Free Republic

Warning! If you plan on visiting the nation’s capital this summer, skip the American History Museum. According to a new report by the Domestic Policy Council, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History has failed in its fundamental mission — to instill in visitors a deeper respect for the American story. Below are the five most disturbing things about the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, according to the report. 1. Villainizing Our Founding and Founding Fathers If you’re going to the museum to learn about history, best go elsewhere. Sorely lacking are exhibits dedicated to the Pilgrims or Puritans, or...

The boy was around 14 when he joined the Continental Army. He signed his enlistment papers with an “X,” suggesting that he’d never learned to write his name. During his three-and-a-half-year military career, he marched more than 1,000 miles. When he died at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina in 1780, he was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for nearly 250 years. Researchers excavated the boy’s remains in 2022. Now, they’ve discovered this young soldier’s identity: His name was Private John Pumphrey, and he was one of America’s oldest John Doe cases. “As far as we knew,...

VIDEOIt is now an important piece of American history. The urine-soaked diaper which Senator Spartacus aka Cory Booker wore to break the filibuster record in the U.S. Senate. Or, more accurately, the FAKE filibuster record since this "filibuster" unlike real filibusters did NOT delay any Senate legislation or nominations. For both these reasons, the record books will always show an asterisk by the name of Senator Spartacus next to his "filibuster" entry.

Just days after the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. said it would cancel its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the Smithsonian Institution, a consortium that includes 21 national museums, announced its diversity office will also close. According to the New York Times, the Smithsonian will also freeze hiring for all federal positions and employees will have to return to in-person work full-time. This move follows an executive order signed earlier this month by President Donald J. Trump, which labels the Biden administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.” The Smithsonian, which includes...

ROME — Long before the industrial revolution and fossil fuels, “climate change” was wreaking havoc on the health of ancient Romans, Smithsonian magazine contends. Citing a study published in the journal Science Advances, Smithsonian underscores a correlation between cold, dry periods in ancient Rome and “devastating bouts of fatal illness” between 200 BC and 600 AD. Whereas Rome enjoyed stable weather from 200 to 100 BC, it later suffered “three very cold periods,” all of which “line up with documented plagues,” states Smithsonian writer Sarah Kuta. The first cold spell, which struck the Roman Empire between 160 and 180 AD,...

At today’s House Administration Committee hearing, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) questioned Lonnie Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.Reviewers: That is really sad… I’m white and was raised to love my fellow Americans… no matter what color. My late father who served in the US NAVY and is buried at the National Veterans Cemetery would be disgusted with what has happened to our countryIt’s one thing to take A document down that you think might be problematic for your organization. It’s another thing to have people working there who thought it was OK to put that up. Look how much time...

A group of students who were harassed and told to leave the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) because of their “pro-life” hats achieved a legal victory Monday when the Smithsonian accepted a consent decree stating that visitors may wear clothing with religious and political statements.

A group from Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenville, South Carolina was kicked out of the federally-funded Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum for wearing hats emblazoned with the words 'Rosary PRO-LIFE.'(LifeSiteNews) — Catholic students were expelled from one of America’s most important museums for refusing to remove hats which expressed their pro-life beliefs. On Friday, January 20, following the 50th Annual March for Life in Washington DC, a group from Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenville, South Carolina was kicked out of the federally-funded Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum for wearing hats emblazoned with...

When recasting history to prop up Marxism, the truth doesn’t help. No less than one week after a Marxist mob came for the president of the American Historical Association for his belief that historians ought to stick to the realm of objectivity rather than social justice, it now emerges that The Smithsonian National Museum of American History is bucking tradition in favor or leftist activism. In a new exhibit covering Latin America, the museum neglected to include some of the most well-known histories. According to a piece published by El American, the opening parts of the exhibit address the “the...

First Lady Melania Trump presents her 2025 inaugural gown to the First Ladies Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Friday, February 20, 2026.

