The Living Museum: 1950-1996

Noon Over the Mall

The first issue of Smithsonian magazine appeared in April 1970, emblazoned with a photograph of two elephants in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The editors had decided that an animal would appear on every cover, although this decision wouldn't last. In any case, theca magazine was an immediate success.

Early editions carried stories on such subjects as regulars in the U.S. Army, Paul Revere's horse, and the disastrous 1903 launching of Secretary Langley's plane, still a sore subject for some at the Smithsonian. This last article included lesser-known facts about the pilot, Charles Manly, such as that he had downed a shot of whiskey after being pulled from the Potomac and had used foul language-not the sort of information the public associated with the Smithsonian.

The magazine's initial circulation of 185,000 soon was augmented by a flood of new subscriptions, which, over the next five years, would approach the million mark. An ever increasing number of Smithsonian National Associates received the magazine automatically-an idea had gotten from the National Geographic Society-and the magazine's popularity continued to grow. As editor Edwards Park later recalled, "Nothing we did could fail. The science was interesting and appropriate. The staff had fun. It was a glorious time."

Ripley's energy and enthusiasm affected people in every bureau. He embodied the best of the era that had just past, symbolized by slain President John F. Kennedy. But the world had changed, and the Smithsonian's need to keep abreast of it had aroused some resentment of what had become known as "the Ripley style."

His manner did not help to appease his critics: He could be pushy, and was often as much as an hour late for appointments. But he remained an astute judge of people, with an extraordinary memory for faces and names. He sometimes met with certain new employees in his Castle parlor, which was furnished with a blue- and-gold, Renaissance-revival settee; a 1690 Dutch cabinet used to exhibit insects; and a sculpture of a dodo- its feathers made of barnacles-under glass. "IWlhether you were a scientist or an art historian or an expert on Americana," Edwards Park later wrote, "when you went through this ritual meeting, one-on-one with the Secretary, he would often ask one seemingly innocuous little question. This would neatly sum up all the fundamental problems...of your discipline."

Ripley could be forbidding. During staff meetings he would seem to be barely listening to some proposals, and suddenly announce, "No!" He did not necessarily compliment people who expected such recognition, nor did he remonstrate when a mistake was made, but maintained instead a glacial silence. He did not slap backs, and yet could write the most appreciative letters for services rendered.

Congress remained wary of Ripley's dynamism and independence, despite the fact that he went to considerable lengths to charm its members. These efforts included taking a pair of pistols-silver six-shooters-to the Hill for Congressional amusement and arranging for a baby orangutan, swaddled in a diaper, to be brought from the National Zoo to the Senate.

Some members of Congress had criticized the acquisition of the Hirshhorn collection; some now disagreed with the Smithsonian's decision to take over the almost bankrupt Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design and Smithsonian Video. More recently, in 1986, the National Air and Space Museum began publishing its AIR&SPACE/Smithsonian magazine.

Meanwhile, money poured into the Smithsonian endowment. In the first 10 years of Ripley's administration, the Institution's operating expenses went from $17 million to $71 million, but a balance of sorts did prevail: 20 percent of the budgetary increase for 1975, for instance, went to science, 33 percent to administration, and 39 percent to the arts, perhaps the area of greatest expansion under Ripley. The Secretary's high visibility-or lack thereof- proved risky, and, with the attention, brought more criticism. Despite the long-standing tradition of Secretaries' taking summers off to do research, some complained that Ripley frequently left the country when contentious issues arose concerning the Smithsonian. Congress and the press began to question his expeditions, although Ripley donated to the Institution more than 2,500 bird skins he himself had collected in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

In 1970, a Washington newspaper columnist took issue with the Secretary for chartering a 110-foot luxury yacht for $480 a day to sail the Aegean Sea in search of the Audouin's gull and for spending some $2,800 on particularly after bills for considerable amounts-for staff, "fine drink" and Palaiokastritsa lobsters. Riplev pointed Arts and Design in New York City, a private endeavor that became the first Smithsonian museum located outside Washington.

