Smithsonian marks 25th anniversary of 9/11 with a display of rare artifacts

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seat belts and a flight attendant call button from the doomed United Airlines Flight 93. A purse filled with keys and a wallet recovered from the World Trade Center site. The telephone that sat on U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson’s desk when his wife, Barbara, called from a hijacked airplane.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is honoring the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks this week with displays of dozens of rarely seen objects that tell the story of that day in often searingly personal terms.

The exhibit, which runs through Saturday, comes as the museum is under growing scrutiny by President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress over the manner in which it tells American history.

The Smithsonian began collecting items just months after the attacks and regularly displays some of them throughout the sprawling museum along the National Mall. But this week’s exhibit is unique as the items are displayed on tables, rather than seen through glass. The museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, said some of the items being shown this week are “so fragile they’ll probably never go on display.”

The goal, she said, is to help visitors “both never forget, but also kind of reconnect” as a new generation emerges that didn’t experience the attacks.

“This has truly slipped into history rather than being part of our memory landscape,” she said.

Some of the items, including a beeper belonging to an employee who worked on the 97th floor of the South Tower, harken back to office life at the turn of the century. A candy dispenser from the Pentagon includes melted chocolate.

The museum has faced conservative criticism since the White House released a report on Independence Day branding the museum’s leadership as radical activists. Hartig faced two days of congressional hearings in July, where Republicans argued the museum should present a more unifying version of American history, prompting concern from historians that lawmakers and the White House were more interested in revisionism than accurate history.

Trump later ordered his administration to install signs in front of the museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate. More than a month later, such signs have not been installed.

In an interview, Hartig said the scrutiny didn’t influence how the Sept. 11 exhibit came together.

“This museum exists as a repository, as a place of memory,” she said. “And so the current political moment is like many other political moments that we document. There’s different opinions and contestation over how we do our work.”

More change could be ahead after Lonnie Bunch announced his plans to step down as the leader of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian operates outside the executive branch and Bunch’s successor will be chosen by a Board of Regents that includes Vice President JD Vance, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and so-called citizen regents.

Hartig acknowledged that “leadership transitions are always complicated.”

But, she said, “I wake up every day confident in Americans’ ability to embrace the complexities of their past.”