Tilting at Windmills

Abstract

The Cover Design TILTING AT WINDMILLS ARTHUR P. MOLELLA At the beginning of the 1980s, the Smithsonian Institution’s Na­ tional Museum of History and Technology abruptly shed its original name, a designation that revealed its fundamental kinship with the Deutsches Museum and other national technical museums, to become the National Museum of American History (NMAH). The aim of the change was to repair an uncomfortable split in the museum’s identity, a rift that had evolved between the institution’s science and technol­ ogy departments, on the one hand, and the political and cultural history departments on the other. Example: transportation displays that focused on the technological development of railroads and auto­ mobiles, all but ignoring their effects on American cities and the American landscape. The refurbishing of the museum’s public image involved more than hoisting a banner to cover up an old name with a new one. At one time, it also included bold plans for a general face-lift of the building’s exterior. One such plan is represented by the architect’s sketch on the cover of this issue (fig. 1), showing a cluster of historic and modern windmills, some of them actually pumping water or gen­ erating electricity for the edification of museum visitors. Not shown in the sketch is a complementary treatment of the museum’s east side; there exists a similar architect’s drawing picturing a streamlined railroad locomotive on the lawn adjacent to the transportation hall. The instigator of these transformations was the museum’s newly appointed director, Roger G. Kennedy. When Kennedy announced the new name for the museum soon after his arrival at the Smithso­ nian, many believed that the institution had begun to renege on its original commitment to the history of technology and science. FeedDr . Molella is head of the Department of History and director of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of Ameri­ can History. He was Technology and Culture’s book review editor from 1983 through 1987, then an advisory editor until 1993.© 1995 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/95/3604-0008$01.00 1000 Tilting at Windmills 1001 Fig. 1.—Technology and Culture’s fourteen-year home, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, might have looked something like this archi­ tect’s sketch if a proposed north front featuring a collection of old and new windmills had been accepted. But the only main-entrance change at the start of the 1980s was the museum’s name, which had been the National Museum of History and Technology. (Smithsonian Institution neg. 95-2679.) ing their apprehensions was the new director’s résumé. Unlike most of his predecessors, Kennedy was neither a technology nor science historian, but a banker, lawyer, and foundation officer with a keen avocational interest in the history of architecture.1 Fearing a down­ grading of science and technology, some loyalists of the old Museum of History and Technology went so far as to wage a campaign to restore the original name. Perhaps they were not aware that the same man who had rechristened the museum was simultaneously laying plans for a new institutional billboard giving pride of place to some enormous specimens of technology. Indeed, Kennedy turned out to be a good friend to the history of technology at NMAH. A devotee of architecture, but no fan of the building he found himself occupying, he was eager to experiment 'For a perceptive profile of Kennedy and his vision of the National Museum of American History, see Michael S. Durham, “Keeper of the Attic,” Americana 15 (No­ vember-December 1987): 43-48. 1002 Arthur P. Molella with ways of brightening the museum’s monolithic 1960s-style facade. The story of how windmills and locomotives almost found a home on the plaza of the National Museum of American History goes as follows. In early 1980, Kennedy asked the curatorial staff to submit sugges­ tions for artifacts to replace the fountain and surrounding landscap­ ing in front of the building. He wanted large objects that would lend visual interest to the facade and be suggestive of...