0 and joining us now on c anthea hartig. she is the president of the of american historians, which is what? well, since 1907, the age has been in se a nonprofit 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 co college and for year and beyond, colleges. and really kind of coming together in a community of historians, as you can see

behind us, of course, the most of the university presses who hon comes work by bringing their books forth. but the organization headquartered in bloomington indiana,ni of indiana. there has been serving and continuing to refine its mission to really understand what it means to be in service to the field. how we help educators, how we help policymakers understand the past's relevance to ourntemporary lives, and to the future. how is it different than the ciation? mm. h i, i jokingly call them kind of grandma and grandpa, you know, slightly different, you know, older institution. older 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 historians all over the world, but who specialize in u.s. history. so it's kind of a different kind of lens through which to see the profession. can u be a member of both nations?

yeah, i am. yeah. and what is your background? what is your study? field of study? i came up through ucla's history department as an undergraduate and then went toversity of california, riverside, as well as william and mary for my graduateery quickly with the way in which we shaped the land, which we shape objects, which with what we leave, material, that kind of material culture o lives. and so i've been very fortunate to work ases. i've served on state commissions. i've mostly worked in the nonprofit world, and i was running the california historical society in san francisco when the smithsonian came calling which is a very hard call not to take.as honored 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 accessible and meaningful and relevant conference

that i as you're as president, you help sculpt the main themes of the conference and your your service year ends as president with the conference. so thisly is the conference, that program committee and local arrangements committee that i helped create have shaped. and the overarching theme is communities? how do we help communities feel like they have agency in this the great span of history? and notos something that's fossilized or dry or didn't happen to them or di happen to their communities. so i get to do that both on a national scale. at the nation's flagship history museum right there on the national and then as my service to the age, reallyns 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? sure. well, great question for me. history is both as, which i think should be as democratic or used as possible

as a toolkit if you will. i joke tha't operate on brains, but it you know, we do like to change minds, right, by understanding and interpreting the com ' o kind of unlocked some pretty great mysteries of love, of life, of of meaning, of why we do things and studying the past, i think is c active and very meaningful way in whic our present selves, which we understand our families, in which we understand our land and our communities and especially ourselves as political leaders and lowercase p.both kind of actors in this kind of great and i also find itendlessly fascinating. it would be better to that is alive that that truly can inform, you know, the adage

that history repeats itself. history's been very busy lately. it's been watching you. it's been judging you. and history doesn't do anything. historians using the tools of research and scholarship and analysis and interpretation. historians do things right but history has been in the news quite a bit and employedhetorically, in particular. so i find it just endlessly fascinating the way in which history can be both a tool of empowerment, a tool of oppression, a tool of repression and oppression, but a pathway for us all to understandwe are and where we've come from. and i don't necessarily think it's humanly possible physically. the laws of physics will not dictate that history can repeat itself. but i do sometimes like toof folding

in on itself, like an origami of time edges are touching, right? that there's a that there's a a parallel kind of fold that that right. helps you understand the opposite. one. so as director of the american history museum how much do you how much time do you spend with scholastic historians? i am incredibly fortunate to have dozens of historians on h me at the national museum oftradition of bringing in scholars in certain fields. we just ran into one who specialized in the history of lfood and the history of brewing and whether they are specializing in the history of transportation history of modern science, thetory of music, the history of popular culture the movements. it is an incredible kind of group of scholars who choose then to work at the smithsonian and in washington, but who choose to rk i ways that use

material culture, that use the millions of objects that we hold 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 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 history as an 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 interpret in beautiful books that are surrounding us here in the exhibit hall, but in. 75 words, you know, on an a i love that also that kind that. right. of how that you disti. let's say, 18 pages of historiographical material, 250 objects that relate to what that,

you know, into anningful, hopefully multilingual, full set of that help people understand the relationship that they migwith that object? so that's an incredible chcuratorial process i find really fascinating and i'm so to have such great colleagues and every so often and more frequently now we see an article about college jazz cutting their humanities departments or history under fire. why, in this age of information should we be studying history or even going to college? right. so that that 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, of ways. so the first one is that the contestation over memory of how we remember, what we remember, taught, what is taught is as old as the profession itself, right?

which let's say you can take it back to the greeks, but let'say from the 1880s onward, when historians started goi self-identify fying as historians, there's that that kind of tension between what is shared, what is taught how it's perceived. so that's an old art that the newer kind of i think and more troubling art right w it's the division, the devaluation. i' we learn about each other throughout time and the humanities as a touchstone, i think has sustained our civilizations since the earliest ones in slightly different forms. and i'm not taking a totally kind of eurocentric perspective of this, but history and memory and that which we 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 dictato.rial orders that are in place right now, the laws

that are in place limit them access to information in an to your point where information is all around us, where if we don't have the tools of critical reading and critical thinking, 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 training ourselves. and i, you know, to, you know with the ability tinly and ascertain critically, i think we're losing. so much of what what makes the human experience. seetar bunch, you know 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 that and stopping that or shaping that. i think you know, is a form of censorship that the united

