Recently, I visited the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. What started as a repository of collectables of researchers in the 19th century is now a behemoth institution of several museums. Presumably, the most interesting of its collections are in monumental buildings along the Washington Mall. But the entire holding of items not on exhibit is in several locations.
There are different ways to think about museums. They’re a mirror of sorts of what the people who collect artifacts and other objects think is important enough to pass on to another generation. There are words accompanying the objects. These short paragraphs are as simple as a description or elaborate as a plotline in an epic drama production. Interpretations and narratives explaining the object shift and evolve. But the artifact remains the same.
The Smithsonian is a managerie of all sorts of things in our world. It’s the memory keeper of our nation’s history and of the stories we tell.
In the age of instant information and digital derivations of reality served up on our handheld screens, we might ask if it is even necessary to keep ‘the real thing’. We can access endless information about the holdings of the Smithsonian much more than what is exhibited in the galleries. Why make a trip to see the actual ‘thing in itself’? Before the world wide web,people had to rely on libraries, encyclopedias, and museums. In fact, libraries and museums have preserved the memory and knowledge of civilizations and cultures for millennia. It’s convenient to have access to the information these repositories have. Yet, physical museums are still relevant since they typically contain real, tactile things, not just digital derivations of them. Museums provide physical space where viewers can engage with real things of the past. The Smithsonian in particular exemplifies this by offering a diverse range of exhibits that describe or explain much of what we find in our world. With rapid advancement of AI and the trends of generated deep fakes gone viral, I, for one, am grateful for opportunities to experience tangible, clear, and definite reality museums still provide.
Additionally, the Smithsonian provides an accessible alternative for self-directed learning. In an era where higher education is prohibitively expensive and exclusive, by leveraging the vast resources of the Smithsonian and the expertise of the curators, a young person can gain valuable knowledge and skills at a fraction of the cost of higher education.
Indeed, an enterprising student could probably learn twice as much in half the time. Probably throughout the two hundred years of the museum’s existence, many have done just that.
The formation of the Smithsonian and its first building coincide with the recent rise of the United States, a sovereign nation fairly optimistic if not hell-bent determined in its capacity to scale progress through knowledge, technology, and commerce. Sherman grew up in this environment. It was the air he breathed. Young Sherman, like many of his contemporaries, believed that progress was the result of education and hard work. Enlightenment beliefs followed by rapid industrialization and scientific advancement fueled the conviction that economic stability for all was just around the corner.Young Sherman presumed that economic prosperity and peace would be the inevitable consequence of progress. Perhaps an older, wiser Sherman came to realize the naivety of such a belief.
Many of Sherman’s friends contributed to the formation of the Smithsonian. Sherman undoubtedly enjoyed visiting the original museum when he lived in Washington. Just about all of his life’s work and some personal belongings are housed in the network of the Smithsonian. Curious and interested in almost everything the Smithsonian has to offer but short on time,I needed to strategize and adjust the ‘what to see list’. I selected three exhibits in three museums, reluctantly excluding all others as well as everything around them, including the Mall, Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, and the White House to name a few.
First on my list was National Portrait Gallery or NPG, showcasing paintings of familiar ‘founding fathers’—George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the like. There were others, men and women, who have shaped US history and the collective imagination of a still naively young but already demographically complex developing country.
I was curious about the several First Nations leaders that have factored into US history, Pocahontas, Red Jacket, and Sequoia to name a few.
Nearby were the ‘frontiersman’ Zachary Taylor, Daniel Boone and Andrew Jackson. The portraits reflect a paradoxical juxtaposition of the ageless and universal complexity of ‘frontier expansion’.
Finally, I entered the gallery with the portraits of Grant and Sherman. Centered in this small gallery is a near-life-size sculpture of Lincoln and Edward Stanton, with Ulysses Grant, pivotal in getting the Emancipation Proclamation ‘proclamated’ in 1863 and. It was Grant and Sherman’s responsibility to force the rebel opposition to accept it.
After a brief cursory visit through the rest of the NPG and a viewing of the mineral exhibit and star show at the Natural History Museum, I visited the Museum of the American Indian. Prominent in this museum is the Nation to Nation exhibit chronicling treaties the British colonies, and later the US government made with First Nations from the 17th through mid-19th century.
The treaty with the Navajo is the last one to be formally ratified by Congress. This exhibit includes Sherman’s role in negotiations with Navajo leaders in Bosque Redondo in 1868. The accompanying photo of a scowling Sherman (the actual photo taken at another time and place) suggests that he reluctantly acquiesced to the Navajo leaders’ insistence to return to their homelands.
Accounts of the negotiations, and correspondence from that time show otherwise: While remaining skeptical of a successful outcome, Sherman saw a possible path forward for people living alongside each other while maintaining their own culture and forms of life. If the treaty contents were honored by both parties— the US government on one hand and the Indians who did not consider it in their people’s best interests to forfeit their homelands and assimilate into the US experiment on the other— then a coexistence might be wrought albeit with difficulty through compromise. An optimal outcome may not be certain or permanent, but it was more preferable than war. Sherman knew from experience that peace is fragile as it is valuable. It’s worth striving for. A first step in this direction is trying to understand the other’s deeply held beliefs.
— “the world is big enough for all the people it contains, and all should live at peace with their neighbors. All people love the country where they were born and raised.”
The dialogue with Barboncito, the leader representing the Navajo in the negotiations, shows that much. “You are right,Sherman observed— the world is big enough for all the people it contains, and all should live at peace with their neighbors. All people love the country where they were born and raised.” (Council preliminary proceedings of the Navajo Peace Treaty, May 28th, 1868). Substitute land for country, and the context shifts in ways that give the sentiment new focus and depth of meaning.
I began this musing noting that museums have more than one purpose. I continued by noting that while access to digital derivatives of reality enhances our knowledge of the world around us, it can’t replace our experience of the world itself. I value museums because they spark new ideas, challenge previously held beliefs, stir memories, and open up horizons of wonder. The visit to the Smithsonian crystallized those thoughts. Museums give us an opportunity to walk through the past, reflecting on events through time. We need not be irritated by the cognitive biases of collectors, curators, and ‘interpreters’ of the artifacts we see. Instead, we can try to understand what they see, reflect on what we see, and then ‘see beyond’.
What does that mean—to see beyond? To me, it means to choose wisely; learning from others and reflecting on our response to today’s realities and tomorrow’s possibilities. What I think, say, or do today really does shape the future for those who come after us.
