A historian and museum professional says the National Museum of American History has become unrecognizable since his last visit in 2012, calling it "a museum for activism", a charge that lands as the Trump administration and Congress press the Smithsonian over its exhibits and mission.
Dr. Jody Edward Ginn traveled from Texas to Washington after reading the Trump administration's Domestic Policy Council report, which accused the Smithsonian and its flagship history museum of failing to present the past "in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic." What he found inside, he told Fox News Digital, confirmed his worst expectations.
"It's a completely different place than when I was there in 2012," Ginn said. He described a museum that had abandoned scholarly standards in favor of ideological messaging, exhibits built not to inform visitors but to steer them toward predetermined conclusions.
At the center of Ginn's critique is a change the museum made to its own mission statement: the National Museum of American History dropped the words "American history" from its guiding language. Anthea Hartig, the museum's director, explained the decision during a 2024 presentation to undergraduate and graduate history students. She said it was "hard to get out of the 'America First' mentality."
That admission matters. The nation's premier history museum, funded by taxpayers and housed on the National Mall, decided the phrase "American history" carried the wrong connotations, and its director framed patriotic sentiment as something the institution needed to escape.
Ginn was very direct about what he observed once inside.
"Its mission is clearly exactly what they changed it to be. It is a museum for activism. They use history, but that's kind of the problem. You know, scholars of history, and I don't consider these folks scholars anymore. They're activists."
He traced the shift to a broader movement within the museum profession, one he said he has watched develop for more than ten years. A 2017 guide for museum professionals called the MASS Action Toolkit, which has been linked to the Smithsonian, references the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed. The toolkit describes "objectivity" as a characteristic of "white supremacy culture."
That framing, objectivity as a form of racial bias, helps explain how a museum ostensibly devoted to historical scholarship could drift so far from its original purpose. If the professionals running exhibits believe neutrality itself is suspect, every display becomes an argument.
The Trump administration has taken a broader interest in how federal institutions present American history. Earlier this year, the White House issued a report accusing Smithsonian leadership of radical activism, part of a sustained push to hold the institution accountable for what critics say is a politically driven rewriting of the national story.
Ginn's visit came after a House Oversight subcommittee hearing titled "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian's Efforts to Reshape the Past," held July 21, 2026, in the Rayburn building. Lawmakers questioned Hartig directly about the museum's direction, and some of the questions cut to material no one expected to find in a taxpayer-funded history museum.
Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, pressed Hartig about an exhibit called "Illegal to Be You: Gay History Beyond Stonewall." His description of what visitors could find there was blunt:
"You have pictures of bondage, you have some overtly sexual things up there, you have transgender folks."
Hartig maintained during the hearing that the museum has not taken a side. Ginn found that claim difficult to square with what he saw on the museum floor.
"If that's the kind of museum you've been approved to run, then just own it. Don't say you're being unbiased when it's really evident."
The administration has not limited its scrutiny to the Smithsonian alone. Federal officials have also moved to post warning signs outside the museum over disputed exhibits, a step that drew both praise from conservatives and legal challenges from opponents of the administration's approach.
Ginn's sharpest observation was not about what the museum chose to display. It was about what it chose to omit.
"The biggest problem is in what they leave out."
He said some exhibits contained "factually incorrect information," though the specific displays were not identified. More broadly, he described a museum experience designed to push visitors, including children, toward activism rather than understanding.
"These are geared towards all ages. Why would you do that? All of that's out of sync with what museums were just a few years ago."
Ginn framed the problem as institutional, not incidental. He said the staff running the museum have fully embraced the activist model, and that correcting the trajectory will require more than cosmetic changes.
"You're going to have to put in new people who are committed to scholarly standards and non-politicized educational programming. These people have bought into it, hook, line and sinker."
That assessment aligns with the broader pattern of federal pushback against institutions that have drifted from their founding purposes. Courts have weighed in on related disputes, a federal judge initially ordered the administration to restore removed national park exhibits, though an appeals court later reversed that order, siding with the administration's authority over how history is presented on federal property.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Smithsonian for comment. No response was included in the reporting.
Ginn's own position is straightforward. He believes the National Museum of American History exists to educate, not to convert.
"It is my opinion as a public historian that the mission we've always had is to educate the public and provide scholarly information. To me, that's what the National Museum of American History should be."
He said the shift did not surprise him, he had watched the museum profession move in this direction for years. But seeing it firsthand, in the building that is supposed to be the country's definitive collection of its own story, sharpened the stakes.
"From the moment I walked in, it's a very different experience. Now, I wasn't totally shocked by this because I've been watching this evolution in my field for over a decade."
Ginn described a profession that traded its core obligation, presenting history honestly and letting the public draw its own conclusions, for a mandate to shape public opinion. The 2017 MASS Action Toolkit, with its rejection of objectivity as a professional standard, offered the intellectual permission structure. Museum leaders like Hartig supplied the institutional will. And the result is a National Museum of American History that, by its own director's admission, found the phrase "American history" too uncomfortable to keep in its mission statement.
When a museum named for American history decides the words "American history" carry the wrong message, the problem is not the name. It is the people running the building.
