came to the smithsonian. and amidst meetings with lynne nichols nicholas, who had written a seminal study rape of europa about work to protect cultural heritage, world war two viewed our collections at the archives of american art, where we keep the monuments officers materials, photographs from their mission, notebooks from monuments, officers. and we signed an agreement reestablishing the of monuments officers. we then faced training in the midst of covid, but worked closely together with the military, with the situation in in afghanistan, trying to protect both artifacts and people. i remember those days. 24 seven scott, corey and i were on the phone emailing texting, trying to do right by the heritage of afghanistan. now, with ukraine, we've been getting supplies and materials into our colleagues who are post-civil war, who is trained. corey and the team was a smithsonian fellow during the time of the haiti project. he is now a leader. ukrainian cultural heritage protection efforts in light of the russian

i am which the smithsonian's ambassador at large. first and foremost, i would like to extend a welcome to our colleagues and friends from the u.s. army, distinguished leaders and of course, our officer graduates, and they're rightly proud and maybe loud families. we i'd like to welcome distinguished guests from the monuments family foundation, including members of the board, and relatives of the world war ii monuments officers. this is a very special occasion, i don't usually wear this every day to work at the smithsonian. but i'd also like to welcome, a guest from bank of america, who supported the initiative from the beginning, and finally my smithsonian colleagues, and those from sister organizations involved in cultural heritage protection, like the department of state, the fbi, the national council museums, and others who have participated in this program as instructors, guides, and enablers. the ceremony today and what it stands for is especially significant. and since we as a museum study and present history all of the time, l

. >> anita has had an impact on the museum and the smithsonian writ large. i think that, for example, what is really important to me is to recognize that museums often forget, part of their job is to collect today for tomorrow. to make sure that we put in place all of the rapid response teams. i first sent them out to ferguson years ago to many -- when black lives matter and washington d.c. has those confrontations, we were there to collect a lot of material and i also sent the rapid response team to collect january 6th. for me, what is important is that i realized that too many times in my career, weather at the smithsonian heard from places i want to tell certain stories but they weren't there. i felt was really important in 90 years ago when i was associate director at the smithsonian, i've actually bringing curators together quarterly to say what should we know today? what should we collect today that somebody needs to know 20 or 30 years or 50 years out. that really is important to me, but i also think it's essential i believe that at times and places,

i think that if a place like the smithsonian is only about yesterday, then it fails. if it uses yesterday to help us understand today and tomorrow, to understand and contextualize the challenges of black lives matter or january 6th at a time when the public needs to find a trusted source, museums tend to be that trusted source. and so what i want to do is never abuse the relationship and the trust people have with the smithsonian. i want to use that to educate, challenge, to prod, to help us find reconciliation. i think it'd be very easy for institutions to say that's not my issues, but i -- my issue, but i think in a crisis if you're not contributing, if you're not fighting the good fight, if you're a place in history and you don't use that history to help othersed today, what you're doing is making history nostalgic rather than -- [inaudible] >> terrific. we have a question from professor tiffany silverman who asks if you might address the challenges around honoring the past as we become equitable to other perspectives and i think specifically she's thinking about m

i think that if a place like the smithsonian is only about yesterday, then it fails. if it uses yesterday to help us understand today and tomorrow, to understand and contextualize the challenges of black lives matter or january 6th at a time when the public needs to find a trusted source, museums tend to be that trusted source. and so what i want to do is never abuse the relationship and the trust people have with the smithsonian. i want to use that to educate, challenge, to prod, to help us find reconciliation. i think it'd be very easy for institutions to say that's not my issues, but i -- my issue, but i think in a crisis if you're not contributing, if you're not fighting the good fight, if you're a place in history and you don't use that history to help othersed today, what you're doing is making history nostalgic rather than -- [inaudible] >> terrific. we have a question from professor tiffany silverman who asks if you might address the challenges around honoring the past as we become equitable to other perspectives and i think specifically she's thinking about m