The Cooper-Hewitt acquisition had been undertaken without any formal consultation with the Regents, or with Capitol Hill, and many in Congress resented this. building maintenance, guard service, heat, and light in the donated Carnegie Mansion where the museum was housed-came due.

The Smithsonian had published its first book in 1848; in 1966 its publishing division became known as Smithsonian Institution Press and developed into a fine university press that continued to put out scholarly works and research efforts, eventually joining forces with Smithsonian Books, a more popular, direct-mail publishing enterprise; the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings; This 1826 French jewelry cabinet is collection at the Cooper-Hewitt now part of the decorative-arts National Design Museum. out that the trip had been financed by a private donation, not tax money, and that he not only had found an Audouin's gull but also had spotted a rare Eleonora's falcon. Three years later, Ripley was again criticized by the same columnist for being away on expeditions for 28 weeks in one year and for spending $ 15,000.

A perception problem had arisen, and some people, including politicians and journalists, resented Ripley's patrician manner and apparently charmed stewardship. There were gathering signs that the eighth Secretary had been too successful.

In 1978 Congress authorized legislation to merge the Museum of African Art with the Smithsonian. Launched back in 1964 by Warren Robbins, who had spent 10 years in Europe as a cultural attaché in the U.S. Foreign Service, the museum was originally located in the Capitol Hill row house in which abolitionist Frederick Douglass had once lived.

Robbins had initially approached Gordon Gibson, a curator of ethnology in the Museum of Natural History, in an attempt to launch a formal relationship between the museum and the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology. However, the Institution did not have the funding at that time to support such an endeavor.

Meanwhile, the museum's acquisitions had grown to include some 5,000 African art objects and a collection of paintings by l9th-century African-American artists. The one row house had become nine, with 12 galleries, a small auditorium, and a library, and operating expenses continued to mount. Finally, with the support of Senator Hubert Humphrey, who, as Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, had served as a Smithsonian Regent, proposed to Ripley that the Museum of African Art become part of the Smithsonian.

Growing awareness of African-American heritage and growing political clout now made the prospect of adding the museum to the Smithsonian's other bureaus a real one. A proposal, signed by more than 30 Senators and 100 members of the House of Representatives, was made to the Chancellor of the Smithsonian, Chief Justice Warren Burger. Burger and Ripley were in favor of acquiring the museum, if federal funds could be obtained for its maintenance and for future acquisitions.

In addition to its science, history, and art museums-the Smithsonian had grown to include tropical research stations and astrophysical observatories; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established in 1969 as an independent agency but housed in the Castle; and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 1970 with its own board of trustees.

In 1973 the National Zoo established a Conservation and Research Center on 3,150 acres in Front Royal, Virginia, where such animals as zebras, Asian barking deer, oryx, and Bactrian camels could roam in spacious pastures. A bird hatchery, equipped with large brooding cages that the Washington facility could not accommodate. is located here, as well as other facilities for breeding and caring for endangered animals. The center also grows great quantities of hay, much of which is transported 75 miles back to the District to feed hungry residents of the Zoo itself.

Another new bureau, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center ( SERC ), formerly the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies, was opened on 2,600 acres of watershed on the Rhode River, an estuary of the bay. Here scientists undertake projects involving general ecosystem research, land use, and forest ecology. Some of the land has never been disturbed, enabling researchers to conduct comparative analyses of species and to study forest succession in a unique environment. SERC offers broad educational programs-including special courses for children-to the public. Also created during this era were the Belmont Conference Center; the Office of Fellowships and Grants, which encouraged students and visiting scholars to pursue their research at the Institution; the Oceanographic Sorting Center, with facilities in Washington and Tunisia; and myriad related activities and affiliations around the world, from Belize to Nepal.

