The popular "We The People, Winning the Vote" exhibi- 

 tion was revamped and reopened this year. The new exhibi- 

 tion included different types of campaign ephemera and 

 posters which have been popularized in the latter 20th cen- 

 cury, including some never-before-seen objects, as well as ob- 

 jects that were part of the original exhibition, from political 

 memorabilia of the 19th century to the chairs and podium 

 used in the famous Kennedy-Nixon debates. 



Four photographs of president-elect John F. Kennedy and 

 his family taken in January 1961 by photographer Richard 

 Avedon went on display for the first time as part of the con- 

 tinuing celebration the Smithsonian's 150th anniversary. They 

 portray the new mother, Jacquelyn Kennedy with John John. 

 Caroline Kennedy is shown as a three year old with her father. 

 The photographs are part of the museum's photography collec- 

 tion and were featured in one of the CBS Smithsonian 

 Minutes, narrated by Anthony Hopkins. 



"Going Strong! Older Americans on the Job," featured 

 photographs of Americans over the age of retirement still 

 proudly working in their chosen professions. The exhibition 

 consisted of 37 black-and-white portraits by New York-based 

 photographer Harvey Wang, who crisscrossed the nation for a 

 decade capturing the faces, hands, tools, work settings and 

 stories of an assortment of resilient tradespeople. The portraits 

 feature, among others, a Rocky Mountain typesetter, an 80- 

 year-old Navajo shepherdess, a hubcap saleswoman, and a 97- 

 year-old scrap-metal dealer. 



"Museums at the Smithsonian: 150 Years of Collecting" 

 went on display in the Arts and Industries Building, which 

 holds two galleries of objects from the museum's collections. 

 The exhibition outlined the history of the Smithsonian; the ac- 

 quisition of some early collections; the changing mix of re- 

 search, collecting, and exhibition over the years; and the work 

 of important figures in the early history of the institution, 

 such as the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, and his colleague G. 

 Brown Goode. 



"The Engraver's Art in U.S. Mint Commemorative Coins" 

 gave visitors a close look at the five-dollar gold coin and silver 

 dollar issued August 10, 1996, to commemorate the 

 Institution's 150 years. The exhibition, created in collabora- 

 tion with the U.S. Mint, also showed other recent examples of 

 commemorative coins and told some of the story of their 

 making. Proofs of the coins and other artifacts joined the 

 museum's collection. 



"Produce for Victory: Posters on the American Home 

 Front, 1941-1945" was an exhibition of posters used to en- 

 courage factory workers to redouble their efforts at home and 

 commit themselves to the war effort through participation 

 and sacrifice. The exhibit was originally circulated by Smith- 

 sonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. 



"From a Friend in America: 50 Years of CARE" honored 

 the 50th anniversary of this worldwide organization. In the 

 last 50 years CARE has worked in 115 countries, providing 

 more than S7.5 billion in assistance to about one fifth of the 

 world's population. The exhibit includes an original 



"C.A.R.E. Package", a CARE "clipper" plow, a CARE 

 shoemaker's kit, posters, brochures and photos. 



The museum's quilt collection was made more accessible 

 through the design and construction of a permanent quilt case 

 to display quilts on a rotating basis. And the ever-popular ex- 

 hibition "First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image" 

 added a new theater and a new audio tour this year. 



The Museum presented many other small exhibitions as 

 part of its regular program of new offerings for visitors. A few 

 of the titles include "Arab Americans in Greater Detroit: A 

 Community Between Two Worlds," co-curated by the 

 museum and staff of the Dearborn, Michigan, Arab Cultural 

 Center for Economic and Social Services; "Mathematical In- 

 struments of Spain and Spanish America"; "Collecting 

 Ceramics and Glass: Changing Perspectives"; and others. 



The Archives Center mounted changing exhibitions in its 

 own gallery. For "150 Years Ago: 1846," staff at the center 

 mined their collections for items dating from circa 1846, in- 

 cluding sheet music, bills of sale, a teacher's certificate, prints, 

 and letterhead stationery. "The Louis S. Nixdorff Olympic 

 Games Collection, 1926-1978" showcased photogtaphs taken 

 by Nixdorff of U.S. Olympians as they relaxed, trained, and 

 competed. 



The continuing "History in the News" exhibition program 

 offered single-case exhibitions that explored important an- 

 niversaries and the history of recent events, such as "The End 

 of An Era: Woodies and the Downtown Department Store"; 

 "100th Anniversary of the Discovery of X-Rays"; "Philippine 

 Independence"; "FDR"; and others. Numismatic exhibitions 

 this year included "Recent Donations of Outstanding U.S. 

 Rarities," "The Double Eagle: the History of the Twenty Dol- 

 lar Gold Coin," and "Georgia's Currency: Colony Through 

 Confederacy," mounted at the Blue Ridge Numismatics Con- 

 vention at Dalton, Georgia. 



An ambitious schedule of public programs brought more 

 than 75 offerings to the museum's visitors. The Jerome and 

 Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and In- 

 novation presented "The Inventor and the Innovative Society" 

 as the inaugural symposium in its fall series "New Perspec- 

 tives on Invention and Innovation.'" Inventors and historians 

 explored the ways in which three innovative societies — 

 Renaissance Italy, metropolitan New York in the late 19th cen- 

 tury, and California's Silicon Valley — have nurtured and 

 sustained the inventive impulse. In the spring, the "Architec- 

 ture and Innovation" symposium examined invention and ar- 

 chitecture in the cultural context of the last decade of the 

 20th century. Architects Santiago Calatrava and Douglas Car- 

 dinal discussed their work as science and art with historians 

 Mark Jarzombek, Tony Webster, Mina Marefat, and Lemelson 

 Center director Art Molella. 



Throughout the year, in the center's Innovative Lives series, 

 inventors revealed for young audiences some of the labors and 

 triumphs of inventing. In a program by two MIT graduate 

 students, Thomas H. Massie described his "Phantom,'' an 

 electronic device giving existing computet technology the 



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