figure or higher gifts from selected individuals, foundations and corporations that have a special interest in their heritage, in civic education for all Americans and in strengthening our nation’s social fabric. And as the Museum tells the story of every customer of every corporation in the land, an association with the NMAP will carry a positive impact with every corporation’s customer base.

With significant gifts providing a solid financial base to begin planning and building the Museum, the last element of this phase is to engage in a broad national fund-raising effort to obtain gifts from all Americans in any amount.

Once the Museum entity is established by Congress, all money donated to that entity are considered gifts to the federal government and are ear-marked for the Museum. They would be tax deductible up to the limit laid out in the tax law.

The third phase is to fund the annual operating budget of the Museum. One element of this is to establish a major endowment that would be used for this purpose. So in addition to raising funds described in the second phase to plan and build the NMAP, funds from those sources would be applied to the endowment once the initial goals were reached.

In addition, income from Museum operations such as the book store, shops, restaurants, programs and facility rentals would be applied to cover operations. There would also be a significant on-going fund-raising effort to fund particular programs at the Museum and an effort to obtain grants for other programs as well. There would be an ongoing membership program and other general fund-raising efforts.

One significant source of income could be from visitor fees, but the NMAP would initially plan to follow the lead of the Smithsonian Institution and the USHMM which are free for visitors.

Whether federal appropriations are ever provided to the NMAP in the future to defray annual operating expenses would be up to future congresses and the public, but the National Museum of the American People is not planning for that contingency.

But first things first. Phase One will begin later this year.

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

March 25, 2019September 12, 2019

# 32 – The Timeframe for Chronological Storytelling Exhibitions Can Range from a Day to Billions of Years

History museums that tell their story along a chronological path seem to capture their visitors’ engaged attention for longer periods of time than any other type of museum. Whether the subject is military history, astronomical history, natural history, Holocaust history, the history of a terrorist attack or the history of a people or a nation, audiences are mesmerized and become immersed in the story being told.

The time range for these histories vary wildly from a day to billions of years. The 9/11 Museum, for example, guides the visitor through one of the worst days in U.S. history from sunrise on a beautiful New York City morning through the devastating events of that day and it incorporates a memorial to its victims. At the other extreme, the Cosmic Pathway in the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History explores the history of the universe starting with the smallest particle imaginable and its incredible expansion over the first second of time through the current status of the universe today more than 13 billion years later.

Another exhibition at the AMNH in its Hall of Human Origins depicts the history of humans starting with our early ancestors some six million years ago to modern humans who made their appearance an estimated 150-200,000 years ago and spread throughout our planet. The National Museum of the American People picks up that story approximately 20,000 years ago when the first modern humans are believed to have come to the Western Hemisphere.

The NMAP will tell its story along four chronological paths telling about all of the ethnic, nationality and racial groups coming to this land and nation:

The first chapter is from the first peoples in the Western Hemisphere to the first permanent settlement in what became the United States at Jamestown, VA in 1607 and includes first contact between natives and Europeans.

The Museum’s second chapter from 1607 to 1820 depicts Western Europeans coming, slavery, establishment of the nation and its westward expansion via the Louisiana Purchase taking in new peoples.

The third chapter from 1820 to 1924 covers the nation’s major century of expansion to the Pacific including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The nation becomes the destination for millions of immigrants from throughout Europe and Asia and incorporates Hispanic lands in the Southwest.

The final chapter takes us from 1924 through today focusing on refugees and immigrants arriving in the U.S. from every part of the world.

Other American chronological history museums focus on other events or peoples that the National Museum of the American People will also explore. The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia takes place along a 29-year path starting with the roots of the revolution from 1760 to 1776, the war until its end at Yorktown in 1781, and the struggle to create a lasting government based on principles of democracy, freedom and liberty that culminates with the U.S. Constitution in 1789.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture tells its story over a 500-year path starting with the beginning of slavery by Europeans in Africa in the 1500s through slavery, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement to achievements of African Americans through today.

While the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History doesn’t have a central chronological exhibition depicting American history, it recently announced plans to open a permanent Latino exhibition space in 2021 where it would tell the story of Hispanic and Latino history in the United States. The NMAP will also be telling these stories through all four of its chapters in the context of all Americans coming or being incorporated into the United States.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was one of the first major American museums to devote a permanent exhibition telling a story along a path for visitors. Its story is along a 14-year history of the Holocaust from 1932 until its end in 1945 and includes the American connection to those events.

When the Holocaust Museum was built, studies showed that the average visit to museums, whether an art, history or science museum, lasted about an hour and a half. The USHMM found that the average visit through its permanent exhibition was three hours and many visitors spent five hours going through its story. The National Museum of African American History and Culture which is less than three years old has also found that many visitors need well over three hours to explore its permanent exhibition.