After facing intense public backlash, Cracker Barrel has backed down and reverted to the classic “Old Timer” logo. At the same time, the Trump Administration has turned its focus on the Smithsonian, vowing to withhold funding from any programs that “degrade shared American values” and “divide Americans.” Both culture war issues pivot on one simple question that my generation needs to answer: Do we like America? People yearn to belong to a national tradition. Nationality encompasses defining characteristics of daily life like language and culture, and we’re most comfortable when we’re situated within a national tradition that’s familiar. That’s why...

One of the better causes of the second Trump Administration is its effort to purge the progressive political takeover of America’s national cultural institutions. A case in point is the new White House report on the bad historical turn taken by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The press is attacking the report as an attempt to censor independent museum curation, but that’s not how we read it. The 162-page “Saving America’s Story,” produced by the White House Domestic Policy Council, lays out in persuasive detail how the museum offers a largely critical view of American history that...

A scathing report released on the Fourth of July says the National Museum of American History downplays the role of the founders while emphasizing social justice.In a broadside posted to its website just as Fourth of July fireworks were lighting up skies around the country on Saturday, the White House faulted the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for what it said was a failure to properly celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing that it had become a tool of political activism intent on denigrating the American story.The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack...

The mention of President Donald Trump's two impeachments and his role in the January 6 Capitol attack has been removed from a Smithsonian. In the 'America's Presidents' exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, an updated portrait of Trump has been hung, this time without a wordy display. The White House shared the new image, shot by White House photographer Daniel Torok, over the weekend. In it, Trump stands imposingly over the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Alongside it, two medallions tell visitors that Trump served as the 45th and now 47th president, and that's it. Two other Trump...

The central strategy of media bias is defining your terms. The most obnoxious strategy of liberal journalists is defining the Republicans as ideological extremists engaging in culture wars and weaponizing partisan narratives for political victory. They pretend Democrats are nothing like this. The epic political battles of our time are between the ultraconservatives and the nonpartisans. The same exercise happens with federally funded messaging, from public broadcasting to national museums. When President Donald Trump demands a review of these taxpayer-subsidized narratives, it’s considered some kind of authoritarian crusade against nonpartisan truth-telling. It doesn’t matter how much left-wing propaganda Trump voters...

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has removed references to President Trump's two first-term impeachments from an exhibit following a review. The Smithsonian said the references will be restored once the exhibit is updated, but did not provide a timeline. The exhibit, titled "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden" includes reference to the impeachments of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Watergate scandal that engulfed President Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face certain impeachment. A temporary label was added in 2021 to include President Trump's impeachments in 2019 and again in 2021, just...

The artist said that she made the decision after she said she learned that her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty might be removed to avoid provoking President Trump.... ...Ms. Sherald said that Mr. Bunch on Monday had proposed replacing the painting with a video of people reacting to the painting and discussing transgender issues, an idea she rejected because she said it would have included anti-trans views. “When I understood a video would replace the painting, I decided to cancel,” she said. “The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility and I was...

The White House says it found these bizarre items at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History: — A sadomasochistic "crotch harness" — A "trans nonbinary" person's "chest binder" — Pages from a 6yo girl's diary in which she prays every night for male genitalia to grow

Trump administration exposes institution's progressive biasThe nation’s largest group of scholars says a taxpayer-funded family museum must include an exhibit that features a sadomasochistic crotch harness, pages from a 6-year-old girl’s diary that depict her yearning to grow a penis, video clips of drag queens and a magazine promoting female masturbation.The Organization of American Historians also supports exhibits that describe “Mickey Mouse as a vestige of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy,” the ukulele as “a product of U.S. imperialism” and Wild West shows as turning the “subjugation of Indigenous people into theater.”Those are just a few of the displays...

In their new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan devote considerable attention to the Trump administration’s efforts to influence Smithsonian exhibits. On a Morning Joe segment on Friday, Haberman misleadingly framed it as Trump and his allies “wanted to leave their imprint on what art Americans can see." Haberman highlighted one flashpoint: an Amy Sherald exhibition slated for the National Portrait Gallery that included “Trans Forming Liberty,” a painting depicting the Statue of Liberty as a trans woman. According to Haberman, internal discussions and pressure from figures...