institution. >> is he still at the smithsonian? ms. brooks: no. that is how i came to hear about him. his fame waned to end the smithsonian's mission change from a cabinet of curiosities to being a scientific research organization, and they were not interested in lexington the racehorse, but they were interested in the skeleton. he was in the hall of mammals as "horse", to "dog" and "pig." then he was in the attic for a while in the natural history museum. but the newly-founded international museum of the horse in kentucky, in lexington wanted him, because he is more than any other horse the reason that lexington, kentucky is the center of europe red breeding today. -- thoroughbred breeding today. is there with a hall dedicated to his insignificance. >> your story centers around the group. is this a fictional part of the story? ms. brooks: as soon as i started to resort -- to research this story of lexington i quickly realized the absolutely fundamental and integral role of skilled black horsemen. the grooms, many of the jockeys, t

institution. >> and is he still at the smithsonian ? >> that was how i came to hear about him because over the years about a century took but the smithsonian's mission changed from being a cabinet of curiosities to being a scientific research organization and they weren't interested in huntington the right course racehorse but they were interested in the skeleton so anyone in the hall of mammals just as a horse next to rabbits and dog andpay . and so that was kind of ignominious and then he was in the attic for a while and the natural history museum but then nearly bounded international museum of the f horse in kentucky in lexington wanted him to cause he is more than any other horse reason lexington kentucky is the incenter of breeding today so now he's there with all room dedicated to his significance and a beautiful exhibition. >> geraldine brooks your story centers around the room, is this affectional part of the story or is as accurate as well ? >>. >> guest: as soon as i started to research the historical story of lexington i foun

unexpectedly connection with jackson pollock in new york in the 1950s led to the science of the smithsonian learning how bones are prepared. the incredible treasure hunt of the support center in maryland.f >> was the benefit of writing historical fiction and what is the limitation? >> i like to think of myself as a gateway drug. [laughter] to me it's finding something true in the historical records. you learn something interesting and unlikely, to paraphrase him, fiction is required to be plausible, truth needn't be. if you made it up, nobody would believe it. you follow the line of what i'm interested in you can't know everything because of the could, if he'd been able to tell hisfr own story and we do about him from his own you but we don't know so you take your empathy to work and when it becomes too much to follow i allow myself to think maybe it went like this so to try to hear the unheard the people who didn't tell the story. >> my guess is you have trouble with the historical research on the black groom and horsemen. >> that was a challenge because enslaved people generally speaking

and from that, we have moved to the smithsonian. how awesome is that. and he was to me, the originator of race reconciliation because it would always talk about, i can do everything. but i will align myself that's how i got to be here and patrick got to be here any always surrounded himself with people that could give him to the next and he understood that. ... ... it was very important that we be true to history. that's how they were identified and it was not an overnight project. the railroad sign has become one of the most momentous signs and the place that fell it is very sacred. you can feel the significance of that time so we put up our first sign and we put up all of our signs there. the night that obama was elected as president, the sign disappeared. polls and everything. the magazine and the news media covered that disappearance of that sign and 30 days later the board of supervisors met and at that meeting the room could not hold the people that were there and they ran the article and the words came off the page as if why did he think that the

the smithsonian, as you know, as jack said, is self funded. joining the smithsonian associates is something i would encourage everyone to do. and a time where we are living in a world that is more uncertain. i would say dangerous than any of us could have predicted. not so long ago, i would like to take us back to date 80 years this past december when it seemed as though the world with no less uncertain. certainly even more. the day after christmas, 1941, winston churchill arose to deliver an address to a joint meeting of the u.s. congress. he had come to washington in the wake of the japanese attacks on pearl harbor. also, the japanese on the same day attacked to american and british military installations across asia and the pacific. all the way into southeast asia. from our vantage point i don't know that we can fully comprehend how desperate the allied cause was at the time. as well as assaulting the u.s. specifically in hawaii, japanese forces attacked the british in hong kong and singapore. and the americans in the philippines. just thre

morning, i am jacked with smithsonian associates. and it is my pleasure to welcome you today seminar and winston churchill. the man behind this is historian kevin matthews. were -- to those of you may not have attended our -- in washington d.c.. smithsonian seizures not federally funded, your donations allow us to continue these programs as they did for the costs not covered by the ticket price. we are very thankful for your support and we hope that you continue to enjoy our programs. and now i am delighted to introduce our speaker for today, kevin matthews is an assistant professor of history at george mason university. before earning a ph.d. in history the london school of economics in political science, he earned a masters degree from the patterson school of diplomacy, and international commerce university at the university of kentucky. and another masters from the american university in international relations and journalism, respectively. his 2004 book, fatal influence, explore the impact of ireland on british politics in the la

