DID THE CURATOR REALLY DO IT?

THE SMITHSONIAN IN POPULAR FICTION

How do people outside of the museum/research community 

perceive museum curators, the collections they acquire, and 

the research questions they answer? Whether in popular 

literature, including mysteries, romances, and science fiction; 

film; or television, the portrayal of museum culture often 

differs dramatically from that which museum employees 

know. How is the Smithsonian portrayed in fiction such as 

books, plays, TV series, and film? 

The Smithsonian Institution, perhaps more than any other 

cultural institution, has been the setting for fiction ranging 

from a Gore Vidal novel to the TV series Bones to films 

including Night at the Museum. Anthropology, especially forensic anthropology, has 

been perhaps the most popular topic for fiction writers. As the Smithsonian launches a 

major public awareness campaign, it may be illuminating to look at how its museums 

are perceived and portrayed in popular fiction.

 FROM THE ARCHIVES
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THE SMITHSONIAN: A NOVEL EXPERIENCE

The Smithsonian and its staff began to appear in fiction writing shortly after it was founded, 

reflecting popular ideas of what this new institution was. References to the Smithsonian 

appeared in biographical novels, satires, murder mysteries, and adventures, ranging from a few 

words to complete novels set at the Smithsonian. 

SATIRE

The first novel that referenced the Smithsonian was Mark Twain’s 1869 Innocents Abroad. Here 

is found the caricature that would soon give the United States 

National Museum the nickname “The Nation’s Attic.” Twain’s 

protagonist is awed by his traveling companion with the title 

“Commissioner of the United States of America to Europe, Asia, 

and Africa.” Twain notes that the impressive title did not carry 

much weight, remarking “that his mission had nothing more 

overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds and 

uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar 

bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil 

the Smithsonian Institute.” His shipmates are all consumed 

with the collecting mania, turning their staterooms “into a 

museum of worthless trumpery . . . .” Twain skewers the 19thcentury romantic obsession with mementos of the distant past, 

and the Smithsonian as the center of what he considered to be 

a useless universe.

Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925) also takes a cynical look at collectors and collecting, 

but with a far more serious tone. She portrays the Smithsonian as a 

flawed source of expertise filled with staff who, like other modern 

Americans, have been corrupted by desire for material things. Cather 

also provokes a sophisticated discussion of the moral value of 

antiquities. 

“But I never thought of selling them, because they weren’t mine 

to sell—nor yours! They belonged to this country, to the State, 

and to all the people. They belonged to boys like you and me, 

that have no other ancestors to inherit from. You’ve gone and 

sold them to a country that’s got plenty of relics of its own. 

You’ve gone and sold your country’s secrets, like Dreyfus.”
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THE LIFE OF JAMES SMITHSON

Very little is known of the Smithsonian’s enigmatic founding 

donor, so authors have tried to fill the void by writing James 

Smithson into romances. The worst of these was written in 1934 

by the appropriately named Louise W. Hackney. Titled Wing of 

Fame: A Novel Based on the Life of James Smithson, the story is

loosely based on Smithson’s life, focusing on his struggles to 

make a name for himself in science and his life in France during 

the Revolution. It explains away his lack of a wife by positing that 

he secretly married a young woman during the Revolution and 

never recovered from her premature death. 

Another novel in which a character based on Smithson takes a 

very romantic turn is John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which was published in

1969. In the story, Charles Smithson (loosely based on James Smithson) begins an intimate 

relationship with another woman, the disgraced Sarah Woodruff. The story was altered quite a 

bit in Harold Pinter’s 1981 screenplay, which was directed by Karel Reisz. As in the other 

novels, the Smithson character is a modern scientist who has been unmoored from traditional 

values. Modernity has its drawbacks.

MURDER AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The largest subset of novels to utilize the Smithsonian are murder mysteries. The Smithsonian’s 

museums, quirky staff, spooky exhibits, forensic scientists, and endless collection storage areas 

have provided local color for many of these stories. 

