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12 National Museum of American History, Behring Center
during fiscal 2001, and thousands more
browsed The American Presidency web-
site or participated in programs at the
Museum.
Opening festivities included a dinner
for exhibition sponsors and other friends
of the Museum.
Family members of
past presidents added
a personal touch by
reflecting on their
White House
experiences. Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s
granddaughter Susan
Eisenhower found the
exhibition appealing
because it “makes what seems awesome
to ordinary Americans both interesting
and accessible.”
A variety of programs made the nation’s
highest office even more accessible:
• The Presidency Family Festival in
February featured music, hands-on
activities, readings by children’s
authors, and the chance to meet past
presidents brought to life by
costumed interpreters.
• John Hope Franklin, noted scholar of
African American history, reflected on
a half-century of presidential initia-
tives on race in an evening
conversation with
Museum
The American Presidency:
A Glorious Burden, a perma-
nent exhibition that opened
in November 2000,
celebrates the continuity
and the challenges of this
unique American institu-
tion. Nine hundred objects
chosen from the Museum’s
political history collection—the largest
of its kind—tell the complex story of the
nation’s highest office.
The most extensive exhibition ever
organized by the Smithsonian has
attracted wide attention—especially
during the uncertain period after the
2000 presidential election when the
media turned to the Museum as a
resource. More than 675,000
people visited the
exhibition
Warren G. Harding called the presidency
“a hell of a job,” and James K. Polk considered
himself “the hardest-working man in this
country.” Thomas Jefferson—just the third
person to hold the office—considered it
a “splendid misery.”
THE AMERICAN PRES IDENCY:
FROM ABOVE: Portrait ofMartha Washington, 1795, byJohn Trumbull; pennant fromLyndon B. Johnson’sinaugurationOPPOSITE: George Washing-ton’s general officer uniform
A Glorious Burden
14 National Museum of American History, Behring Center
historian James Horton.
• The concert series Music of the White
House highlighted music and musi-
cians from the past 150 years—
chamber, jazz, folk, gospel, and more.
Performances sometimes featured the
1903 White House Golden Grand
Steinway, the instrument played in
the East Room until it was given to the
Smithsonian in 1938.
• The popular OurStory: History
through Children’s Literature series
focused on presidential themes
throughout the year. In one program,
Karen Winnick read and signed
her book Mr. Lincoln’s
Whiskers, “President Lincoln”
gave families a tour, and children
wrote letters to President Bush
and made their own Lincoln hats
and beards.
Other resources developed
for The American Presidency
included a teachers’
workshop, a family activity
guide, online and print edu-
cational materials produced
by the Museum in partner-
ship with The History Channel, and an
award-winning book, The American
Presidency: A Glorious Burden, by Lonnie
G. Bunch III, Spencer R. Crew, Mark G.
Hirsch, and Harry Rubenstein.
People across the nation will be able
to enjoy The American Presidency in
their hometowns as two touring versions
are circulated by the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
The exhibition opens at the Chicago
Historical Society in February 2002, and
travels to at least four other venues.
The American Presidency is made
possible by the generous support of
individual donors and corporate part-
ners, including: Kenneth E.
Behring; The History
Channel; Chevy Chase
Bank; Cisco Systems,
Inc.; Elizabeth and
Whitney MacMillan; and
Heidi and Max Berry.
Additional sponsors
include: Automatic
Data Processing, Inc.;
KPMG LLP; Sears,
Roebuck and Co.;
and T. Rowe
Price Associ-
ates, Inc.
D A V I D B E H R I N G
Board member
“The AmericanPresidency has every-
thing a museumexhibition should have:
superb artifacts,fascinating stories,
engaging interactivedisplays. And visitorsfind out that history—
even the history of the world’s most
powerful office—has ahuman side.”
FROM ABOVE: Tricia Nixon Coxand son Christopher Cox withanother guest at the openingdinner for The AmericanPresidency; a young visitortrying on a presidential tophat
Annual Report 2001 15
A C L O S E R L O O K
Exhibition researchoften
yields intriguing discoveries ascurators combine objects to convey
ideas and relate a narrative. TheAmerican Presidency: A Glorious
Burden capitalized on the Museum’svast collection, which is especially
strong in political history. From a preliminary list of several
thousand objects, curators Lonnie G.Bunch III, Spencer R. Crew, Mark G.
Hirsch, and Harry Rubensteinculled about 900 for the
exhibition. In theirsearch throughstorage areas forpresidentialartifacts, Museumstaff made a num-ber of memorablefinds, includingWarren G.
Harding’s elegantturquoise silk
pajamas; TheodoreRoosevelt’s foldingcamp table, unexpect-edly containing somelabeled and preservedbirds from his Africantravels; and an ivory-handled letter seal thatJames K. Polk used
when signing documents and answering correspondence.
The selection processrequired careful compro-mises. “It’s a challenge tochoose the right objectthat tells the story in a freshand exciting way, yet have objects that
are intrinsically interesting to people,”Bunch explained.
Mining the collection
T H E A M E R I C A N P R E S I D E N C Y
FROM TOP LEFT: Detail, GeorgeWashington’s cane; microphoneused during Franklin D.Roosevelt’s fireside-chat radiobroadcasts; an exhibit casefeaturing Dwight D.Eisenhower’s golf bag; WarrenG. Harding’s silk pajamas