In 1976 the Smithsonian recalled the nation's 1876 Centennial Exposition. On May 10, an exhibit opened in Arts and Industries with characteristic Ripley flair, "complete with carriages, prayers, the Hallelujah Chorus, release of pigeons, and the John Philip Sousa music composed for the occasion. Each of these great exhibits... creates an atmosphere of excitement, of sheer pleasure, and of enthusiasm which is contagious," the Secretary himself intoned.

As was most readily apparent in the largest, most colorful, and most varied celebration yet of the Festival of American Folklife, that summer was the Institution's apex. With the assistance of the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Administration, the Smithsonian brought in people from all over the United States, including many Native Americans, and from 35 other nations. "Working Americans," ``OId Ways in the New World," and "African Diaspora" were among the main themes in a universal celebration of grassroots culture on a scale not seen before in Washington.

The festival lasted 12 weeks, during which the Mall was crowded with a living demonstration of American cultural wealth and more than four million eager spectators from all over the country who presented the National Park Service with the formidable challenge of preserving the grass. But, as Richard Kurin, a cultural anthropologist and director of the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies, said later, the celebration avoided becoming a "massive state spectacle." Instead it "retained its intimate presentational modes...small performed stages, narrative workshops, intimate crafts and foodways...children's participation areas, and the like.... The Bicentennial Festival illustrated in the strongest terms the living nature of folk culture throughout the United States and the world."

The folklife festival also represented the cooperation of thousands of people, from national and international scholars to community activists, and was established in the Office of Folklife Programs as a permanent part of the Smithsonian. The late folklorist Ralph Rinzler was appointed the office's first director, and soon extended the range of fieldwork and education. For example, the Smithsonian Folklife Studies Series, launched that bicentennial year, published information about American and other cultural traditions, and produced documentary films to accompany these works.

The festival's scholarly and community-service extensions provided a thoroughly contemporary approach to the increase and diffusion of knowledge that inspired two other national programs for the preservation of folk traditions: the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts Program in the Folk Arts.

In the two years after the July 1976 opening of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), the building received 20 million visitors. Behind the scenes in this, the most popular museum in the world, research facilities-like the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, which conducts research in lunar and planetary photography and on terrestrial deserts, building an extensive collection of photographs and images from space-pushed ever outward the limits of human knowledge, one of James Smithson's original mandates.

In 1980, the Museum of History and Technology (which had been renamed the National Museum of History and Technology in 1969) became the National Museum of American History, signifying a significant shift of emphasis from the old engineering and industry themes to those of culture and American studies. It soon appealed to the public as a repository of wildly varying Americana, some of the exhibits complete with scents- such as those of chocolate in a 19th-century confectionery or of a Southern sharecropper's barnyard. One year's gifts included a pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves, an "Impeach Nixon" T-shirt, and Rosalynn Carter's inaugural gown. But out of view of the general public, curators and other staff delved into historical theory and the infinitely intriguing aspects of American history, from the country's early intellectual and political leadership to the privations of modern-day inner-city life.

During this time, Ripley's wife, Mary Livingston Ripley, created the Smithsonian Women's Committee, which continues to raise funds through craft shows and other functions and whose members play an important role in the Institution's programs and activities. In 1977, Corinne C. (Lindy) Boggs, of Louisiana, a member of the House Committee on Appropriations, was appointed the first woman Regent, replacing Sidney Yates, of Illinois. Her appointment was another milestone in Ripley's tenure.

Meanwhile, however, accusations against Ripley, ranging from the trivial to the substantive, continued. It had been suggested in Congress, for instance, that Ripley had improperly transferred from the Zoo to his preserve in Connecticut five ruddy ducks-the expressed purpose being to induce breeding-an indication that no detail of the Smithsonian's business would pass unnoticed. The Secretary also was criticized for giving himself $100,000 worth of grants for studying birds.

While the Institution enjoyed unprecedented public approval, in 1977 the General Accounting Office charged that the Smithsonian had attempted to conceal its financial dealings from Congress. Then the Institution was accused by a House subcommittee of mismanagement of its world-renowned gem collection. The Smithsonian parried the charges with announcements of policy changes, but recrimination was in the air.

