and joining us now on c span is anthea hartig. she is the president of the organizing session of american historians, which is well, since 1907, the age h nont and association of historians, mostly in the early days and teaching at universities. but now our membersh spans museum curators, high school history teachers, and, of

courseg junior college and for year and beyond, colleges. and really kind of coming together in a community of historia, course, the most of the university presses o andy bringing their books forth. but e organization headquartered in bloomington, indian is at the university of indiana. there has been serving and continuing to refine its mission to really understand wh to the field. how we help educators, how we help policymakers understand the past's relevance to our em to the future. how is it different than themm. h i, i jokingly call them kind randpa, you know, slightly different, you know, older institutithere's agr ages scope includes all historians in the united states working on the whole range of global issues, including u.s.

history and the age. really focuses on histians all over the world, but who specialize in u.s. history. it'■' kind of a different kind of lens through which to see the profession. n s? yeah, i am. yeah. and what is your study? field of study? i came up through ucla's history department as an undergraduate and then went to university of california, riverside, as well as william and mary for my graduatetudies. and i fell in love very quickly with the way in whiche shaped the land, which we shape objects, which withhat we leave, material, that kind of material culture of our lives. and so i've been very fortunate to work as public servant for two cities. i've served on state commissions. i've mostly worked in the nonprofit world, and i wasal son francisco which is a very

hard call not to to be in that candidate pool, to be the first woman director of the national museum of american history. and so that really has continued. my my kind of conjoined lov■e of tory accessible and and like this conference that i as you're as president, themes e president with the conference. so this technically is the conference, that program committee and local arrangements committee that ielpecreate have shaped. and the overarching theme is are we in service to communities? how do we help communitieselvesy have age nc the great span of history? d not thatistory is something that's fossilized or dry or didn't happen to them or didnn to their

communities. so i get to do that both on a nationaln's flagship history museum right there on the national mall. and then as my service to the age, reallyping, i think, other historians throughout the nation and the world think about their roles in their communities. so why should we know history? why is it important? what does it bring to our present? history is both a set of tools, which i think should be as democratic or used as possible as a toolkit of history, if you will. neuroscience. we don't operate on brains, but it you know, we doy understanding and interpreting the past that we've all inherited. also kind of unlocked some pretty great mysteries of love, of life, of of meaning, of why we do

and studying the past, i think is active and very meaningful way in which we engage■-■■ our present selves, h we understand our families, in which we understand our land and our communities and especially ourselvestical leaders and lowercase p. both kind of actors in this kind of great stage called life and i also find it utterly fascinating and endlessly fascinating. it would be better to history as very much something that is alive inform, you know,e that history repea itself. history's been very busy lately. it's beit's been judging you. and history doesn't do using thf research and scholarship and analysis and interpretation. historians do things right, but history has been in the news

quite a bit and employed right in different ways, rhetorically, in particular. so i find it just endlessly fascinating the way in which both a tool of empowerment, a tool of oppression, a tool of repression and oppression, but■n2z also, i think, a pathway for us all to understand fullness of where we are and where come from. and i don'ts humanly possible physically. the laws of physics will not dictate that history can repeat itself. but i do sometimes like to think of it as kind of folding in on itself, like an origami of time where you realize that maybe the edges are touching, right? that there's a that there's a a parallel kind of fold that that

right. helps you underand th director n how much time do you spend with scholastic historians? i am incredibly fortunate to have dozens of historians on staff kind of joined with me at the national museum ofhistory, g tradition of bringing in fields. we just ran into one who specialized in the history of food and the history of brewing and whether they are specializingtation history of mn science, the history of music, the history of popular culture, the history of political movements. it is an incredible kind of group of scholars who choose then to work at the smithsonian and in washington, but who choose twork in ways that use material culture, that use the

millions of objects thhold in stewardship for the american people. in our collection to really help tell those stories and enliven the past in ways that truly archival material, which we also have miles of linear feet of archival material, kind of joining, if you■' will, our federal partners at the national archives and the library of congress. but if you then infuse that with both oral traditions, the written word, printed word, and the objects that we have created and that we've handed down in time, i think you have an incredibly opportunity to tell a very dense, meaningful stories, but then to figure out how to interpt those not in beautiful books that are surrounding us here in the exhibit hall, but in. 75 words, you know, on an s a i love that also that kind of that art of that.