i heard from two amazing curators at the smithsonian. will they michael and nancy burkah and after about a year work? reckoning with remembrance oped in flag hall the grand mall side entrance of the national museum of ameran history one of the first questions a lot of pple ask me about this exhibit is why is it here? because if you know your smithsonian landscape, you know that right next door to the national museum of american history. is the national museum of african-american history and culture, so so why isn't this there? a couple reasons first they have a till exhibit and it's amazing right so they don't need another one. but more than that. the smithsonian knows the demographics of their visitors they know. that people go to the african-american museum to see a certain side of american history and those who don't want that side of american history come to the sort of they come to the american history museum which tends towards the patriotic and the sort of the rah-rah go america, right as you can see in the background of this pict

i'm very pleased at the way the smithsonian has got behind this recording. it is great.ore people that get introduced to this music, the better, as far as i'm concerned. ♪ allie: for people not familiar with the genre of bluegrass, there were not that many women fronting their own groups. what did it mean to you to be an outlier at that point? alice: we didn't think about it like that. we were sort of hanging around doing this stuff. we weren't thinking in terms of careers. admittedly, hazel had some -- what i would call difficult experiences. it was more often than not let's let the girl singering a song now. it was not probably as easy for her at the time. then when she kind of came into this circle of people like me, my husband and people in the area who were also playing this music. they accepted her and encouraged her. ♪ allie: your voices in this incredible harmony, when did you realize you really had something special? alice: i listened to her for a very long time before i ever sang with her. we had these music parties were all we did was play music every weekend.

and this was the only thing the smithsonian was at the time. but joseph had becamkind of an informal science advisor to lincoln and lincoln always count on him is that he has science or technology issue. he would call joseph henry seph henry up being the head of this something that lincoln and well set up called the permanent commission of the navy. so lincoln i think everybody here knows lincoln had an open door policy, kept walking in and they'd say, you know, i've got new gun. i've got this new weapon. lincoln, as it showed in the last slide. lincoln went out and tested some of these himself the spencer repeating rifle. he almost got his head blown off testing a high rocket out of navy yard. he didn't and he skipped the next which which was even worse. so so he set up this permanent commission the navy to formally look at all of these inventions. so people kept coming to lincoln because they knew, especially if it got turned down, that they the permanent they would say, wait a second, i'm going to go talk to lincoln. they would talk to linco

unbowed by this violence, the smithsonian and the minneapolis children's museum are transforming the signs once again by contextualizing designs, they're using them to tell a new story about racism that stretches from 1955 to the present day in these exhibits. the sign making citizens of tallahatchie county, mississippi join as the heroes of till's story. when we remember that he opened her son's casket, letting the world see what racism had done to her bike riding boy, it is not difficult to understand the sign building and the sign replacing of tallahatchie county as a fulfillment of her dream. so what's the lesson here? as i tell my students at the university of kansas, memorials are the new lunch counters. in the 1960s, lunch counters were iconic sites of racial agitation, and for a moment they were prized number one in the fight for civil rights. it was at a lunch counter that bernard lafayette and others had detergent poured down their backs. it was at a lunch counter that john lewis and james devil were nearly suffocated. it was at a lunch counter where john was attacked with

the smithsonian as you know, as jack said is self-funded and in any joining the smithsonian associates is is something i would encourage everyone to do. a time when we're living in a world that is more uncertain and i would say dangerous than any of us could predicted not so long ago. i'd like to take us back to day 80 years this past december when it seems that the world was no less uncertain and certainly even more. on the day after christmas 1941 winston churchill rose to deliver and address to a joint meeting of the us congress. he had come to washington in the wake of the japanese attacks on pearl harbor. but also also egypt japanese the same day attacked american and british military installations in asia and the pacific of all way into southeast asia. from our vantage point i don't know if we can fully comprehend how desperate the allied cause was at the time. as well as assaulting the us specific fleet in hawaii. japanese forces attacked the british at hong kong and singapore and the americans in the philippines. just three days after the attack on pearl harbor the royal navy's