Some of this bad press was indirectly the fault of Ripley. "In some ways he is not personally well suited for a political and bureaucratic town like Washington," Larry van Dyne wrote in The Washingtonian. "His interests, while perfectly admirable, do not match those of political and media insiders.... Ripley is more likely to be spending his weekend organizing to save some endangered variety of Darrot or rhinoceros."

Ripley himself believed that "if you stick your toe out of the door in Washington, you have to be prepared for someone to beat on it. It was a calculated risk to bring the Smithsonian out into the light of day, but we took that risk to get things that were good for Americans."

Not yet through taking risks, Ripley had in mind a scheme that was to be the capstone of his administration, although he didn't have an obvious place to put his new enterprise. The last available plot on the Mall, east of the Air and Space Museum, had been eyed by backers of proposals for several new museums. Marvin Sadik, at the time director of the National Portrait Gallery, had proposed a Museum of the American Indian. Sadik and others saw Native American culture as a rich source of both art and history beyond the scope of their bureaus.

Sadik's elegant Portrait Gallery, housed in the Old Patent Office Building-described by poet Walt Whitman as "that noblest of Washington buildings"-already had some 10,000 art objects and a clear mandate going back to the times of Charles Wilkes. Since opening to the public in 1968, the gallery had attempted to present a coherent reflection of the American experience through portraiture. Located five blocks north of the Mall on 8th and F streets, Northwest, the Portrait Gallery steadily pursued accessions for a collection that grew to include a 1616 engraving of Pocahontas, an etching of Benedict Arnold, a bronze bust of civil-rights leader Rosa Parks, and a portrait of the artist Mary Cassatt by Edgar Degas.

The National Collection of Fine Arts (renamed in 1980 the National Museum of American Art), the oldest federal art collection in the country, was also located in the Old Patent Office Building and likewise had expanded, in its case to reflect two centuries of the visual arts. The museum's portraiture (including the paintings of Indians by Charles Bird King, landscapes, impressionistic and realistic paintings, photography, crafts, and graphic design by largely self-trained artists constituted an impressive compendium of American achievement.

Searching for space for yet more art, Ripley turned to the Castle's own back yard. He had long been frustrated by the no-lending restriction placed on the Freer collection by its donor, Charles Freer, and by other restrictions regarding the Freer Gallery itself. Next to the gallery, however, lay an opportunity: the parking lot once occupied by the tin shed that had housed part of the National Air Museum's collections. Here Ripley envisioned something grand and audacious: an underground museum complex. Since the District of Columbia's Council for the Arts opposed any new construction on the Mall, Ripley saw this concept as a novel way to create space by revamping part of the Smithsonian grounds that had been largely ignored for 130 years.

By 1980, the project was underway. Ripley commissioned Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura to produce a design for a three-level, underground development that became known as "the Quadrangle" and was also to include handsome gardens and an impressive entrance gate off Independence Avenue. At different times, the Quadrangle was seen as a new home for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), for the Institution's 30,000 rare books, for African and American Indian art, and for the cars of visitors and staff.

The concept that finally prevailed was for a museum of African art, politically the most viable proposal, and another for a second collection of Eastern art to augment and complement the Freer's. (Congress had approved the acquisition of the already existing Museum of African Art, including its bronzes from the Guinea coast, jewelry and ceremonial robes, masks, fetishes, headdresses, and an extensive collection of musical instruments, with Senator Claiborne Pell, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, insisting upon the condition that the Smithsonian find a more suitable location for the museum than the Capitol Hill row houses.) The Quadrangle's remaining space would house the Institution's public- program offices and its Directorate of International Affairs.

Ripley secured from Congress an agreement to appropriate half the funds required for the project and set about personally raising the other half-some $36.5 million-from the Japanese government and corporations, from the Korean government and wealthy Saudis, and from private American citizens. A generous contribution from Enid Haupt, the sister of publishing baron Walter Annenburg, would build the beautiful Victorian Haupt garden.