The National Museum of the American People also expects visitors to become immersed in its story about the making of the American People. For all Americans, it is their story.

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

February 28, 2019September 12, 2019

#25: NMAP Will Be Home to the Center For the Advanced Study of the American People

When the National Museum of the American People is built, one of its central components will be a Center for the Advanced Study of the American People. It is envisioned as a major scholarly institution associated with the Museum.

The Center would consist of a core group of eminent scholars that focus on a broad range of facets relating to the history of the making of the American People from first humans in the Western Hemisphere through today.

In addition to in-house scholars we anticipate that major scholars, university programs and research institutions across the nation and the world will also be affiliated with the Center’s efforts to research all aspects of the history of the American People. It would also sponsor a scholars-in-residence program.

In addition to conducting and supporting research, the Center could publish a scholarly journal and relevant articles. It will sponsor seminars, conferences, workshops, courses and lectures to advance knowledge in this field.

A grant program operated by the Center would support scholarly research programs across the nation. In addition, the Center will serve as a liaison with researchers in other nations exploring some element of the story about the making of the American People.

Other scholarly pursuits would include the collection and review of archival materials worldwide. A logical project for the Museum would be the publication of an online Encyclopedia of the American People that would include exhaustive information available to anyone wishing to access it. This publication could take the form of an update of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups that was published in 1980.

The Center will also coordinate with and support other elements of the Museum, including the curators of the permanent, special and traveling exhibitions, the genealogical center, the archive and library, the education resource center, the film center and the public programs department.

We will be discussing other components of the National Museum of the American People in future blogs.

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

February 25, 2019September 12, 2019

#24: More Than 140 Scholars Support NMAP

The National Museum of the American People and the story it will tell about all of the peoples coming to this land will be scholarly-driven and ensure that the highest standards of scholarship are met.

Historians, anthropologists, sociologists, archeologists, ethnologists, human geographers, demographers, geneticists, linguists and others will help develop the story.

We anticipate that a feasibility study that the Museum backers are seeking will provide an outline of the story that the Museum will tell. Then the Museum itself will develop a detailed book about the making of the American People that will guide the development of the Museum’s permanent exhibition.

The story would follow a consensus of the scholars’ views and significant evidence-based historic and scientific alternative views could also be included. As scientific and historic consensus changes, appropriate changes could be made in the Museum. With force and clarity, the Museum will examine the story of the making of the American People.

About 30 of the scholars backing the Museum focus on general issues of immigration, migration and refugee history while others focus on particular groups of people. These scholars focus on European Americans (23), African Americans (17), Asian Pacific Americans (18), Hispanics/Latinos (22), Native Americans (8) and about two dozen others who concentrate on other aspects or peoples in the Museum’s story.

A complete list of scholars supporting the National Museum of the American People is here.

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

February 4, 2019February 13, 2019

#18: NMAP Feasibility Study Will Explore Every Element of What Museum Would Be

In 2019, the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People is proposing an exhaustive feasibility study of the Museum. The study exploring creation of the Museum would be conducted by a consortium of major U.S. university museum studies programs in conjunction with funders supporting the museum.

The final report of the feasibility study would be presented to the President and to Congress. Funding for the report would come solely from supporters of the Museum using no taxpayer funds. The details of the study operation would be worked out by the funders, the consortium and the Museum coalition. It should take no more than a year to complete its work and present its findings.

The consortium could use the final report for the National Museum of African American History and Culture as a guide.

The NMAP feasibility study will explore and report on:

The story the Museum will tell, develop an outline of that story and suggest the manner in which the story will be told
Sites in Washington for the Museum with a primary focus on the Banneker Overlook site
Requirements for the Museum building
The scope and mission of the Museum
Potential US audiences including school groups
Visitors from around the world
Costs, budget and staffing
A fund-raising plan to plan, build and operate the Museum
How the Museum will support state, local and ethnic museums in the U.S. with a similar mission
The Museum’s governance, whether part of or separate from the Smithsonian Institution
Ways for the Museum to communicate regularly with ethnic, nationality and minority organizations including more than 240 of these already supporting the Museum
Components of the Museum
Issues the Museum could encounter
A plan to create the Museum
A plan to gain public attention for the Museum
A plan to pass legislation in support of the Museum
Draft legislation to create an entity that would be responsible for building and funding the Museum

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

January 28, 2019February 13, 2019

#16: World Class Architecture Design Expected For 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.

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

January 24, 2019February 13, 2019

#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.

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

January 21, 2019February 13, 2019

#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 21^st 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.

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

January 10, 2019February 13, 2019

#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 18^th centuries. They and their descendants thoroughly intermingled and 200 years later they describe their ethnicity as American.

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