states in has wrestled with for from its but it is a particularly grist. grist where my dear, when it comes to the american history museum, which you run. has technologyac display things? oh, absolutely. and some really wonderful ways ac. so if you come into any of our newe and you are blind or low vision, we have on the floor your cane would tap to just elegant, maybe ten inch raised stainless steel plates and they're dirt tap plates or tap points. so you then you would know that there's something there that you can either touch or feel. and so like a full cast bronze casters, every sequence for you to to feel. know that there would be a qr code, that your phone would then pick up and then you would be if you pass if you have earphones in, or if you wanted to listen to it, that you then would hear

what the label says, right? that's technology that certainly we may have had a decade ago or two decades ago, but that wasn't employed as readily or as without the technology we have today. and so that' technology can make things so accessible. technology. today? you know, people have been arguing about technology. you know, probably since the first time machine. i mean, these are long arguments over what technological advances, what innovation, what invention does to both the arts the crafts, people's livelihoods so t 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 element that has a lot of people write a paragraph about your bio or my bio, and fed you because we

have the computing in the collection. those curators in particular arfascinating to talk to because they see it in this long, kind of complicated dance of our uneasiness with tec back to what something i mentioned just a bit ago in people ascertain and have knowledge of what's generated through especially so it i think it kind of comes back to some of the same challenges you could read something today and you think, oh, that's about that's about advanced a.i. taking over our writing. and s about a typewriter or it was about some other tech paradigm and that kind of koonin paradigm was was inordinate fear around that. museums roles is to help people with some of those big changes. there have been huge changes in american life in our lifetimes or in the past 250 years.

and so we're thinking about those revolutions as we careen towards 2026, which will be of the declaration of independence. so we're asking ouwhat's revolutionary? i mean truly dra revolutionary. we have a lot of material from the revolutionary war in the early republic in our collection, somef our oldest material, and surprisingly. but we also are asking out what truths are self-evident? how are we cre equal or not? what moments in time have been revolutionary? last 250 years? and what objectsrevolutionary? thomas jefferson's writing desk on which he drafted the declaration. i think we can call that a revolutionary object. 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 in october of 1776 and then raised up and- sixties as we were building

that massive 800,000 square foot building. clearly au know what else is, you know, what areer so we're we're embarking on a really excitingthink about the semicolons centennial inre both kind of predictable that you'd want to come see the washington the that get you thinking aboututions are what major revolutions are. one of my curators in home and communit forth the first commercially produced crackpot as a revolution or object just for the first time, you can put come back 8 hours later and actually have dinner and not tend to it all day, you know? so for working women, was that a revolutionary obje? i'm sure for many. i asked my mom, she's like, oh yeah, that was revolutionary. you know? so we 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 we can really take them on a journey with us, and then they can also help us with their reactions and their contribution shows to our understanding. to really create that r and that fullness of our understanding. and that's not it's not monochromatic, it's not mono linear, but it'sdynamic and multiple, varied and complicated. anthea hartig how do you avoid politicizing history? arkin hmm. great question sir. so the smithsonian is avowedly and i'm very consciously nonpartisan, secretary bunch, all of us, i think, as human beings and in this country, withconstitutional freedoms, we are bodies can be political, our actions can be worrying about being political as politicize sized. it's it's less about being

partizan as beinnd of inclusive of a huge, a e of political thought, which is is, is, i challenging but also madevery doable by the breadth of our collectionect the with every we collect every presidential election and we joke that like our careers would be the only ones going like in 2020, before i had to pull them from the field because they were in the field whenovid hit, they joked that it would be the reporters c-span probably and the be at a sanders rally and a trump rally in the same day. so part of it is that the collection and the interpretive interpretation of the collection in that way and then part of it too is being veryhoughtful and being unafraid to be contextual, but also being very thoughtful about b overtly

seem like an overtly progressivean overtly conservative. you know, there is a there's a there's always the risk from both sides that the political spectrum that one will see in the other your actions, your interpretations, your words on a label, your choice of an object yourknow, your educational material as is far to one side or the other. and one of, i think my biggest roles and in a way biggest challenge is to take the scholarship of fantastic historians who continue to do really meaningful work. we're pushing the boundaries of both what the past is and what our traditionalotions, our traditional definitions of self and of gender and of body politic and our own bodies. to then put that into a museum context in which this year over 3 million people will see in the

building and 12 million people were access online. so it'shink that there are i think we handle that to your question with that kind of thinking and thoughtfulness. compassion and and really i think leaning into the the wealth of scholarship and the wealth of knowledge aot running away from it but also kind of keeping keeping in mind that audience will need some not all summer, i'm sure. far smarter than i am, but they' us to be that bridge. bridge between cutting edge scholahip.what they think american history is or should be or has been, and then what they can learn by a presentation of of both fact and knowledge and object and artifact. and to your point about technology, by using technology, especially visual technol, agi, to be able to condense like years of entertainment history

or years of, of political history through your media and right through the visual medium of film and digital. now, of course, digitized. so i love i love the question because it is a constant. if we don't if we fail to ask it, then we won't be doing our jobs. well. right. if we fail tohat we're in this moment, which is dense and complicated and contested. and if people can see us as a as ad to learn and maybe to sit next to someone who you've never met before you're standing and looking at an object in a case or you're involved in a on site educational activity and think together about it facing the nation or just get to know each other and a neutr space. speaking of civics, what should high school students know about our nation? much as they can.