they donated it to the smithsonian in the first few items that came to the smithsonian in 1964, donated by arthur walters, thdson of david and rachel walter's, and his daughter, juters. leonard donated the bulk of the collection of the letters in 1991. the picture here is of willard and amelia. walter's this willard being the son of david and rachel walters. so it's through their family line that we have these letters to share with you and share with american public in this donation. it becomes clear why the walter's family valued these letters. there's 180 letters and papers, mostly othe use of envelopes that show the way that the mail travel, the cost of thl. when the address had to change, to find somebody who had cated and the postmarks of the work that the post o was doing to to process those mail. we have about 100 of th envelopes and 80 or so letters and a few items of ephemera that the family enclosed while trying to communicate with each other, including the item in the middle here, which is a special order that was issued in 1863, and that david had chosen to enclose in this e

artifacts outside of the smithsonian, and the largest collection of soviet artifacts outside of moscow, which puts us in the definitive position to tell a story of the space race. we do that with quick counter points basis. yesterday we had a big anniversary celebration, our own liberty bell seven spacecraft, that mission was 60 years old, yesterday. a big celebration. here today to talk about eisenhower's role in developing nasa. a lot of people don't really understand the role the eisenhower administration played in the development of the creation of nasa. so it's an incredibly important topic in the development of nasa. something that obviously still resonates today, as space exploration continues to go forward. but before nasa started, the first entity that had oversight of aeronautics in this country who has the naca, the national advisory council for aeronautics. it was developed in 1950, luminaries such as the wright brothers were part of that initial group. it was developed to determine or look at how the united states could develop aeronautics, coming out of world war i, europ

they donated the smithsonian in the first few items came tth smithsonian in 1964. it was donated by arthur walters. the grandson of david in rachel walters. his daughter june walters junior donated the bulk of the letters in 1991. the picture here is of lured and amelia walters, lured being the son of david and rachel walters. it is through their family line that we have these letters to share with you and share with the american public. and this donation, it becomes clear of the walters family valued these letters. those 80 letnd papers, mostly of t envelope's that show way that the male travel cost of that mail, when the address had to ange to find somebody who had relocated and the postmarks of the work that the post office was doing to process this male. we have about 100 of those envelope, and 80 or sell letters in a few items of f amara that the family included ile trying to communicate with each other, including the item in the middle it was a special order t was issued in 1863, and that david to in close withthis envelope that is pictured. this was ata time

all over that had hardware and all of that belong to nasa by loss smithsonian has ride a first refusal. so anything that nasa would dispose of or excess out of their property would be offered to smithsonian first. overnight, uh nasa had three to four thousand objects that it was wanting to dispose of smithsonian turned those down and agreed that those objects could come to the cosmosphere center. out they're interesting. i will say that you know, we two days ago we saw. blue origin go up into space aboard the the new shepherd. i think we're at a similar spot today as we were back in the the late 50s and early 60s when when eisenhower and his administration began to place an emphasis on on getting humans into space. doing exactly what the mercury project did 60 years ago. blue origin and virgin galactic a couple weeks ago basically replicated what alan shepard and gus grissom did they did suborbital flights. they got up into space. they came back safely. and i think we're at the dawn of a new era of space exploration. um space exploration is cool again. it's in the media spacex obviousl

smithsonian turn those down and agreed that this objects could come to the cosmosphere here in hudson. and so literally, within a day, we went from having no collection to one of the larger collections. and we have just built our collection up and have expanded our facility overtime to create what we have today. >> wow, that is very interesting. i will say that two days ago we saw blue origin go up into space aboard the new shepherd. i think we are at a similar spot today as we were back in the late 50s and early 60s when eisenhower and his administration began to place an emphasis on getting humans into space. we are doing exactly what the american mercury project did 60 years ago. the origin, and virgin galactic a couple of weeks ago basically replicated with alex shepard and greg just grisham did. they did several riddle flights, they got up into space, they came back safely. and i think we are at the dawn of a new era of space up exploration. space exploration is cool again. it is in the media. spacex is already demonstrated their ability to get not only a capsule but a crew up in

