Chapter 6

When my plane landed at Dulles late on the Saturday night before the rescheduled tour, I turned on my phone and checked my voicemail for the first time in six weeks. I found numerous messages from my Smithsonian supervisor, left in increasing levels of panic. “You’d better come in a day early to set things up,” he sighed when I finally got a hold of him the next day.

So that Wednesday, still a bit jet-lagged, I boarded the Metro and made the familiar trip to NMAH. I had been gone for less than two months, but my I.D. card had already expired, so my supervisor had to meet me in the lobby and escort me up the elevator to the staff-only floors. “Better watch out,” he warned me. “You’ve upset quite a number of people.”

The NMAH’s top curators had already decided my tour would not take place in engineering’s shabby storeroom. Rather, our VIPs would be the first to see a newly renovated, state-of-the-art showroom down the hall. Intended to house the agriculture and mining technologies collections (and completed before the funds could be poached to keep the museum open during sequestration), the new room was icy—not because they had managed appropriate climate control (a constant challenge for all museums), but because the collections manager was downright hostile. My shenanigans had meant that she had to vacuum away every speck of dust and generally eliminate any sign that this was an active workplace.

Outside in the corridor, I overheard two staff members talking about me: “Who does she think she is? Emailing the Secretary! Inviting a senator!” The privileges I had enjoyed as a pesky but eager Smithsonian insider were long gone. Now, my former colleagues saw me as merely a graceless interloper, ignoring rules I didn’t like, calling attention to workers who preferred to keep their heads down (and off the chopping block), and creating extra work for them in the process.

Before the tour, the Director of Curatorial Affairs gave me strict orders: under no circumstance was I allowed to speak for the future of NMAH’s collections. I wasn’t allowed to make any suggestions about what the museum should be collecting or what its direction should be. I wasn’t allowed to say anything that might prompt a question for which the secretary didn’t have an answer. If the senator asked me what he could do to help, I was not allowed to say. If asked directly, I should defer to someone with authority to speak to those issues.

Humbled but still nervously excited, I reported to the staff entrance the next day to meet my guests. John Gray, the director of NMAH, was already there, along with the personal assistant to the museum’s director of curatorial affairs and the Smithsonian Institution’s legislative affairs liaison. I was pleased to see that Gray was beaming. “So you’re the one who made this happen?” he asked, shaking my hand. I started to apologize about overstepping, but he cut me off. “Nonsense. This is the kind of thing we need to do more often. And why aren’t we showing them our old storerooms? They need to see our challenges.”

Secretary Clough arrived right on time with his suit jacket folded over his arm, a concession to D.C.’s brutal summer heat. All of the men quickly slipped out of their own jackets in show of deference to his authority. After quick introductions, we settled into a light-hearted banter. Twenty minutes later, Senator Heinrich arrived with his assistant, apologetic for his tardiness but still enthusiastic. “Have you ever been to the National Museum of American History?” I asked. “No? Well, you’re in for a special treat.”

Objects from the Panama Canal, a piece of the levee wall that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina, microcomputers—it was an engineering treasure trove.

Sure enough, when we walked into the gleaming showroom, the senator was like a kid in a candy store. Objects from the Panama Canal, a piece of the levee wall that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina, microcomputers—it was an engineering treasure trove. Heinrich immediately started examining Farmer’s windmill-battery patent model, trying to see how it worked.

Exactly six minutes into the tour, the senator’s assistant interrupted us. “A vote has just been called. We need to leave. Now.”

As Senator Heinrich started rushing down the hall, he called out, “When can I come back with my kids?”

“Anytime!” I yelled after him, not mentioning that I wouldn’t be there to show them around.

I returned to the showroom, where the Secretary had been talking to the Director and other assembled staff members. He turned to me and asked, regarding a slightly ragged pile of papers, “Why those?”

I confessed that even though it wasn’t very flashy, it was one of my favorite objects. “In 1903, an engineer took a drafting course by correspondence school. Those are his notes. I think it offers insightful parallels to today’s debates over online education.”

Secretary Clough flipped through the exercises, reminiscing about his own drafting coursework. Like the student from the past, he was always being reprimanded for his imprecise handwriting and varyingly thick lines. When he leaned forward to take a closer look at the school’s name, a smile slowly spread across his face. “International Correspondence School. ICS. That’s how my dad got his degree. He worked on banana boats out of New Orleans. Back and forth to South America, he decided to earn a certificate in refrigeration and marine engine maintenance.”

He stepped back and looked directly at me. “What can I do to help engineering?”

I smiled, biting my tongue. “You need to talk to the director of curatorial affairs about that, sir.”