How the Smithsonian became the latest front in Trump’s culture war
摘要
史密森尼美国历史博物馆2021年推出的富兰克林展览指出，这位开国元勋在成为废奴主义者前曾蓄奴，其科学成就部分得益于奴隶制，并推测被奴役者可能参与其电学实验。白宫7月发布162页报告，批评该博物馆遭“意识形态俘获”，将使命从历史教育转向极端政治活动。展览已于2025年关闭，但仍可在线查阅。
In November 2021, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History opened an exhibit called “The Electric Dr. Franklin,” describing “Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering contributions to electrical science.” The exhibit explained that, prior to becoming an abolitionist, he had enslaved people in his household. “Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable scientific accomplishments were, in part, enabled by slavery,” it declared.
The exhibit speculated that Franklin may have used enslaved people in his electrical research. “Franklin wrote about experiments in which he took shocks and used family and friends in these ways, although he seldom identified who in particular assisted him,” stated the exhibit, which closed in 2025 but can still be found online. “Indentured servants and enslaved people in his household could also have been used, although we may never know for certain.”
It was an eye-catching conjecture: one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers subjecting people held against their will to possibly painful shocks. And it was one of many details singled out for criticism in a blistering 162-page White House report released in July that argued that the museum had fallen victim to an “ideological capture” that “moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”
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