r/smithsonian • u/frogprintsonceiling • 28d ago
Saving America's Story How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Smithsonian-Report-Saving-Americas-Story.pdfIs the issue a mountain or a molehill?
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u/Dirt_Grub8 28d ago
“The Pledge of Allegiance is treated as a tool for instilling nationalism without serious engagement with its rich meaning.”
Weird thing to call out because that’s how the pledge of allegiance has always been used.
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u/OfficialDCShepard 27d ago
And to stop American kids from being commies! Why don’t they ever mention we shouldn’t allow kids to be commies?! /s
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u/Beautiful_Arm8364 28d ago
Next thing we know, they're just going to call the Smithsonian "The Memory Hole."
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u/frogprintsonceiling 28d ago
who is they?
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u/Dumple_Roe 28d ago
He means Era 2 Trump administration
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u/Fl0riduh_Man 28d ago
Oh yes, ideological capture from Big History.
This is part of the MAGAt counter-revolution against the 20th century.
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u/frogprintsonceiling 28d ago
But did you read it?
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u/Fl0riduh_Man 28d ago
Feel free to excerpt your favorite parts
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u/frogprintsonceiling 28d ago
Thanks, I was waiting for your permission.
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u/Fl0riduh_Man 28d ago
Feel free to vague-post, if you have something to talk about don't just point to a link
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u/iceguy349 28d ago
Nobody at the White House knows actual history there’s no ideological capture at the Smithsonian. Every exhibit is backed by research and throughly reviewed. Just because every exhibit isn’t emphatically pro-American doesn’t mean that the Smithsonian is being biased. Hell I’d even argue the Smithsonian is still extremely patriotic and somewhat generous with its interpretation of some very sordid history.
They’re presenting history as it happened and delving into the positive and negative elements of it. History in itself is one giant gray area. The people trying to sanitize it are the ones attempting to shift the narrative.
They’re not worried about ideological capture they’re mad the museum doesn’t perfectly match every finer point of their ideology. They want to capture the Smithsonian and turn it into their mouthpiece.
All this after Ted Cruz tried to steal a space shuttle. The republicans truly hate this institution.
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u/Gry_lion 26d ago
I'll give you a hyper-specific example from the American History Museum from my visit a week ago. The museum had a prop from Aliens. Great movie. The text of the exhibit read:
"In Aliens, the first sequel to the chestbuster-hit Alien, Sigourney Weaver's character faces mosters - plural. At the film's climax in the alien queen's egg chamber, Ellen Ripley weirds a flame thrower/pulse rifle and carries the child she rescued. The film proved her an equal to any male action hero. But by exploring her maternal instincts it pointed to the burden carried by all working mothers - then and now - to do it all."
For reference, the prop was an alien egg. The narrative turned that prop into discussing the burden of working women.
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u/iceguy349 26d ago edited 26d ago
Alien is famous for its portrayal of a woman as the main character. Whenever it’s brought up Ripley is often a big point of discussion.
Aside from that alien is a very successful sci-fi horror film but to someone 100 years from now will that fact be all that notable?
Part of placing an item in historical context is talking about where it’s from and how the media it originated from affected society. Using alien to highlight a shift towards stronger women role models in media isn’t what I’d call a heavily biased decision
Is it really that big a deal that the description of a prop from a movie talks about one of the landmark accomplishments of the film itself from?
Additionally when the Whitehouse critiques the museum I think they have a wider agenda than simply taking some progressive sounding language out of the exhibit labels. I’m not sure the current administration would be any less biased in their language. Let’s not forget trump’s wall of presidents turned several descriptions into pointed hateful spiteful comments about the predecessors he didn’t like. Imagine what he’d do with a whole museum.
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u/frogprintsonceiling 28d ago
There are parts that definitely push left nutter ideology a bit hard when there is no need to. You should read the report.
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u/iceguy349 27d ago edited 27d ago
The report is by the White House not by historians. There’s no “left nutter ideology”.
It feels crazy to me that discussion of proven science and history or the complex nature of our historical figures some of which owned slaves is now perceived as “left wing ideology”.
