WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wednesday marks the 23rd anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Visitors going to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in our nation’s capital can see a couple of pieces from each of the three sites that were attacked on that day. Looking ahead, the museum plans on changing how they share the story of 9/11.
In the “Price of Freedom” exhibit at the Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., it shows the history of America at war. The exhibit includes pieces from the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“Our curators thought it was essential to collect this moment in time,” said Cedric Yeh, Curator of the National September 11th collection at the National Museum of American History.
There are representative pieces from each of the 9/11 sites on display: an airphone from the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, an ID badge recovered from the Pentagon and a steel column from the World Trade Center’s South Tower.
“Looking at the space as a whole, it represents that moment in time the United States being attacked and then our response,” said Yeh.
Yeh said in the near future, the museum plans to change how they share the story of September 11th.
“The museum will be redoing the entire exhibition and the September 11th story will follow,” said Yeh. “The current approach of telling September 11th is slowly moving away from the day-of events so we can look at the [inaudible] 25 years. We can take a look at how America has been affected, how that change has slowly become a part of who we are.”
Yeh adds that the newer generations are growing up without any lived memory of that day.
“One of the things we’re thinking about is how we convey the story,” said Yeh. “Since our museum is multigenerational, it’s common to have families come here. How we can best tell the story to a generation that’s being born right now that will have no idea the trauma, the terror, the significance of what happened on September 11th.”
Curators said changes to the exhibit are still in the works but would like to include how the rest of the nation was impacted by the attacks in the updated exhibit.
