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#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:

  1. 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.
  1. How both museums tell their stories and how the NMAP will follow their examples.
  1. An exploration of the timeline to build both museums and why the NMAP will aim to follow the USHMM lead in this area.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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 14th and 15th 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.
  1. We will explore the visitor experiences at the NMAAHC and the USHMM and examine what that experience will be like at the NMAP.
  1. 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.
  1. The USHMM and the NMAAHC deal with the historic and contemporary ravages of genocide, racism, xenophobia, slavery and anti-Semitism. So will the NMAP.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. How do all three museums compare with the National Museum of American History?
  1. How do they compare with the National Museum of the American Indian?
  1. How do they compare with the proposed National Museum of the American Woman?
  1. 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

 

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#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

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#38: Latino/Hispanic Story Is Incorporated into All 4 Chapters of National Museum of the American People

Flags representing the origins of the nine largest Latino/Hispanic groups in America:
Mexican, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Cuban, Dominican, Columbian, Guatemalan, Ecuadoran, Honduran

The history of Americans of Hispanic/Latino descent is the only story, along with Native Americans, that will flow through all four chapters of the Making of the American People, the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of the American People from the first people in the Western Hemisphere through today.

In the Museum’s first chapter that goes from prehistory to the founding of the Jamestown colony in 1607, includes the story of first contact between natives and Europeans which is predominantly about Spanish and Portuguese explorers and settlers interacting with natives in the Western Hemisphere after 1492. This chapter includes the first Spanish arrival in what is now Puerto Rico in 1493 and the first Spanish settlement in what is now the United States at St. Augustine, FL in 1565.

In the second chapter from 1607 to 1820 the Museum’s story will focus on what is now the United States and all of its territories. During this period Hispanics moved into those lands, primarily in the U.S. Southwest. They also owned territory that would later be lost to the French who sold it to the newly established United States.  Likewise, Florida and the New Orleans area were Spanish territories that become part of the U.S. during this period.

In the third chapter from 1820 to 1924 the U.S. fought wars with both Mexico and Spain. As a result it acquired Hispanic lands, including California and most of the rest of the U.S. Southwest, from Mexico. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were obtained from Spain. Texas, which had gained independence from Spain on its own, was annexed by the U.S. during this chapter.

In the last chapter from 1924 through today, the Museum will tell the modern immigration stories from the Americas. These new arrivals have primarily come from Mexico, but large numbers have also come from other Hispanic nations and territories in the Caribbean, principally Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The story of their journeys across the nation’s borders is one of the major issues facing our nation today.

Supporting the Museum now are 25 Hispanic/Latino organizations representing Americans from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Cuba, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia as well as blanket organizations representing a cross section of all Hispanics or Latinos.

There are already 23 eminent scholars from universities across the U.S. supporting the Museum who focus on the study of Latino and Hispanic history and culture. They and others who will join in the future will help the Museum tell its story.

While there has been a call for a separate Smithsonian museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC devoted to Latino history and culture, in December the Smithsonian announced that it would create a permanent exhibition devoted to Latino history and culture in its National Museum of American History. That museum attracts more than 3 million visitors annually and that new permanent exhibition is scheduled to open in 2020.

The story of Hispanics/Latinos told in the context of the history of all those who have become Americans will attract all groups to see their own stories and better understand everyone else’s story. One of the primary goals of the National Museum of the American People is to bring all Americans together.

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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#37: You Don’t Have to Be a Smithsonian Museum To Make It in Washington, DC

One of the issues for the National Museum of the American People is whether it will be part of the Smithsonian Institution or independent of it. In this article we’ll look at some of Washington’s museums, both public and private, that are independent of the Smithsonian. In future blogs we’ll discuss Smithsonian museums and proposals for new museums in Washington.

National Gallery of Art

 While there are many great art museums in Washington, we’ll only touch on one here because it is on the National Mall, the National Gallery of Art. While it seems part of the Smithsonian it is actually independent of it. It consists of two major buildings, the neo classical West Building opened in 1941, the East Wing that opened in 1978, and the NGA sculpture garden that opened in 1999. This complex stretches from 3rd Street to 9th Street along the Mall on Constitution Avenue. The NGA has 4.3 million visitors a year and is asking this year for an appropriation of $137 million to operate.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The USHMM, located just off of the National Mall near the Washington Monument, has served about 1.7 million visitors a year since it opened. It receives an annual appropriation now of approximately $59 million a year. It is a public-private partnership like the Smithsonian and has recently undertaken a long-term $1 billion fund-raising effort. The museum opened in 1993 and was the first significant museum in Washington that tells its story in a chronological fashion. Early visitorship studies found that the average visitor spent about 3 hours walking through the museum’s story about the history of the Holocaust.

Spy Museum

The International Spy Museum opened in Washington in 2002 as a private museum and has had about 300,000 visitors a year since it opened. This Spring it is moving to a large new building a few blocks off of the National Mall on L’Enfant Plaza. It is just a block away from the NMAP’s favored site at the Banneker Overlook. The Spy Museum charges $23 for adults for visitors to walk through the history of the dramatic spying profession around the world.

Bible Museum

Another new museum in Washington opened in 2017, the Museum of the Bible. A private museum funded by the founders of the Hobby Lobby, it tells about the history of the bible. It charges $25 per adult and has had 500,000 visitors during its first six months.

National Geographic Museum

Operated by the National Geographic Society, its exhibits focus on natural history, culture and history along the lines of the society’s National Geographic Magazine. The society was established in 1888 and is a non-profit organization in Washington. Located in downtown DC, this museum charges $15 for adults to visit its exhibits.