this is part of the smithsonian seminar series. >> without further delay i want to turn it over to you kevin matthews for the second part. kevin? we are not seeing you at the moment >> now, more from george mason, history professor kevin matthews at the three part look at winston churchill life and legacy. this is part of the smithsonian seminar series. >> without further delay i want to turn it over to you kevin matthews for the second part. kevin? we are not seeing you at the moment i thought i'd clicked. it, there you go. >> it's one of those days. right to go back to the story, churchill was in government with the war and he started. a member of chamberlain's war cabinet. and we try to get this thing to go from here. yes, here we go. but, he was isolated as i said and yesterday. the period between september 1939, and 1940 is commonly known as the phony war. that's because while the french manned there frontier behind a line, the british side a british expeditionary force with equipment that i must say looks quaint today. but they did nothing practical to help their polish allies fu

as many of you know, a smithsonian associates is not federally funded. it relies entirely on funding and membership donations -- to anyone who might be new to smithsonian associates, welcome. i invite you to explore the wide range of programs that we offer, and to consider becoming a member to support a work in bringing you hundreds of trust of learning experiences every year. you can find out about those events and more on our website, smithsonian associate dot org. as well as on facebook, instagram, and twitter. we have also posted a link in the chat box. it brings me to my next and i'm a business. before turning to our speaker this evening, i want to quickly point out a few key features of your virtual experience on zoom. let me direct your attention to the chat box a new tool bar. this is where we will post relevant information and links throughout the program. also on the tool bar is the q&a box. this is where we will draw questions from during the q&a question following the presentation. my colleagues are monitoring this area. we encourage you to s

for whom might be new to smithsonian associates, welcome. i invite you to explore the wide range of programs we offer, consider becoming a member to support our work in bringing you hundreds a trusted loading experiences every year. you can find out about those events and more at our website, smithsonian associates that org, as well as on facebook, instagram, and twitter. we also posted a link in the chat box, that brings me to my next item of business. before turning to our speaker this evening, i want to quickly point out a queue few key features of the virtual experience. let me direct your attention to the chat box on your tool bar. this is where we will post relevant information and links throughout the program. also on the tool bar, the q&a box. this is where we will draw questions from the q&a session following the presentation. my colleagues are monitoring this area so we encourage you to submit the questions throughout the presentation and we will get to as many as possible. this program is set to run for about two hours, including

. -- smithsonian. miss reed gochberg received a ph. d. from boston university. without further ado, please join me in welcoming miss reed gochberg. grateful to the >> thank you so, much, gavin for that introduction. thank you so much to all of you for being here tonight. i'm so grateful to the massachusetts historical society for hosting me. and i'm really looking forward to my conversation with sarah giorgione i also want to thank david and olivia for organizing this event. it's a pleasure to be here and have the chance to share my work on the history of museums with this community. i'm grateful to all of you for taking the time to i listen in and join in this conversation. i'm just gonna share my screen to get us started. i want to start out with a strange and perhaps surprising story from the early history of american museums. some of you might be familiar with the work of charles wilson peele who was a portrait painter, naturalist and museum entrepreneur in philadelphia in the late 18th century. peel established one of the earliest american museums during th

so by the mid 19th century they have of these and they built what's now the smithsonian american art museum and national portrait gallery building in order to put these on display for the public, but you know, if you imagine people visiting this gallery, they could purchase a guidebook, but there would all be a lot of different people interacting with these objects at once you would have patent office clerks and examiners who are using these to to adjudicate, you know, competing claims to to the novelty of an invention, but you also would have visitors to this gallery kind of alongside each other and i guess finally, you know, i mentioned at the beginning that you know a number of these museums were attached to different kinds of educational institutions. so whether that's an academy or even a college and university and so, you know, for example at harvard the the museum of comparatives zoology, which was founded in 1859, there were numerous students who worked there, you know spending hours and hours comparing, you know specimens in the collections, but you had these women assistant

