Visit to the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress

By Jay Harrison, Ph.D., assistant professor of history

This past April, the students in my course on museum and archive collections management traveled to the nation’s capital to go behind the scenes at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress.

The morning’s tours kicked off at the Cultural Resource Center (CRC) of the National Museum of the American Indian, where students were treated to a close-up view of the museum’s archives. This included a visit to the tribal visitation room where tribal members are able to view materials belonging to their culture.

Next was a short walk across the CRC campus to the National Anthropological Archives of the National Museum of Natural History, which featured a number of historical and archaeological collections, whose treasures the students studied with museum staff.

The day finished with an afternoon tour of the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, courtesy of Carlos Olave, the head of the Hispanic reading room in the Library. He explained the history of the Hispanic Division and its approach to collecting Latin American and Iberian materials, with an emphasis on the library’s role in the overall culture of collecting such materials in the United States. With a quick look at the library’s permanent exhibits and famed general reading room, tired but inspired students returned to campus for the last week of my course for public history students and related majors.

As a high-impact learning exercise for this upper division course, this trip was a powerful example of the access Hood students have to the vast resources found in Washington, D.C.

Pictured, from left, are Emily Kreisler ’19, Katelyn Long ’19, Elena Zinaich ’19, Caroline Jeranek ’21, Caitlyn-Jean Ward ’18, Nadia Hani ’18, Tiara Winston ’18, Erin Leyh ’18, and Mary Atwell (college archivist).