Newseum

The Newseum, started by the Freedom Forum funded by the Gannett newspaper company, promotes the 1st Amendment clause to the Constitution calling for freedom of the press. It moved to its DC location on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol Building in 2008. While it says it has 815,000 visitors a year and charges $25 for adults to visit, it announced in January that it sold its building and will close the museum.

National Archives

The National Archives is most famous for displaying the nation’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Archives attract 1 million visitors a year to its building across the street from the National Mall on Pennsylvania Avenue. The federal agency was born in 1934. Before that, federal documents were housed by the State Department and the Library of Congress. It is funded by federal appropriations.

Library of Congress

An arm of Congress, the three buildings of the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill attract 1.6 million visitors, most of them to its Jefferson Building across the street from the Capitol and the Supreme Court. Holdings include one of the original Guttenberg Bibles. Its collections of books and documents is massive and it changes its displays periodically. Its reading room is one of the most interesting and famous rooms in the Nation’s capital. Its funding is from federal appropriations.

 National Museum of the US Navy

Operated by the U.S. Navy at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, the museum chronicles the U.S. Navy from its beginning during the Revolution through today. Located on a military base poses some hurdles for visitors, but it is free and counts about 200,000 visitors a year. The Navy Yard is located adjacent to the Washington Nationals baseball stadium and has a Metro stop near the main gate of the Yard. While smaller collections of Navy memorabilia opened in 1865 soon after the Navy Yard opened, the current museum opened in 1963.

German American Heritage Museum

Located in a townhouse in the Penn Quarter of downtown Washington, this museum focuses on the heritage of all Americans of German descent. The museum is free and is operated by the German American Heritage Foundation. It opened in 2010.

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum

This museum chain opened its Washington branch in 2007. It features wax likenesses of U.S. presidents, first ladies, cultural icons and famous people from music, sports, media and entertainment. Located downtown, it costs $22 per adult ($18 online) for tickets.

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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#34: The NMAP’s National Genome/Genealogy Center Would Help Visitors Discover Their Ancestors

One of the proposed components of the National Museum of the American People would be a center where visitors could learn about their ancestors on two levels.

First, through genealogy they would be able to trace their immediate and direct ancestors through various records.

Second, visitors could contribute their DNA information to provide more general and distant information about a person’s past.  We’ll be talking about this in more detail in our next blog post.

For genealogy research, the Museum would partner with organizations throughout the nation and the world with extensive data bases to help those researching their families fill in the blanks of their ancestors’ lives.

The Family Search Center and Family History Library in Salt Lake City, operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the best known of these entities. Containing the records of more than three billion deceased persons, this is the largest collection of its kind in the world. The Salt Lake City library attracts about 2,000 visitors a day. Holdings include census records, passenger and immigration lists at major U.S. ports, military records and state, county and town vital records. Some records go back to 1550.

Another significant source of data is the National Archives and Records Administration, which has military records going back to the Revolutionary War, Census data from 1790 through 1940, and a variety of documents, photos, recordings and other materials grouped by ethnicity. Researchers who visit there can discover ship manifests including the names of their ancestors who first arrived in the U.S. along with details about the ship, where it left from, and where and when it arrived.

State archives also include helpful information from state records, Native American records and pioneer information. The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation has a database of passenger records of those who arrived in New York City. The Library of Congress offers a wide variety of local history and genealogy reference services.

The best place to begin a genealogical chart is to put down what you know, and then to get information from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents or people still alive from their circle of friends and relatives. While most genealogy research is performed by individuals researching their own families, professionals can be hired to do a more detailed search and go farther back in time.

Some genealogists specialize in the heritage of particular ethnic groups, focus on a surname or are experts on a small community. Others focus on famous people and some seek to become part of a genealogical-based group whose ancestors, for example, played a role in the American Revolution, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, or those who came here on the Mayflower.

The National Museum of the American People will incorporate a system that would allow visitors to print out their own genealogical information. All Americans take pride in their heritage whether it be from the early days of our nation or from their parents who emigrated here just in the last generation. The NMAP will assist them in their search for their American roots.

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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# 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:

  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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.
  1. 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

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#19: The National Museum of the American People Can Play an Instrumental Role in Our Foreign Relations


The National Museum of the American People can be expected to have an impact on our nation’s relationship with countries around the globe.

At the opening ceremony for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993, leaders of a dozen nations plus the President of the United States were in attendance. Since then, leaders of 100 countries and 3,500 foreign officials representing 132 countries have visited that museum.

That museum also established strong ties to Poland, Russian and other eastern and central European nations to obtain artifacts and access to archives. It similarly established a collegial relationship with Israel’s national Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem.

The USHMM is just one example of how a center for education and learning in our nation’s capital helps to improve our relationships abroad. The National Museum of the American People will be another important example.

THE NMAP will tell the stories of peoples coming here from every corner of Earth, most of whom had a continental sense of their forbearers and a nationality before becoming Americans.

The ties to those nationalities will be examined and mined by the NMAP to help tell the Museum’s many stories, to obtain artifacts relating to that connection, and to foster relationships between the Museum and nations throughout the world that provided the migrants who became Americans.

The Museum will help answer the question: What exactly is an American? President Reagan said: “America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.’”

The unique nature of Americans representing every race, creed and nationality around the world will be highlighted by the Museum and will help bind Americans together as it faces global challenges.

By making visitors more aware of their own heritage, the Museum can spur Americans to travel to their ancestral homelands. Foreign visitors will certainly visit to learn how emigrants from their lands and nations came and became Americans and contributed to this nation’s role as a world leader.

At the opening of the National Museum of the American People a virtual United Nations of heads of state could be in attendance to help celebrate that special relationship this nation has with every other nation. As the Museum contributes to the democratization of our society it can also serve as a beacon to nations across the world that have increasingly diverse societies.

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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#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

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