Some authors turn to the Smithsonian for background research but don’t actually mention the 

Institution. Such was the case with Patricia Cornwell, the prolific mystery writer who consulted 

with Smithsonian staff at length while developing her forensic anthropologist, Kay Scarpetta, 

who appears in 20 novels. Scarpetta uses science to solve crimes, primarily studies of the 

human body, but also turns to naturalists for additional clues, such as the life cycles and normal 

locations of insects found on human remains.

Other authors use physical anthropologists with Smithsonian connections 

to solve crimes. Author Aaron Elkins has developed the character of 

Gideon Oliver, a physical anthropologist skilled at solving all sorts of 

unusual crimes in remote locations. In Twenty Blue Devils, for example, 

Oliver teaches part of a week-long forensic seminar hosted by the 

Smithsonian. In solving a murder in Tahiti, he quotes Smithsonian 

anthropologist Doug Ubelaker, a real member of the National Museum of 

Natural History (NMNH) staff who once stated “We are the final chance 

for the voice of the victim to be heard.”
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Perhaps the best known of these murder mysteries is Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs. In 

the novel, the lead FBI agent not only relies on forensic anthropologists, but also brings a moth 

to the Smithsonian to be identified. The Black Witch moth would not naturally occur where the 

body was found, proving that the murder took place elsewhere. 

Some of the researchers found in these mysteries are heroic, while others are evil. Kathryn 

Lasky Knight and Tony Hillerman both portray good and bad curators. In Lasky’s Trace 

Elements, the academic and government research communities are taken on with the aid of 

Archie Baldwin, a Smithsonian anthropologist. Hillerman, known for his crime novels set on 

Native American reservations, includes the Smithsonian in his book Talking God, where cases of 

murder and grave robbing begin to intertwine. Anthropological specimens in the story come 

from the Smithsonian and scenes in the book take place at NMNH. Ultimately, a Smithsonian 

conservator is arrested for grave robbing. Sometimes devotion to scholarly achievement can 

lead characters down adventurous or evil paths. 

HISTORICAL FICTION

Several interesting works of historical fiction incorporate the 

Smithsonian. Andrea Barrett’s short stories and her novel The Voyage 

of the Narwhal focus on 19th-century natural history. In the Narwhal, 

ill-prepared “discovery men” on an expedition to the Arctic are rescued 

by Native Americans. When an Eskimo who returns with them dies, 

however, her remains are sent to the Smithsonian for exhibit; she does 

not get a human burial. Once again, men of science are morally 

ambiguous.

Another natural history novel is Diane Smith’s Letters from Yellowstone. A.E. (Alexandra) 

Bartram, a young woman studying botany, joins an 1898 expedition to Yellowstone National 

Park sponsored by the Smithsonian. The group includes three Smithsonian scientists. Taken for 

a man from her letters, Bartram must deal with gender issues and her own evolving views on 

both science and her life. 

THE SMITHSONIAN AS CENTER STAGE

For a smaller set of novels, the Smithsonian is center stage with most of the story set at the 

Institution and most of the characters related to the Smithsonian in some way. One of the 

most recent and well-known is Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. In this story, Robert Langdon 

travels to Washington to see his mentor, Peter Solomon, now Secretary of the Smithsonian, 

who in fact has been kidnapped. Heavily steeped in Masonic lore and the search for the “Lost 

Word,” part of the book is set at a vacant section (pod 5) of the Museum Support Center. [The 

idea that any Smithsonian storage space would be unused is indeed a fictional concept.]
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Gore Vidal’s The Smithsonian Institution: A Novel is the story of “T.,” a 

13-year-old St. Albans student summoned to the Smithsonian in 1939 

under mysterious circumstances. T. stumbles on a coven of nuclear 

physicists huddled in the Castle basement and discovers he is there to 

help Robert Oppenheimer solve the problem of nuclear fission. Along 

the way, he learns how to manipulate breakthroughs in the time 

continuum and interacts with historical figures such as Albert Einstein, 

Abraham Lincoln, and Charles Lindbergh, who come to life in 

Smithsonian exhibits. 

Some books have been written by 

Smithsonian staff, such as Richard T. Conroy 

of the Office of International Activities. In three of his novels, the 

protagonist Henry Scruggs, a rather unsuccessful foreign service 

officer on loan to the Smithsonian from the State Department, finds

the general counsel’s freeze-dried body in Smithson’s crypt; solves

the disappearance of an exhibit designer and a gold-and-ruby statue 

destined for an exhibition; and cracks the mystery of the murder of 

an ethnomusicologist from Aganga during the Bicentennial.