right. of how that you distill. let's say, 18 pages of historiographical material, 250 how do you bring that, you know, into an■ accessible, meaningful, hopefully multilingual, full see understand the relationshiwith t object? so that's an incredible le■unge, that kind of curatorial process i find really fascinating and i'm so fortunate to have such great colleagues and every so often and more frequently now, we see an article aboutge jazz cutting their humanities departments or history under fire. ■3 of information should we be studying history or even going to college? right. at kind of ebb and flow, i think especially of of academic history departments in

the history wars of the nineties that probably both of us remember. i, i, i see in a couple of ways. so the first one is that tcontew we remember, what we rememr, how we are taught, what is taught is as old as the profession itself, right? which let's say you can take it back to the gree, 1880s onwardn historians startedoichool, selfy fying as historians, the that td of tension between what is shared, what is taht how it's perceived. so that's an old art that the newer kind of i think and more troubling art right now is that it's the division, the devaluation. i'm thinking vanities of how we learn about each other throughout time and the humanities a touchstone, i think has sustained our civilizations since the earliest

ones in slight different forms. and i'm not taking a totally kind of eurocentric but history remember, that which which we passed down to generation to generation is one of the sustaining through lines of our shared humanity. and i think disruptions in that kind dic orders that are in place right now, the laws that are in■a place limit them access to information in an is all around us, where if we don't have theand critical thin, how then can we or our our our children, our grandchildren, then kind of ascertain truth from fiction, from a real photograph, from a completely created one?

if we're not kind of i, you kno, with the abilityo ascertain critically, i think we're losing. so much of what wh makes the human experience. secretary lonnieq7 bunch, you kw for whom i work, says it so well when he says that to to find and locate and be unafraid of the full is history is is then when we know you know the most we can about ourselves and truncating a stopping that or shaping that. i think you know, is a form of censorship that the united states in partic has wrestled with for from its inception. but it is a particularly grist. grist wherer( the grist mill of history, my dear, when it comes to the american■p history museu, which you run. has technology impacted how you display things? oh, absolutely. and some really wonderful ways,

actually. so if you come into any of our hibits and you are blind or low vision, we have on the floo cane would tap to just elegant, maybe ten inch long, just slightly raised stainless steel plates and they're dirt tap plates or tap points. so you then you that there's something there that you like a full cast bronze cast of dorothy's ruby slippers, every sequence for you to to and then you'd also know that there would be a qrod then pickp and then you would be if you pass, if you ha earphones in, or if you wanted to listen to it, that you then uld hear what the label says, right? we may have had a decade ago or two decades ago, but that wasn't employed as readily or as

thoughtfully without the technology we have today. andmple of how technology can make technology.ccessible. today? you know, people have been arguing about technology. you knowprobably since the first time machine. i mean, these are long arguments over what technological advances, whatn, what invention does to both the arts, crafts, people's livelihoods so that you can see it in a long arc. artificial intelligence is not a new thing. capacity of that can be tricky or any of the chat boxes that i think is like one core element that has a lot of people uneasy when you can ask it to write a paragraph about your bio or my bio, and it's, it's not how fed you because we have the

hi computing in the collection. those curators in particur fasce they see it in thisce of our uneasiness with thn back to whai mentioned just a bit ago in terms of helping people ascertain and have knowledge of what's generated through, especially advanced a.i. so it i think it kind of comes back to some of the same challenges you could■4 you think, oh, that's advanced . taking over our writing. and you realize, no, it was about a typewriter or it was about some other technologil moment where that paradigm and that kind of koonin paradigme ws inordinate fear around that. and i think one of the museums roles is to help people with

some of those big changes. there have been huge changes in american lifetimes or in the past 250 years. and so we're thinking about those revolutions as we careen towards 2026, which will be"e te 250th anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence. so we'reskwhat's revolutionary? i mean, truly drafting th revol. early republic in ourrial collection, some surprisingly. but we also aren asking ourselves, well, what what truths are self-evident? how are we created equal or not? what moments in time have been revolutionary? the last 250 years? and what objtsrevolutionary? thomas jefferson's writing desk drafted the declaration. i think we can call tt a