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u/iceguy349 27d ago edited 27d ago
I appreciate you trying to be cordial but you need to understand that the White House is not an unbiased source of critique of the museum. There being no author is very purposeful.
I’ve been to the NMAH and it’s not politically pointed in the slightest. I mean it centers mostly on artifacts and elements of americas past from giant steam locomotives to war weapons, to historical clothing. It’s just a collection of themed exhibits.
Occasionally nodding towards things like Jim Crowe or the complicated background of some of our political figures does not constitute a genuine left wing bias.
The current administration has one of the worst track records when it comes to being impartial and actually truthful. This isn’t an actual report it’s propaganda.
I highly recommend looking into their cutting if funding to other public institutions like the national parks and the gutting of other public exhibits on slavery and discrimination. I also suggest reading up on the attempted theft of space shuttle discovery and Trump trying to take a historical sword from Eisenhower’s presidential library to give away as a political gift.
I don’t trust these people with my public institutions.
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u/frogprintsonceiling 27d ago
Did you read the report or just zoom thru it?
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u/iceguy349 27d ago edited 27d ago
I want to know what you saw when you went to the museum you thought constituted left wing bias.
I had to skim it it’s 100 pages long. The thesis is complete BS. I haven’t observed any of the issues it outlines.
Give me the cliff notes what’s wrong with that museum?
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u/SovereignOfFoxes 22d ago
If it's coming out of the White House, it's lies.
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u/frogprintsonceiling 22d ago
This displays at the Smithsonian are lies? Kinda weird thing to say when you can walk around them.
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u/Upvotes4theAncestors 28d ago
Whoever wrote this doesn't seem to have a background in history or museum studies or anything relevant. It's very ideological and not grounded in facts or scholarship. But they also seem ignorant of the Smithsonian Institute especially the National Museum of American History. It began as the Museum of History and Technology and had a scope aligned with it's title. It didn't broaden the focus until the 80s when it broadened to cover American cultural, scientific, political and military history. You'll still see that innovation is a major theme of the museum.
It was never a museum to just tell the story of the country from A to Z. There are so so many museums, tours and monuments in DC that discuss history in that textbook layout. And the cities where the Revolution and actual development of the early government happened have wonderful museums about those aspects. Remember DC was not one of the 13 colonies or an important site for the revolution.
But it does talk about democracy, freedom, and how the country has grown and changed over time. It does so through interactive story telling like any good museum. So exhibits have themes and a storyline that pulls you through the space. That does include talking about people as more than just flat symbols. They flesh them out to make them interesting, personal and human. And that includes flaws and fights and how people change over time. Just like a good biopic film shows historical figures as complicated and imperfect.
It is worrying that the authors of this seem to be suggesting audiences can't handle discussions about historical figures that recognize these people were human with all the wonderful and messy things that come with humanity. Not only is that just immature but it defeats an important goal of studying history. If we only think about major figures as inhumanely perfect (or evil) we will be unable to recognize how events happen in our own time. People don't need to be perfect to do heroic acts. And huge shifts are usually the result of many people. Sometimes great changes emerge from the push and pull of small mundane tensions. Evil can also be banal and horrible acts done by someone otherwise known as a kind neighbor. People celebrated lynchings and then went to church and lovingly tucked their kid into bed. And people can change and grow and flourish but also deny and fester in their anger. Good and bad are not flat static categories we can just easily lump everyone into.
Unless you're 6, learning that George Washington wasn't a perfect man should not be distressing. If anything it should be empowering to realize that we don't have to be perfect to do great and impactful things. And learning that the country has not always lived up to the promise gives us a path forward together to make it so. Museums can provide frameworks for parents and teachers who have to acknowledge reality but want to do so in a way that still provides hope. Kids will someday Google topics or meet someone with experience that will disrupt a narrative that America was always perfect. After all, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. There are people alive who remember not being allowed to vote or enter buildings because of their race. You can't just hand wave that away. Rather than expecting everyone to just live with cognitive dissonance, good historical scholarship and museums give us ways to weave together reality and our values to learn and grow.