Ripley persuaded Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, a psychiatrist and wealthy medical publisher, to donate 1,000 pieces of Asian art valued at close to $75 million and $4 million for the construction of a Far Eastern gallery within the Quadrangle. After Yoshimura suffered a stroke, the architectural details were taken over by Jean Paul Carlhian, a principal in the Boston architectural firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott.

In SMITHSONIAN YEAR 1982, the Secretary, in reference to the Quadrangle, wrote what amounted to a summation of his final vision for the Smithsonian: "For perhaps the first time in our history, we are embarking in a spirit of social responsibility on a creative effort to increase understanding and respect for our neighbors. One of our mandates, the diffusion of knowledge...works both ways, within and without. We can, for example, tell Americans about their history, but how can we extend that to...the rest of the world? Traditions and cultures alien to the massive onslaughts of mechanistic technology are fragile indeed. They are being eroded every day just as the forests of the tropics disappear. Cultures drift away like the dust that follows the draft of a lifting jet plane on a far-away runway...."

Displays of African, Near Eastern, and Asian art, it was hoped, would foster global understanding while helping to preserve distant civilizations and, Ripley implied, an awareness of the diminishing physical world. At the same time, there was no reference to the world of science, once the foremost concern of the Smithsonian but now eclipsed in the Quad by art.

Some aspects of the Quadrangle-aside from those concerning the amount of money required- proved controversial. For instance, people questioned the advisability of including an Islamic center that might become a focus for activities beyond those inherent in a museum. "Are you the Ripley of 'Believe it or Not' fame?" asked one correspondent outraged by Ripley's solicitation of money from the Saudis. "This is a political-religious [sic] activity...and entirely out of keeping with what the Smithsonian stands for."

Nonetheless, a vast hole opened up south of the Castle. Into it eventually would go some of the most daring architecture in the nation's capital, art treasures, and, ironically, the final aspirations of an ornithologist who had transcended the cultural and political limitations of former Smithsonian Secretaries but not his own institutional mortality.

Rightly or wrongly, members of Congress perceived that Ripley was no longer in control of the Smithsonian's large bureaucracy, which had become perhaps too concerned with pomp, circumstance, and buildings. He was given credit for considerable diffusion of knowledge, but its increase under his stewardship was questioned; some thought the Institution, its annual appropriation now grown to about $100 million, out of touch with modern times, particularly with regard to minority hiring.

Ripley's detractors were not limited to Congress. Chief Justice Warren Burger, head of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, was also critical of the Secretary's autonomy and of what some viewed as high-handedness. As of 1972, the Institution was no longer run on a daily basis by Under Secretary James Bradley, who retired that year. Ripley's initial choice of a classical scholar to replace Bradley did not please the Regents. Finally, in 1980, Ripley hired Phillip Samuel Hughes, a long-time and consummate public servant whom he knew the Regents respected.

Despite the fact that the new Under Secretary involved himself in policy as well as management, Hughes got along well with Ripley. In 1982, Hughes asked Edward Rivinus, at the time Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Service, to form the Committee for a Wider Audience (CWA).

Once the CWA was established, its members sought to assure that, in Smithsonian programs and exhibits, proportionate recognition was given to all the varied communities that had participated in the development of American culture and society-an issue that would take on greater weight in the years ahead. (In 1990 the Smithsonian Office of Wider Audience Development was established.)

At this point, Ripley had been Secretary for almost 20 years, during which time the number of items in the Smithsonian's charge had grown from 74 million to more than 100 million. A possible replacement for Ripley began to be discussed in earnest: another era was ending.

But Ripley's vision, and his aura of a personal mission, still pervaded the Smithsonian. "He had nerve, as well as charm, wit and great intelligence," recalled Charles Blitzer, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in discussing Dillon Ripley. "How he imposed his will on such a large place remains a mystery."

The most flamboyant and perhaps most successful Secretary in the Institution's history would leave a tremendous challenge to the person chosen to follow him.

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