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Like controversial art exhibits, history with a strong critical message may soon be relegated to private museums. And that's true of beating up on history as well." said Roger Kennedy, who is the former director of the Smithsonian's American History Museum. "If we beat up on the arts and the humanities and the sciences, we are beating up on the possibility that we can work hard to learn something. Insiders insist that there's a price to pay in the push for politically benign exhibits. Others blame a conservative Republican Congress which isn't afraid to use its power over museum budgets to influence their contents. Why are these exhibits being scaled back, modified, or scrapped? Some say it's a clash between older generations accustomed to celebratory history, and baby-boomers who view events more critically. We're going to have to broker our information in a way that perhaps is more subtle. "It says finally that you better bring your asbestos clothes when you go to do an exhibit. John Michael Vlach, curator of the slavery exhibit, said that it sends a message that smacks of censorship. Only weeks earlier, the library postponed indefinitely a Sigmund Freud exhibit after protests from academics who believe his theories have been discredited. Scientists and conservatives said it was too negative.Īt the Library of Congress, there's an empty room where last week stood an exhibit on slavery, scrapped because some library workers found it offensive. Later, changes were made in the Science in American Life exhibit at the Smithsonian, which featured an anti-nuclear message. I don't think we have a credo in which we are going to instruct people that that's the way they have to think." said Smithsonian secretary I. "I think if they're given choices with regard to what to believe, that's fine. The museum director says that future exhibits must show both sides of an issue, and let visitors decide which is right. But some things can't be subtle." - Exhibit curator John Michael Vlach, "It's not a teaching institution per se, which is what some wanted it to be maybe four or five years ago. Opponents say that a public museum isn't the place for such an emotional presentation. Gone were references to the debate over dropping the first atomic bomb, or to the damage it wrought. After protests from veterans and lawmakers over what they considered a pro-Japanese viewpoint, the Smithsonian Institution scaled back its exhibit of the plane, the "Enola Gay," that bombed Hiroshima.
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If there is an intellectual chill in the air at public museums, it may have begun in Washington last January.
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From slavery to Freud to the atomic bomb, potentially offensive exhibits were scaled back, delayed or scrapped. WASHINGTON (CNN) - 1995 was not a very good year for anyone hoping to mount a controversial exhibit at a public museum in the United States. CNN - Controversial exhibits held in check - Dec.