bject. the gunboat. philadelphia, from 1776, the first commissioned land, three boats in what was that would become the us navy, but wasn't yet when she was sunk in the battle of lake champlain in october of 1776 and then raised up androught to the museum in the sixties as we werethat masst building. clearly a object. but you know what else is, you know, what are the other 248? so we're we're embarking on a really exciting semicolons centl in ways that are both kind of predictable that you'd want to come see the washingtoth of 202s that get you thinking about what a what quiet revolutions are what major revolutionsone of myd commforth the first commercially producedrevolution or object jur

the first time, you can putn thk 8 hours later and actually have dinner and not to it all day, you know? so for working women, was that a revoluonari'm sure for many. i asked my mom, she's like, oh, yeah, that was revolutionary. you find those entry points into the past where people both kind of identify with an object. and because we have such a rich collection, there are so many, i think, to choose from. and then we take them. we can really take them on a journey with us, and then they can■v also help us with their reactions and theirows to our u. to really create that■understan. and that's not it's not linear, but it's it's rich and dynamic and multiple, varied and and and complicated.

anthea hartig how do you dpolit? arkin hmm. great es sir. so the smithsonian is avowedly and i'm very consciously nonpartisan, but lonnie, secretary bunch, all of us, i think, beings and in this country, with our freedoms, our constitutional freedoms, we are act, our bodies can be political, our actions can be political. so it's less about worrying about being political as it's it's less about being partizan as being a kind of inclusive of a huge, a thought, which is is, is, ih cho made very. very doable by the breadth of our collection because if we go

and collect the with every we collect every presidential election and we joke thats wouly ones going like in 2020, before hem from the field because they were in the field when covid hit, they joked that it would be the■b reporters c-span probably and the smithsonian curators who would be at a sanders rally and a trump rally in the samet is thae collection and the interpretive interpretation of thein that wat too is being very thoughtful and being unafraid to be contextual, but also being very thoughtful about overtly that will seem like an overtly progressiventerpretation of the past or an overtly conservative. you know, there is a there's a

there's always the risk from both sides political spectrum that one will see in the other your actions, your interpretations, your words on a label, your choice of an object, your op ed, you know, your educational material as is leaning too far to one side or the other. i think my biggest roles and in a way biggest take the scholarship of fantastic ho continue to do really meaningful work. we're pushing the boundaries of both what the past is and what our traditional notions, our traditional definitions of self and of■2m gender and of body politic and our ownies. to then put that into a museum context in over 3 million people will see in the ccess online. so it's there are

i think we handle that thinking. but also compassion i think leae the wealth of scholarship and the wealth of knoed but also kind of keeping keeping in mi ae not all summer, i'm sure. far smarter than i am, but they'll us to be that bridge. bridge between cutting edge holarship. what they think american history is, or should be or has been, and then what they can learn by a presentation off both fact and knowledge and object and t about technology, by using technology, especially visual technol, agi, to bab condense like

years of entertainment history or years of, of political history through your media and right medium of film and digital. now, of course, digitized. that. i love the question because it aát constant. if we don't if we fail to aske'r jobs. well. right. if we fail to realize that we're in this moment, which is dense and complicated and contested. and if people can see us as a as apartisan place to come in and to learn and maybe to sit next to someone who you'vere, 'd looking at an objectnvolved in e educational activity and think together about it get to know each other and be in a that kind of a neutral space.

speaking of civics, what should nation?ool students know about much as they can. coming out of coming out of high school, should there be a national standard? well, so the smisoeducators aro, the department education, all worked on a newican democracy. it was finished just big rolloud 2020 was not just it was going to be the year of the woman for the centennial of suffrage. it was going to be the year when this brand new civics and history and social studies curricula was released. it wasel course, the pandemic interrupted so much painfully of our lives. but it's still a remarkable and remarkable resource that we're

encouraging, along with the na council of social studies. i mean, all of the big kind of are encouraging teachers, districts, states to both you know, learn about, but also employ. it was very carefully and thoughtfully done and it opens up venues. to your point about what should they come out of high school learning that makes learning of civics, learning of histo a ■fle past exciting and dynamic andi? relevant and, you know, a little bit less like your grandfather's civics in a fact that educated populace is essential for a democracy's future. and so if they had emerged from high school with the tools of understanding of their own and their own power, right, what their vote will mean, they'll ge v they're 18. right. for the first time when they graduate. and if they feel like they are informed about what that