coming out of coming out of high school which what should be should there be a national well so the smithsonian educators around the country the departmentf education, all worked on a new roadmap calle democracy. it was finished just as the big rollout plans andas not just it was going to be the year of the woman for the centennial of suffrage. year when this brand new civics and history and social studies curricula was released. it was released, but, of course, the pandemic interrupted so much painfully of our but it's still a remarkable and remarkableencouraging, along with the national council of social studies. i mean, all of the big kind of educational groups in the nation are encouraging teachers, districts,hr 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 history a learning of the past exciting and dynamic and relevant and, you know, a little bit less like your grandfather's civics in a way.but still very mindful of the fact that educated populace is essential for a democracy's future. and so if they school with the tools of understanding of their own and their own power, right, what their vote will mean, they'll get to vote, most of them, if they're 18. right. for the first time when they graduate. and if they can feel like they are informed about what that awesome. right to franchise and people fought so hard for for so many years. i think that would be a success. what's it called again? educating for american democracy. and is it available on your with a whole host of other , that edu, you're an

edu and not a gov or an edu. why is that? because the vast majority of our work asw scientists and as curators is considered to be scholarly. what's the most important exhibit? what's the most popular exhibit at american right now? oh, it's tough. we opened about 18 months ago. we opened entertainment nation national spectator, which is the culmination of about ten, 15 popular culture collections. sports, broadway, film and you have ruby slippers, dizzy gillespie is trumpet, r2-d2 and c-3po and the original kermit the frog.e's some stiff competition but what i love about that the most popular right now is its yes about popular from. about 1842 to the present, but it's more about how we've used entertainment, sports, music etc. popular forms as national

forums to come together about who we are, who we are as a nation. who's included? who's excluded? what did we produce? you know, what d what do we exclude? and it i think it' rightfully one of the most popular, perennially, although the star-spangledanner, the presidents and the first gowns and china and the most recently, of 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 tim's dress was given to the smithsonian, we collected masks. dogowns? we do. since. since taft. but we do something from each first lady starting, of course, with martha washingt they're not all in display because we don't have the room, but they are in the collection. how many things are on display

in the building on the mall in washington, and how many things not on display? excellent question. and a slightly tricky one to answer. the of the two plus millionexhibit, roughly 3 to 4%. so what's essential about thatis a radical digitization effort which for undertaking now we to get as many of those objects not all. d yo 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 also to make sure that so those are the most accessible we can't get. those can go all around the world, but a that scholars and researchers know that what we have and and that we we have a number of traveling exhibitions right now that some very small they cthat need a you know, 3500 square foot space inmuseum. so i love the way iwe that our our

work and ourdisseminated as broadly as possible. anthea hartig do you think t the right amount to display, or would you like to see that ten 20, 30%? oh, you know, that'i i do think thatit, but i think i'm an answer in two ways. but think that sometimes it's actually not the 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 was i mean, we have an amazing lincoln collections and some of themsphat. but do you know do is do you need that kind of much more than that to telegraph that story or in the case of objects that you can see? an amazing chronology and a change over time where we have all patent office. those are astounding. and i would love to see mo on display because you can kind of instantly see how

inventors that were thinking about different elements ofneed and prowess and inventiveness. so i think i would like to see more. i love those. i'd like to unlock the collection mostly through our digital mean what we found it doing. so let's say we put and we work with communities and we crowdsource translation of our chinese currency and our numismatics collection. what we learn by asking people like will you help us translate th part of our collection, which is an associate, is the national name is native on. is that then started? yes. volunteering their time to do that but to then asking for more like well what else do you have? you know, th could what else is in the collection that needs our helpce you unlock some of the digital facsimiles of those glasses, then you want, well, what else do youright? so sometimes they i think they really do kind of play so well together of getting people

interested in the objects and in the archival material, bringing them and letting them deeper. and research also then helps us decide how we privilege our own work, our own digital efforts our own exhibit efforts, our. so how does your smithsonian and president of h come together? how they come together? and so i'm the second person to be the president of o h who is not allied a generally a full professor at a university and the only other one was also a smithsonian employee. 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 my my being you're nominated as vice president, president elect. president, you. it's an ascension w approved by the secretary. there has to beas especially as museum directors. really anyone.

the nonprofit is is carefully reviewed fokinship. right. does it make sense for me too this in my official capacity? and so that was approved. and it' remarkable couple of years. and i think that i÷s hope that my staff and my colleagues and my ?l and the secretary are proud of that. of that kind of j service. it shows to, i think, that the smitonian and many of our my fellow directors are very involved in nonprofits, whether it be in the sciences or the artso much right to the richness of both scholarly capacities, but then really our work on behalf of the american people. anthea hartig is president of the zation of american historians. she's also director of the of american history, the first and the first woman to do so since 2019. we appreciate your spending a little time with us.

thank