National Museum of American History

(NOTE: I told you before that you can click on these photos to enlarge them, to read them or just view them better. But I just realized that in order to return to the blog you have to hit the "back" button on the top, left of your computer...if you hit the "X" on the right you might knock yourself off the internt...I did.)

18 Oct 09—The rain finally stopped today…but still cold, actually a little colder than yesterday…down to the low 40s. Being bred of tough stock, however, out Cathy and I went again, this time to the National Museum of American History.




I swear, to do this justice, you would need to spend a whole weekend there. As it was, we spent over 4 ½ hours there, and by the time we got to the bottom floor, we just couldn’t read or even totally appreciate the exhibits anymore.

We started on the top floor (3rd floor), and actually spent almost 2 ½ hours on that floor alone. Julie Devlin, you would probably need a good weekend just on this floor. One section of this floor had the history of America reflected thru the wars we have fought…from prior to the American Revolution all the way up to Gulf War II and Afghanistan. There were so many wars to read about, that if you were a foreigner you would never believe we were a peace-loving nation (haha).



On the same floor was an exhibit on the presidency…I stood at a podium with a fake crowd behind me and read the FDR “Nothing to fear but fear itself” speech from a teleprompter…Cathy got it in a little movie that I tried try to attach here...but it wouldn't upload. And finally a “Popular Culture” selection. The popular culture one was cool (and thankfully quick). It had Judy
Garland's ruby slippers from The Wizard of OZ,




Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs from All in the Family,




and amongst other stuff, Chris Devlin, it even had an outfit that was worn by the great “Selena” during one of her concerts!!!

On the 2nd floor they had the actual flag that was flown over Ft McHenry in 1814 during the War of 1812…the flag that led Francis Scott Key to write the National Anthem. Then they had an entire exhibit on the over-200 year history of this house they had transported from Ipswich, MA…from back in the 1700s…they said a slave, an abolitionist, a soldier and a seamstress had all lived in it…that was pretty cool. They also had a big thing on the nation’s first ladies, including a large selection of their gowns, but the line was so long we didn’t have time to go into that exhibit.

By the time we got to the 1st floor, we were really tired, so we skimmed most of it…but the best area was a whole section on Julia Child, including a mock-up of her kitchen in Cambridge, MA. They had other stuff on the invention of electricity; modes of transportation back to the horse and carriage, bicycles, and the 1st cars;






and you wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t take a picture for you, but the 1st RVs in the nation!!!




And does everyone remember having station wagons with wood panels on them???




There was also some stuff I thought Walter would really like, having to do with the development of engines, steam power, and other machines.

Right across the street from the National History Museum is the Environmental Protection Agency, and although we didn’t go in, I took a picture just so you could see it. You wouldn’t believe the size of this building, this picture only shows about 1/3 of it…how is it that all those people work there and we still are experiencing global warming???