awesome. right to franchise and fought so hard for for so many 7=■n■years. i think that would be a success. what's it called again? educating for american democracy. and is it available on your website? it is along with a whole host of other■p educational material and curricula at american history. that aside, that edu, you're an edu and not a gov or an edu. wh that? because the vast majority of our work as the scientists and as curators is considered to be scholarly. what's the most important what's the most popular exhibit right now? oh, it's tough. opened entertainment nation, national spectator, which is the

culmination of about, ars of wor culture collectnsction of music, sports, broadway, film and u walk in and you have ruby slippers, dizzy gillespie c-3po and the original kermit the competi, but what i love about thatmost s yes about popular culture from. about 1842 to the present, but it's more about how we've used entertainment, sports, music, etc. popular forms as national who we are, who we are as a nation. what did we produce? you know, what do we include? what do we exclude? and it i think i's rightfully one of the most popular, perennially, although the star-spale banner, the presidents and the firstthe fi'a

and the mo rectl course, masks, because with dr. biden's inaugural outfits, because there was no gown, she had a daytime ensemble and an evening ensemble. both of the designers, both women designers, created masks to go with it. so for the first time since edith taft's dress was given to the smithsonian, we collected masks. doe all the first lady's gowns? we do. since. since taft. but we do something from each first lady starting, of course,y because we don't have the room, but they are in the collection. how many things aron display in the building on the mall in washington, and how many things are not on display? excellent question. andcí it's it's a slightly tricy one to answer. the symptom rule is, of the two plus million 4%.

so what's essential about that is a radical digitization effort, which for undertaking we to get as many of those objects not't want all of them online, but you want a big bulk of them. so we're working to get at least about. 1000000 to 2000005 objects ■8 also to make sure that so those are the most accessible we can't get. those can go all around the world, but also to make sure that scholars and have and and that w'5e hav traveling exhibitions right now that some very small theya maine that need a you know, 3500 square foot space invironmentald museum. so i love the that our our workd our broadly as possible.

anthea hartig do you think that 3 to 4% is the right amount to display, or would you like to see that ten, 20, 30%? oh, you question. i i do think that[] there's. it, but i think i'm an answer in two . both. i think that sometimes it's quantity, but the quality of the object that can speak to us. if there's if it is unique and there is one the top hat that president lincoln was wearing when he wasted, you don't need much. i mean, we have an amazing lincoln collections and some of them hat. but do you know do is do you íg■ene than that to telegraph that story or in the case of objects that you can see? chronology and a change over time where we have

all th=e patent models from the patent office. those are astounding. those on display because you can kind of instantly see how inventors ther thinking about different elements of of technological need and prowess and inventiveness. more. i love to unlock the collection mostly through our ■&digital means, because what we found it doing. so let's say we put and we work with communities and we crowdsource translation ofurchir numismatics collection. what we learn by asking people like will you help us tranat pa, which is an associate, is the national name then started? yes. volunteering their time to do thatut to then asking for more like well what else do you have? yoat could what else is in the collection that needs our help or once you unlock some

of the digital facsimiles of those glasses, then you want, well, what else do you have? an optical history, right? so sometimes they i think they really■ play so well together of getting people interested in the objects and in the archival matiag them and letting them deeper. and research also then helps us decide how we privilege our own work, oun digital efforts, our own exhibit efforts, our. so how does your position at the h come together? how they come together? and so i'm the second person to be president of o h who is not allied a generally a full professor at a university and the only other one was also a and i think it will i hope it

has it aligned. well, i hope that both the smithsonian and the h feel i have served them■çmy my being n. you're nominated as vice president, president elect. president, you. it's an ascen was approved by the secretary. there has to be any of our service as especially as museum directors. really anyone. the another nonprofit is is carefully■e7%evied for kind of kinship. right. does it ■&ma sense for me to do this in my official capacity? and so that was approit's been e couple of years. and i think tt hope that my staff and my colleagues and my board and the secretary are proud of that. of that kind of service. it shows to, i think, that the ■ffellow directors are very

involved inor the arts to the richness scholarly t then really our work on behalf . anthea hartig is president of zation of american historians. she's also director of the smithsonian's national museum of american history, the firs and t woman to do so since 2019. we acinding a little time with us. thanky:/the 1850s was a time oft

political crisi you've got violence everywhere as the natiois j fracturing over this issue of slavery. you chopping their heads open with broad swords. inhe u.s. senate, you have, charles sumner, getting beaten to within an inch of his life. it's a period in which people are incredibly engaged witthl w.