the bone fragments were ultimately sent to the smithsonian institution for the inspection of two of the most noted forensic anthropologists in the country, dr. doug owsley and. kari buell i'd have trouble with that name. and they were ultimately able to. they were human bone fragments and that spurred some additional archeology. and when all is said and they had uncovered a pit which contained two complete or nearly complete human bodies as well as a lot of amputated limbs. and this proved to be a rather startling and unexpected discovery. course we've known all along that after the battles of manassas, attempts were made to recover the dead, northern dead were gathered up and taken back to arlington cemetery. in 1867, a ladies memorial association formed in grove ten and established the grove and confederate cemetery and hired benson pridmore, a local man to try to gather up confederate remains and reason in this small plot, pridmore may have gathered up as many as 500 confederate remains. still, that's not even half of the known confederate casualties at. second, manassas. so we know

i'm not talking about national treasures, privatizing the smithsonian or yosemite or yellowstone butre's huge amount of land that the government could get money by selling. ... its purposes. so this is in perfect tradition with our country but it's not just land there's buildings there is huge amounts of energy resources that we have in this country. i mean, we're a very richly endowed country with energy, minerals and those kinds of things. we estimate that minerals and we estimate there is $50 trillion of assets of buried treasure under our land. resellha the land and have people pay a fee to get the resourcess and then we use the money to reduce our debt. that would be a great thing to do. host: bacteria recommendations and your book no federal dollars to millionaires. >> yes. this is something the late great walter williams was a very famous economist who became an icon, he and i came up with theom idea that let's just say nobody makes over $1 million gets any federal money. think of how much money we could save? there is a bill before congress that will probably pass all the one

of the smithsonian institution and its secretary, lonnie bunch, i'd like to

this is in front of the old brick castle there at the smithsonian. the tents were taken out, set up and photographed maybe 1900 in 1905. you're looking in the end entrance of the dining tent, the sleeping in office tent, the first oval office you see often the background. they've just got the roof of it up. and if you can make out the fellow in the straw bowler cap, that's a smithsonian curator who's actually cooking with washington's original mess kit, which is definitely frowned upon by curators and conservator orders today. but that sort of brings us full scale speed. then back to that moment where mary custis lee, the last surviving child, decid that has a responsibility to care for the widows of t men who served under her father during the war. and so the confederate widows home is being cotrted basically where the virginia museum of natural history is today in ricond. and she decides that she's going to put up for sale. washington owns two tents that have survived to raise $10,000 to endow this widow's home. here's a photograph of her and part

this is in front of the old brick castle there at the smithsonian. the tents re taken out, set up and photographed maybe 1900 in 1905. you're looking in the end entrance of the dining tent, the sleeping in office tent, the first oval office you see often the background. they've just got the roof of it up. and if you can make out the fellow in the straw bowler cap, that's a smithsoan curator who's actually cooking with washington's original mess kit, which is definitely frowned upon by curators and conservat orders today. but that sort of brings us full scale speed. then back to that moment where mary custis lee, the last surviving child, decides that has a responsibility to care for der her father during the war.ed and so the confederate widows home is being constructed basiwhere the virginia museum of natural history is today in richmond. an d that she's going to put up for sale. washington owns two tents that have survived to raise $10,000 to endow this widow's home. here's a photograph of her and part of that article, that interview with her, she

quite know and that is john has chimed in and said the cable used by grant isn't definitely at the smithsonian national museum of american history it was a gift of libby custer and also let's associate chris i forgot the libby custer connection. >> didn't share it should give it took custer to give to libby? isn't that weird? >> custard was not in the room. right. or back in the parler. we've heard stories that sheraton did not want to sell his furniture and he threw it $20 on the ground that either keep the money or don't and taking your furniture. that is just one of the many stories i heard. let's keep going though with the shout outs. one is thanks for this program i enjoyed the book. what is up next in terms of book projects? we will get to that. after that that is from hampton's and lots of great stuff. [laughter] wrote that so we have here now i'll check it again before we sign off. i want to get back on the road because those confederates were having a good time in interesting times up there on the road. this is something that's really interesting in your perspective of the book. okay

the event was presented as part of the smithsonian summit are serious. it can be viewed in its entirety online at c-span dot org slash history.