Kirjahaku

Since its founding in 1846 ""for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,"" the Smithsonian Institution has been an important feature of the American cultural landscape. In A Living Exhibition, William S. Walker examines the tangled history of cultural exhibition at the Smithsonian from its early years to the chartering of the National Museum of the American Indian in 1989. He tracks the transformation of the institution from its original ideal as a ""universal museum"" intended to present the totality of human experience to the variegated museum and research complex of today. Walker pays particular attention to the half century following World War II, when the Smithsonian significantly expanded. Focusing on its exhibitions of cultural history, cultural anthropology, and folk life, he places the Smithsonian within the larger context of Cold War America and the social movements of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Organized chronologically, the book uses the lens of the Smithsonian's changing exhibitions to show how institutional decisions become intertwined with broader public debates about pluralism, multiculturalism, and decolonization.Yet if a trend toward more culturally specific museums and exhibitions characterized the postwar history of the institution, its leaders and curators did not abandon the vision of the universal museum. Instead, Walker shows, even as the Smithsonian evolved into an extensive complex of museums, galleries, and research centers, it continued to negotiate the imperatives of cultural convergence as well as divergence, embodying both a desire to put everything together and a need to take it all apart.

A cache of letters leads to a journey of discovery that reveals the long and lasting consequences of war William Walker never knew his uncle, Fletcher "Bud" Blanton. Blanton had been killed fighting in Europe during World War II before Walker was born. Walker had heard stories about Bud, but for most of his life his uncle had existed only as a faded memory. That path changed when Walker opened a dusty cabinet forgotten in his garage attic and found a paper sack and a note in his father's handwriting that read, "Go through before you throw away." The bag was filled with family photos, correspondence, and a collection of letters and postcards that his uncle Bud had written to his family during his time on the frontline as a US Army infantryman in Europe. The first letter he pulled from the bag opened with the line, "Dearest Mama." Walker's Dearest Mama is Bud Blanton's story, but more than that it is a deeply personal family chronicle that resonates for those left behind when service members do not return home from combat.

Since its founding in 1846 ""for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,"" the Smithsonian Institution has been an important feature of the American cultural landscape. In A Living Exhibition, William S. Walker examines the tangled history of cultural exhibition at the Smithsonian from its early years to the chartering of the National Museum of the American Indian in 1989. He tracks the transformation of the institution from its original ideal as a ""universal museum"" intended to present the totality of human experience to the variegated museum and research complex of today. Walker pays particular attention to the half century following World War II, when the Smithsonian significantly expanded. Focusing on its exhibitions of cultural history, cultural anthropology, and folk life, he places the Smithsonian within the larger context of Cold War America and the social movements of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Organized chronologically, the book uses the lens of the Smithsonian's changing exhibitions to show how institutional decisions become intertwined with broader public debates about pluralism, multiculturalism, and decolonization. Yet if a trend toward more culturally specific museums and exhibitions characterized the postwar history of the institution, its leaders and curators did not abandon the vision of the universal museum. Instead, Walker shows, even as the Smithsonian evolved into an extensive complex of museums, galleries, and research centers, it continued to negotiate the imperatives of cultural convergence as well as divergence, embodying both a desire to put everything together and a need to take it all apart.