In 1995, in the face of opposition from veterans’ groups, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum was forced to walk back a plan to display the Enola Gay bomber within an exhibit that discussed the historical context and legacy of the atomic bomb and also included graphic photos of atomic bomb victims.
Indeed, the US has long struggled to determine the extent to which public institutions should wade into controversies about how to interpret sensitive issues in the nation’s history. There are few nations that celebrate their failings in the public arena-but compared to countries like Germany or Rwanda, the United States is among the most avoidant.
And in May of last year, the administration reportedly asked the Navy to hide a destroyer named after one of his most vocal critics, Senator John McCain, in order to avoid its appearance in photographs during Trump’s visit to a Japanese naval base.īut the bungling of the photo is also part of a long tradition of contestation and controversy surrounding public history. (Photo by Lucas Jackson – Pool/Getty Images)Īfter all, at Trump’s request, a government photographer cropped images of his inaugural parade to make the crowds look bigger. It is reasonable to assume that the National Archives were not worried about the impact of the Women’s March photo on their young visitors-they were worried about its impact on the man in the White House. In this increasingly challenging media environment, there is a president who aids and abets the erosion of objective truth-and who is more than likely than any leader before him to lash out at a publicly funded body like the National Archives for commemorating an event, such as the Women’s March, that protests his presidency.
New “ deepfake” techniques make it easier than ever for people to manipulate images and video to alter-or, indeed, entirely invent-what is being shown. On one hand, it transpires in the era of “fake news,” where the flow of information and images on the web is growing exponentially with few checks on veracity. In fact, the astonishing decision to alter the photograph is a result of the confluence of two powerful forces: one new and one old. (Photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)īut this event did not happen in a vacuum. The original sign read “If my pussy could shoot bullets it’d be less regulated,” here “pussy” is blurred out. The American Historical Association said the decision to alter the photograph to “sanitize or whitewash history” amounted to “distorting the historical record.” The National Coalition for History sent a letter complaining that “the possibility that those charged with preserving and maintaining the historic record of our nation can alter a representation of the past, such as a photograph, diminishes trust in both the National Archives and the federal government.”Ī close up on the altered sign in the photograph from Women’s March in 2017.
The blurring of the photograph was swiftly and universally condemned by professional historians and curators, including the Association of American Archivists.
(Photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)ĭavid Ferriero, the top archivist at the National Archives, said in a statement on Wednesday that the decision to blur the signs was driven by a desire “to avoid accusations of partisanship or complaints that we displayed inappropriate language in a family-friendly Federal museum.” (Of course, sexual vulgarity has been a common theme in efforts to censor art throughout history.) In this case, the thinking seems to have been that it is fine to show women protesting, but not what they are protesting about. The original sign read “God Hates Trump,” here “Trump” has been edited out.
A close up on the altered sign in the photograph from Women’s March in 2017 is seen on display at the National Archives Research Center on Friday, Januin Washington, D.C.