The National Museum of American History is closed for renovation and is scheduled to re-open in fall 2008.

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 TV puppet star Howdy Doody.

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, will soar above the entrance to the new Star-Spangled Banner gallery and become 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 will feature a central core atrium with a new skylight that will dramatically open 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 will showcase the breadth of the museum’s 3 million objects, and a Welcome Center on the second floor will help orient visitors to the museum. On the first floor, there will be an exhibition gallery for the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation; a new lobby for the 275-seat Carmichael Auditorium; and new retail operations.
• Infrastructure and Public Amenities: The renovation work will include the replacement and relocation of 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 architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP of New York and Turner Construction are responsible for the overall planning, design and construction. New York-based design firm Chermayeff & Geismar Inc. will work with SOM on the new permanent gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner.

Permanent Exhibitions
A number of National Museum of American History objects will be on view at other venues in Washington, D.C., and around the country while the museum’s building is closed for renovation.

• At the Smithsonian Castle, there are three cases containing objects from the museum’s sports, political history and electricity collections, including Kristi Yamaguchi and Bobby Orr’s figure and hockey skates, an Abraham Lincoln life mask and a Lincoln campaign torch, and a Browni YTR-603 transistor radio.
• In addition, the museum has more than 60 objects on loan to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, including coins from the numismatic collection, sports memorabilia, a grand piano and patent models.

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-30A-2008