The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History comes with a parental advisory warning, the museum’s director told Congress on Wednesday, as she spent a second day struggling to defend a sexually charged exhibit that showed what one representative called a “crotch harness.”
Anthea Hartig, the director, said her museum’s policy requires anyone younger than 18 to be accompanied by an adult and urges those adults to ensure the content is suitable for their children before going through the exhibits.
Ms. Hartig said the “gay liberation” exhibit that drew so much scrutiny was closed years ago, but it had a parental warning attached.
That did not sit right with Rep. Mary Miller, Illinois Republican, who said Ms. Hartig herself, in a welcome video, specifically invited children to attend the exhibit.
“You chose to display the fetish attire of a very small subset of Americans with weird sexual proclivities, and you welcomed children to the exhibit,” Ms. Miller said.
She peppered Ms. Hartig with questions.
“What is a crotch harness? You chose to make a display of it,” she said.
Ms. Hartig defended the exhibit as “small” and described the attire in question as a “two-piece garment.”
“All the people who came by that display case, no one complained,” she said.
The House Administration Committee, which oversees the Smithsonian, was holding a hearing to examine what Republicans have described as the American history museum’s “woke-washing” of U.S. history, elevating trendy liberal causes in its exhibits while relegating more traditional stories, such as the country’s Founders, to dry recitations.
The hearing was the second in two days for Ms. Hartig, after testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday.
Ms. Hartig, who became director of the museum in 2019, was pummeled with questions for which she had no answers — or refused to give them.
She refused to explain her hundreds of political contributions, distanced herself from a “tool kit” that mocked historians’ objectivity as a tool of White supremacy, and had no answer when asked why her museum, while telling other stories, does not tackle the 50 million abortions that have occurred since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision — a figure one lawmaker raised but that has not been independently verified.
“I’m not here at this hearing to discuss that,” Ms. Hartig told lawmakers.
She also would not say whether she thought it was appropriate for her gift shop to sell “Latina Power” items, and she declined multiple invitations to say what a woman is.
“We strive to represent, and not categorize, all Americans,” Ms. Hartig said.
Ms. Hartig’s annual salary is $370,000, though she stressed to lawmakers that the money comes from an endowment, not federal tax money.
The bulk of the Smithsonian’s funding comes from taxpayers, and Republicans say it is being misused.
“You strive to represent queer pedophiles, indoctrination, grooming of kids at an American History Museum, and it sounds like you’re proud of it,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican. “You’re putting this kind of crap in front of kids. [It] sexualizes them and makes them more vulnerable to people that want to rape them or abuse them.”
Rep. Brandon Gill, Texas Republican, challenged Ms. Hartig over her museum’s promotion of a “tool kit” that labels objectivity as a tool of White supremacy.
He also asked her to explain an exhibit that said Mickey Mouse was derived from “vestiges of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy.”
“It has certain obvious racial overtones that have been well-documented,” Ms. Hartig said. “It’s not for me to determine what’s problematic; it’s for me to determine what’s accurate.”
She said her museum did not develop the tool kit but acknowledged it was “used as a reference” in 2019 and 2020.
The hearings were held after a White House report earlier this year accused the museum of becoming a tool for liberal indoctrination.
Republicans repeatedly questioned why the museum seemed to downplay Founding-era heroes during the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Ms. Hartig countered that her museum has “dozens” of exhibits referencing the Founding era, including a display of 368 objects. She said George Washington is mentioned 54 times.
Jeffrey Anderson, president of the American Main Street Initiative and a former professor of government who studied the Founding era, said that was misleading. He said the entirety of that Founding-era material could fit inside the space used for a current museum exhibit on the “lowrider culture” among Mexican-Americans.
He said that what content exists on the Founding era is sucked dry, such as the treatment of the Revolutionary War.
“Somehow it doesn’t even mention the crossing of the Delaware, or the winter at Valley Forge — the more colorful aspects, the more stirring aspects, of our history,” Mr. Anderson said.
Ms. Hartig declined to say whether she had been scolded by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch, a fellow historian, over some of the exhibits.
“We talk about many things,” she said.
“I’m going to take that as an evasive answer,” replied Rep. Brian Jack, Georgia Republican.
Asked whether she would acknowledge any mistakes at the museum, Ms. Hartig said she had no “regrets” and acknowledged some “factual errors” that bugged her.
“We’ve been mislabeling a coin in the American presidency exhibit for years,” she said. “We were, of course, slightly embarrassed about that, but we fixed it.”