SMITHSONIAN ON THE SMALL SCREEN

The Smithsonian often plays a small role on television, and those references are very revealing 

about popular stereotypes of the Smithsonian. For many TV series, the standard destination for 

something really old and dilapidated is, of course, the Smithsonian. The Golden Girls used the 

Smithsonian as a foil to describe well-used items. When the free-spirited Blanche asks, 

“Dorothy, what do you think I oughta do with my bed?,” Dorothy replies, “Put it in the 

Smithsonian, Blanche. It’s got more miles on it than the Spirit of St. Louis!” 

In other series, the Institution is the place where everyone went on an 8th grade school trip. In 

a 1991 episode of The Simpsons called “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington,” the Simpsons head to 

Washington, D.C., because Lisa is in the Reading Digest essay contest. The family stops at the 

National Air and Space Museum (NASM), where Bart plays 

around in the Spirit of St. Louis. A 2008 episode of South 

Park is set at the inauguration of Barack Obama. Viewers 

learn that Obama and McCain ran for president because 

they are both members of an elite team of professional 

thieves who plan to steal the Hope Diamond from NMNH. 

They break into the building from under the museum, 

using a secret tunnel that connects directly to the Oval 

Office. 

The Smithsonian appears regularly in crime and spy series. The series Bones, which launched in 

2005, is set at the “Jeffersonian” in Washington, D.C., a version of the Smithsonian’s forensic 
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labs (although the exterior shots are of the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History). Dr. 

Temperance “Bones” Brennan and Special Agent Seeley Booth solve crimes when FBI cases 

come into their Jeffersonian labs. Booth explains Brennan’s quirky, logical personality by saying 

he found her at a museum. 

In the 1960s, the comedy show Get Smart parodied popular spy series by contrasting Secret 

Agent Maxwell Smart with The Saint and 007. In the episode “Spy, Spy, Birdie,” Smart and 

Agent 99 need to stop a man who invented a silent explosive. 

Smart says, “Very simple, 99, I happen to know that Ludwig will 

be at the Smithsonian Institute at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.” The Chief 

interjects, “The ‘Smithsonian’ is the KAOS codename for park.” 

NCIS, a crime series set in Washington, occasionally has scenes 

with the Smithsonian as a backdrop. In the “Silver War” episode, 

a deceased Marine is found encased in a Civil War–era tomb at a 

Smithsonian museum. In another, when geeky Agent McGee’s 

parents send him his old computers, he’s told to donate them to 

the Smithsonian. In the current series Covert Affairs, CIA field 

agent Annie Walker works for the Domestic Protection Division, 

but her cover is that she works in acquisitions at the Smithsonian 

Museum.

The West Wing was primarily set in the nation’s capital. In an episode reminiscent of 

Washington today, President Bartlet shuts the government down during a budget crisis. 

Smithsonian museums are among the closed facilities. A girl being interviewed complains she 

and her family were going to visit Grandma and see the Constitution: “But the Smithsonian’s 

closed. Now we only get to see Grandma.” [The Constitution, of course, is in the National 

Archives, not the Smithsonian.]

The Smithsonian also appears in children’s TV programs. In “The Spirits of ‘76/The Prophet 

Profits,” a 1976 episode of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour cartoon series, Scooby-Doo and 

friends head to Washington to visit the Smithsonian. While there, they soon realize the 

Smithsonian is haunted by Benedict Arnold, Major André, and William Demont. In the 1989 

Peanuts special This is America Charlie Brown: The Smithsonian and the Presidency, the Peanuts 

gang visits NASM, NMNH, and the National Museum of American History (NMAH) to learn 

about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Smithsonian 

name was allowed in the title.
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SMITHSONIAN AT THE MOVIES 

Years before the popcorn trucks appeared on the Mall, the 

Smithsonian was being portrayed in movies ranging from 

science fiction, romance, and adventure to historical fiction. 

