How the Smithsonian became the latest front in Trump’s culture war
The Smithsonian has faced withering pressure from the Trump administration.
In November 2021, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History unveiled an exhibit titled "The Electric Dr. Franklin." This exhibit explored Benjamin Franklin's groundbreaking work in electrical science, acknowledging that he once held enslaved individuals in his household. However, the exhibit suggested that Franklin may have utilized enslaved people for his electrical research experiments.
It speculated that Franklin could have employed enslaved people in his studies, although he rarely named specific individuals who assisted him. The exhibit further posited that enslaved servants and enslaved people within his household may have been employed in these experiments, though definitive evidence remains elusive. This provocative claim, depicting one of America's most esteemed Founding Fathers subjecting unwilling individuals to potentially painful shocks, sparked widespread controversy.
It was just one of numerous points of contention highlighted in a scathing 162-page White House report released in July. The report alleged that the museum had succumbed to "ideological capture," drifting away from its core mission of "straightforward historical education and scholarship" towards "extreme political activism seeking to transform our country."
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