Smithsonian Exhibits

Smithsonian Exhibits

51��app College is proud to be a , a national outreach program that develops long-term collaborative partnerships with museums, educational, and cultural organizations to enrich communities with Smithsonian resources.

Exhibits in 51��app are made possible by the (SITES). SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 65 years. As the world’s largest traveling exhibition service, SITES offers exhibitions to museums, libraries, science centers, historical societies, community centers, botanical gardens, schools, and other institutions across the nation. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science, and history, which are shown wherever people live, work, and play.

Innovation in Rural America Showcased in Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition

Spark! Places of Innovation highlights innovation in rural America from the perspective of the people who lived it. The exhibition features stories and images from over 30 communities across the nation gathered through a crowdsourcing initiative. These places of innovation examined their existing assets, characteristics, people, resources and history to tackle the challenges of today with creative solutions and chart new directions for their future. Through photographs, hands-on interactives, objects, and videos, Spark! reveals the leaders, challenges, successes, and future of innovation in each featured town.

Learn more about Spark! Places of Innovation

Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964

This exhibition tells the story of the largest migrant worker program in U.S. history. It talks about the journey of the Braceros (a Mexican laborer allowed into the U.S. for a limited time as seasonal agricultural workers) and how Mexican workers were exploited by being promised economic opportunity and instead were subjected to horrible working and living conditions for meager pay that was usually sent back to their families in Mexico. This program had a direct impact on the political and social landscape of America by forming a basis for labor policies, immigration policies, and creating strong Mexican American communities. Posters are displayed in both Spanish and English.

Caribbean Indigenous Resistance / Resistencia indígena del Caribe ¡Taíno Vive!

The exhibition highlights the endurance and bravery of the Indigenous peoples of the northern Caribbean islands, known as the Taíno. This exhibition narrates the incredible survival journey of the Taíno people, illustrating the far-reaching impact and enduring legacy of Caribbean Indigenous culture across the globe. Uncover the profound historical tapestry and enduring cultural heritage of the region while pondering intricate questions about heritage, ancestry, and race that resonate in the context of modern Taíno identities.

Learn more about the Caribbean Indigenous Resistance.

City of Hope: Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign

“City of Hope: Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign” is a poster exhibition that details the work of many human rights groups, namely the African American Civil Rights group, during May and June of 1968 when the fight for social reform was in high gear. The campaign was created to draw people of all races together around the common issue of rampant poverty, despite the United States being one of the richest superpowers on the global stage. The main draw of the campaign was the creation of a tent city, known as Resurrection City, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where grassroots volunteers lived side-by-side and fought for livable wages, adequate housing, nutritious food, quality education, and healthcare that would benefit everyone. The exhibition reminds all that the fight against poverty has a long history and that there is still work to be done. Organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with the National Museum of Africa American History and Culture and funded in part with a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

51��app Works

A crowd-sourced local history exhibition created as part of a Smithsonian pilot project to give communities the tools to tell their own unique stories. The project presented a hands-on opportunity for local cultural professionals and community members to learn about the exhibition process, while celebrating 51��app’s past, amplifying the voices of 51��appians past and present, and bringing to light the unseen work and workers from throughout 51��app’s history.

Learn more about 51��app Works.

Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America
The exhibition demonstrates how our hometown sports energize the community, instill pride in it, and create a bond that is passed from one generation to the next.

Programs created especially for 51��app included:
- Opening Ceremony with the 51��app High School Pep Band (Feb. 15, 2019)
- 51��app College Men’s Basketball, Coach Arsenault Jr. (March 6, 2019)
- 51��app High School Trailblazers (March 17, 2019)
- Girls High School Basketball. History of the Sport in Iowa featuring 51��app residents that played 6 on 6 and the 51��app High School Girls Basketball Team (April 3, 2019)
- Local Elite. Panel moderated by KGRN’s Chris Varney

Observing with NASA

The Observing With NASA kiosk was created by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian and uses their Robotic Telescope Network that was built specifically for use by public audiences of all ages. The telescopes were designed to allow non-professionals interested in astronomy to use small but high-quality instruments for observing the sky.

The Observing With NASA exhibition engages visitors in the art and science of NASA imagery. The exhibition features a range of NASA’s most iconic images of planets like Jupiter, the Spiral Galaxy, and others for visitors to explore and opportunities for visitors to put their own artistic spin on these images through image analysis and processing.

The Observing With NASA Exhibit and programs were developed by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian with support from NASA’s TEAM II program.

Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence

A poster exhibition showing the history of the fight to pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote 100 years ago. The exhibition addressed women’s political activism, along with the racism that challenged universal suffrage. With historic images and text about key moments in the struggle that lasted for decades, the exhibition detailed the complexity of the women’s suffrage movement.

Learn more about Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence.

The Way We Worked

The exhibition traced the many changes that have affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years, including the growth of manufacturing and increasing use of technology. The exhibition included historical photographs, archival accounts of workers, film, audio and interactives, to tell the compelling story of how work impacts our individual lives and the historical and cultural fabric of our communities. It also demonstrated how the diversity of the American workforce is one of its strengths, providing an opportunity to explore how people of all races and ethnicities identified commonalities and worked to knock down barriers in the work world.

Learn more about The Way We Worked.

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