In the 1950s, sci-fi was one of the first genres to use the 

Smithsonian’s distinctive image. Sci-fi 

films such as The Day the Earth Stood 

Still (1951) and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) utilize the 

Smithsonian’s buildings as backdrops for alien invasions. Space ships fly 

over the Smithsonian Castle and through its towers. Though Sputnik had 

yet to launch, space flight was on the minds of Americans, and the 

Smithsonian was center stage for this fantasy. This fantasy continued to 

invade popular culture for years to come. In Star Trek: First Contact

(1996), Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard mentions the Smithsonian: 

“It’s a boyhood fantasy . . . I must have seen this ship hundreds of times 

in the Smithsonian but I was never able to 

touch it.”

In the 1980s the Smithsonian once again became a popular 

backdrop for films. The First Monday in October (1981) traces the 

relationship of two Supreme Court Justices: 

Dan Snow, a liberal, and the ultraconservative Ruth Loomis, who is the first 

female justice appointed to the Supreme 

Court. Many scenes are set in front of the 

Arts and Industries Building and the Castle, 

and the rotunda of the Arts and Industries

Building was turned into a movie set. In 

1989’s Chances Are, main character Corrine 

Jefferies is a curator in charge of the First Ladies Collection at NMAH. 

Several scenes were shot in the First Ladies Collection and Haupt 

Garden, as well as outside of the Castle. 

The romance of the 1980s films changed with the release of the 1991 

crime drama Silence of the Lambs, based on the novel of the same 

name. The dark story has forensic scenes that were ostensibly set at 

NMNH, but in fact were filmed at the Carnegie Museum. The 

Smithsonian considered the movie’s content to be too violent to 

approve for onsite filming. Hannibal Lector and the NMNH’s collections 

also appear in the 1986 film Manhunter in which FBI profiler Will 

Graham comes out of retirement to investigate the serial killer known 

as the “Tooth Fairy.”
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The historical film Amistad, released in 1997, unfortunately has an inaccurate Smithsonian 

reference. The story is the trial of African slaves who mutinied aboard the slave ship Amistad in 

1839. When the Africans land in America, they are taken captive as 

runaways and tried for the murder. An abolitionist lawyer defends 

the accused, arguing they are free citizens of a different country, not 

slaves. In the film, the case finally gets to the Supreme Court, where 

John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for 

their release. However, Adams also is portrayed as sleeping through 

Congressional debates about the Smithson bequest, a topic he was 

passionately engaged in. 

The 21st century has seen a tremendous growth in films portraying 

or set at the Smithsonian. Several of these have been entertaining 

and successful adventure films—hopefully reflecting a much more 

positive image of the Smithsonian. The first, from 2001, Atlantis: 

The Lost Empire, is an animated film about a young historian 

working in the boiler room of a museum, which looks like the Smithsonian, and his quest to find 

the lost city of Atlantis. The Young and Prodigious Spivet, based on the novel The Selected 

Works of T.S. Spivet, will soon be released. 

In the 2008 film Get Smart, Secret Agent Smart walks through the 

Rotunda of NMNH to clandestinely access the headquarters of 

CONTROL, a secret government agency that is located under the 

museum. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, which was released 

in 2009, was filmed at both NMNH and NASM’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy 

Center, where it featured NASM’s SR-71 Blackbird. In the film, the 

Blackbird, also known as Jetfire, is an aged transformer that helps the 

main characters in their battle against the evil robots known as the

Decepticons. 

The Jetfire was not the only museum object to come alive in the 

movies. The Smithsonian was center stage in Night at the Museum: 

Battle of the Smithsonian. In this 2009 sequel to the 2006 hit Night at the Museum, Security 

Guard Larry Daley heads to Washington, D.C., to find artifacts and exhibit pieces from his 

museum that were accidentally sent to the Smithsonian. This was the first time the use of the 

name “Smithsonian” was allowed in the title of a feature film. The movie includes scenes 

filmed at the Castle, NMNH, and NASM, and uses many artifacts, exhibits, and notable items 

exhibited in Smithsonian museums. It was a great success, although millions of viewers now 

believe the Smithsonian has multiple floors of storage space below the Mall, accessible via the 

Castle.