Director:
Brent D. Glass
Total Full-Time Employees: 200
Annual Budget (federal and trust) FY 2008:
$36 million
Approximate Number of Artifacts: 3
million
Visitors (2006): 3 million
Background
The museum opened in January 1964 as the National Museum of History and Technology. In October 1980, the name was changed to the National Museum of American History to more accurately reflect its scope of interests and responsibilities. The museum is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., near the Washington Monument.
Collections
The Smithsonian’s
National Museum of American History is responsible for
the collection, care and preservation of more than 3
million objects. The collections represent the nation’s
heritage in the areas of science, technology, sociology
and culture. The collections include first ladies gowns,
a Samuel Morse telegraph, locomotives, tools, an Alexander
Graham Bell telephone, flags, American-made quilts,
Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, Duke Ellington’s sheet
music and presidential artifacts.
The museum closed to the public in September 2006 to complete a 20-month architectural renovation that is scheduled to be completed in fall 2008. The renovation project addresses three specific areas: the building of a new gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the National Anthem; architecture; and infrastructure and public amenities.
- Star-Spangled
Banner: An abstract flag, approximately 40
feet long and up to 19 feet high, soars above the
entrance to the new Star-Spangled Banner gallery and
is the new central focal point of the second floor.
Visitors to the gallery will experience the 30-by-34
wool and cotton flag in a new setting with floor-to-ceiling
glass windows designed to evoke the “dawn’s early
light” by which Francis Scott Key saw the flag, still
flying above Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor in 1814.
- Architecture:
The museum features a central core atrium with a new
skylight that dramatically opens the building and
a grand staircase to connect the museum’s first and
second floors. Extensive 10-foot-high artifact walls
on both the first and second floors showcase the breadth
of the museum’s 3 million objects, and the Nina and
Ivan Selin Welcome Center on the second floor helps
orient visitors. On the first floor, there is an exhibition
gallery for the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study
of Invention and Innovation; the new Samuel J. and
Ethel LeFrak Lobby for the 275-seat Carmichael Auditorium;
and new retail operations.
- Infrastructure
and Public Amenities: The renovation work
included replacing and relocating public and staff
elevators, resulting in improved access to the lower
level and the three exhibition floors; the creation
of several new restrooms, including four family restrooms;
replacement of heating, ventilation and air conditioning
systems at the central core; fire- and alarm-system
upgrades; and electrical-system and security improvements.
- The museum
contracted with the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings
& Merrill LLP of New York and Turner Construction
for the overall planning, design and construction.
New York-based design firm Chermayeff & Geismar
and C&G Partners provided the exhibition design
for the new Star-Spangled Banner gallery.
About
the Museum
The National Museum of American History collects and
preserves American heritage in the areas of social,
political, cultural, scientific and military history.
For more information, visit the museum’s Web site at
http://americanhistory.si.edu or call Smithsonian
Information at (202) 633-1000, (202) 633-5285 (TTY).
SI-30B-2008 |