September 11 - 2011

To mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Museum created a special experience for visitors to view 50 objects from the three sites—New York City; the Pentagon; and Shanksville, Pennsylvania—as well as recent acquisitions related to how American lives have changed since then. The objects were shown on open tables, without cases, and with limited interpretation. Museum staff were available to discuss the objects or answer questions, and visitors were able to leave their stories by posting comment cards.

Artifacts included airplane fragments, a door from a crushed FDNY fire truck, a Pentagon map from the building’s first floor, and objects recovered from offices. Photographs from the Museum’s collection provided a context for each site. Also featured were video excerpts from the Smithsonian Channel documentary, 9/11: Stories in Fragments, and a video presentation ABC News made for the Museum on the one-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America.

10th Anniversary

For most of us, September 11 is a media event, lived vicariously through commentaries of journalists and designated "experts" who analyze yet again the familiar video clips that have become the collective public memory of that day. It is history through a flat screen. It should be more.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11, the National Museum of American History will show a selection of objects at the museum on open tables, without cases, and with short labels. Seeing them this way will be intimate and powerful. Staff will be available to discuss the display or answer questions. But we expect that for most visitors, this will not be a time to gather new information, but a time to quietly remember and reflect; a time simply to be in the presence of the objects and ponder their significance.

The objects were there; they were part of it all. Their power lives in their authenticity and their mute, unchanging simplicity. At this tenth anniversary, we are drawn to see and respond to them viscerally: twisted steel, singed clothing, melted plastic, a phone that provided a vital connection in an emergency, a battered fire-engine door.

Our display will be a museum experience reduced to its essence: we will show artifacts that the Smithsonian has chosen to preserve in perpetuity to document this turning point in our history. As we view and contemplate them, they give us continued insight about what happened and why, and how events of that day are affecting our present and future. It is a relationship that matures over time. While these artifacts stay the same, we move on. Their meaning continually changes.

Some day in the future, the museum's role will be to provide extensive commentary on these objects, to restore our memory of the events, and put them into broad historical context. How many planes were there again? What sites did they hit? What made the towers collapse?

But not yet. Not this year. Our goal on this tenth anniversary is to stimulate personal memories. These objects ask each viewer to look back at the shock and horror of that day, and answer the simple question: How has this historic event changed your life?

Here on the web, we invite you to explore images of these same objects. Take a look as well at the full collection of artifacts we have preserved of the event, and at the exhibition mounted in 2002: September 11: Bearing Witness to History.

Most important—become part of our collection yourself. Share your reflections of September 11 and how it has affected your life. Maybe it was a day you will never forget. Maybe you were too young even to remember the day itself. But landmark events like September 11 affect everyone in some way. What is your story?

David K. Allison,
Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs

Collecting September 11

Many Americans remember Tuesday, September 11, 2001 as horrific. Nearly 3,000 people died, others were injured, and many had to run for their lives. Most Americans, however, experienced September 11 from a safe distance. Even for those (like me) who were not directly touched by death or injury, the trauma was significant.

On Wednesday, I came back to work. I am a museum curator, so I immediately began thinking about what should be preserved—that's what we do. I made a list and shared it with others, who added their suggestions. But one of my colleagues looked at the list and asked: If you lived in Sarajevo and the date was June 24, 1914, what would you collect? Chagrined, I realized that on the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, it would have been hard to predict the extent of WWI and collect its iconic objects. Similarly on September 12, 2001, it was not clear what would come next.

Two days later a large group of curators got together to discuss what to do; opinions differed widely. Some wanted to quickly assemble teams to descend on the three sites and gather ephemeral evidence of the terrorist attacks. Some were horrified by the death and destruction (we usually document high points in history) and thought we should wait ten or twenty years until it was clear what was significant. Others thought we should collect September 11 as we collect any topic—by curatorial specialty.

A month later, Jim Gardner (then Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs) looked around and saw that very little had been collected. He asked a group of three curators—Bill Yeingst, David Shayt, and me—to create a foundation collection around September 11. We drew up a plan: collect material which led up to the attack, artifacts of the attack itself, and objects documenting the rescue and clean-up. We decided not to collect the memorialization aspects. Bill focused on the Pentagon, David on New York, and I concentrated on the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In the end we never collected materials which might give insight into the events leading up to the September 11 attacks. We did a good job of documenting the attack itself and the clean-up.

There is no magic formula for collecting museum objects, but it takes a certain kind of person to do the job. Collecting curators like to listen to stories, are willing to ask strangers for precious objects, and are doggedly persistent. One of our most effective tools for collecting was reading the newspaper. David read a story in The New York Times about a window washer named Jan Demczur. Trapped between floors on an elevator in the North Tower, Jan used his squeegee to pry open the door and cut through numerous layers of sheet rock and flee to safety. After numerous phone calls, David found Jan and convinced him to donate his uniform and dust covered squeegee.

We called upon old contacts to find opportunities to collect. Curator Jennifer Jones worked with the 311th Quartermaster Company Mortuary Affairs. In one of the most disturbing moments of the collecting initiative, Jennifer, Bill, and I spent an afternoon in a dark, claustrophobic 19th century stable at Fort Myer sorting through the contents of red bio-hazard bags looking for icons of the attack. This was not like any collecting trip I had ever experienced.

One of the longest-lasting efforts was the quest for artifacts from Flight 93. After several years of discussions with company representatives and a myriad of attorneys, we finally gained access to the wreckage of the plane. When we arrived at the small airport where the material was stored, we found the airplane wreckage was in 20' long ocean-going shipping containers. When the doors were opened we saw the debris was in amazingly small pieces. David worked the front of the piles while I climbed into the container, wriggling over the top of the pile, trying not to get cut by the sharp fragments of fuselage. In the near dark I looked for artifacts with a flashlight and fought back fears about what I might accidentally encounter. The wreckage smelled of jet fuel, moldy cloth, and other strange odors. This was not an assignment for anyone afraid of the dark. At the end of day, reeking of sweat and airplane wreckage, we threw away our work clothes before flying home.

Collecting often requires archival research. Bill and I spent many days going through thousands of photos maintained by the FBI. From crime scene images to haunting photos shot by participants who did not survive, the pictures put a human face on the September 11 attacks. Viewing the images made the experience far more personal. What I most desperately try to forget are things I saw in the photographs.

We were very driven yet remained respectful. We never directly contacted the relatives of someone killed—we always went through intermediaries so families could easily refuse our requests. Many of our conversations with participants and donors were hours long and often included a lot of crying—us included. It is difficult dealing with death and frankly none of us were prepared for the task. At times each one of us was ready to throw in the towel but the support and pressure of the others kept us going.

Like soldiers and their war stories, curators don't often talk about the experience of collecting. I am proud of our efforts collecting artifacts related to September 11. It is an important piece of history and should be preserved.

Peter Liebhold
Chair and Curator, Division of Work and Industry