Marc Pachter was appointed interim director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History effective Aug. 15, 2011 and served in that position until July 24, 2012. He is currently the Acting Under Secretary.
In 2007, Pachter retired from the Smithsonian Institution after a 33-year career, most recently as director of the National Portrait Gallery, the nation’s only museum of American biography and portraiture.
Previously he served as acting director of the National Museum of American History for 13 months (November 2001-December 2002). During his tenure, Pachter facilitated the work of a Blue Ribbon Commission charged with making recommendations for the future of the museum. Under his leadership, the museum completed planning and design for the renovation of the center core, which was the first phase of the ongoing transformation of the building. He also oversaw the acquisition and display of Julia Child’s kitchen as well as the opening of “Sept. 11: Bearing Witness to History,” an exhibition that debuted on the first anniversary of the attacks and then traveled across the U.S.
As director of the Portrait Gallery, Pachter oversaw the reopening of the museum, part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, after an extensive six-year renovation of the National Historic Landmark building. Other highlights of Pachter’s tenure at the Portrait Gallery included raising $30 million to purchase the Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington, doubling the size of the “America’s Presidents” exhibition, establishing permanent galleries for portraits from people in sports and entertainment, and creating the first national portrait competition.
Joining the Portrait Gallery staff in 1974 as its chief historian and assistant director, Pachter, a cultural historian, began a program called Living Self Portraits in which he interviewed well-known personalities.
From 1990 to 1994, he was the Smithsonian’s deputy assistant secretary for external affairs, overseeing Smithsonian magazine, Smithsonian Institution Press, and membership and development programs. Later he was appointed counselor to the Secretary of the Smithsonian and chair of the Institution’s 150th anniversary in 1996. He was awarded the Secretary’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Service in 1999.
Pachter has written and edited a number of books, including Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation, Champions of American Sport, Documentary History of the Supreme Court, Telling Lives: The Biographer’s Art and A Gallery of Presidents.
He graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley and later was a Five-Year Prize Fellow in American History at Harvard University, where he taught colonial history, served as a tutor in the honors program and performed research in American intellectual and cultural history.