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