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For some federal bureaus, the mission is a museum. The most famous, of course, is the Smithsonian Institution, financed by British scientist James Smithson to create an “establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”
But there are plenty of obscure museums in the federal world. The Interior Department, for instance, has a Museum Management Program, which preserves 140 million cultural artifacts and documents displayed and archived at National Parks.
The gun-slinging, cartel-busting Drug Enforcement Administration has a museum, too. Located at its Arlington, Va., headquarters, the decade-old DEA Museum commemorates heroes of the drug war and documents the history of substance abuse in America — from trends in drug abuse to how drugs are made, transported and funded. For example, the museum’s exhibit “Good Medicine, Bad Behavior: Drug Diversion in America” discusses the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in recent years.
This exhibit and others are all available on the Web — at www.deamuseum.org. “It expands our ability to outreach because we have limited space,” said Sean Fearns, the museum’s director. The museum — which gets about 12,000 visitors a year — fits in a compact space of 2,300 square feet and displays artifacts, oral histories and photos from DEA’s extensive archives.
To make up for the small space, DEA launched a traveling exhibit — Target America — which has hit seven cities since 2003. Most recently at Los Angeles’ California Science Center from October through May, the show drew 636,000 visitors — 53 times the annual traffic at DEA’s museum.
The museum also educates the agency’s employees via a monthly lecture series that showcases current and retired employees and other guest speakers.
“We see the museum as an opportunity to capture lessons learned for our own employees, particularly as the workforce changes and as folks around when DEA was created in 1973 have retired or are starting to retire,” Fearns said.
Other federal museums few people know about include:
• The Patent and Trademark Office museum at its Alexandria, Va., headquarters, complete with an “Inventors Hall of Fame,” which includes Michael Jackson’s patent for the moonwalk.
• The Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, which displays a history of military medicine, as well as medical curiosities, such as a giant human hairball.
But there are plenty of obscure museums in the federal world. The Interior Department, for instance, has a Museum Management Program, which preserves 140 million cultural artifacts and documents displayed and archived at National Parks.
The gun-slinging, cartel-busting Drug Enforcement Administration has a museum, too. Located at its Arlington, Va., headquarters, the decade-old DEA Museum commemorates heroes of the drug war and documents the history of substance abuse in America — from trends in drug abuse to how drugs are made, transported and funded. For example, the museum’s exhibit “Good Medicine, Bad Behavior: Drug Diversion in America” discusses the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in recent years.
This exhibit and others are all available on the Web — at www.deamuseum.org. “It expands our ability to outreach because we have limited space,” said Sean Fearns, the museum’s director. The museum — which gets about 12,000 visitors a year — fits in a compact space of 2,300 square feet and displays artifacts, oral histories and photos from DEA’s extensive archives.
To make up for the small space, DEA launched a traveling exhibit — Target America — which has hit seven cities since 2003. Most recently at Los Angeles’ California Science Center from October through May, the show drew 636,000 visitors — 53 times the annual traffic at DEA’s museum.
The museum also educates the agency’s employees via a monthly lecture series that showcases current and retired employees and other guest speakers.
“We see the museum as an opportunity to capture lessons learned for our own employees, particularly as the workforce changes and as folks around when DEA was created in 1973 have retired or are starting to retire,” Fearns said.
Other federal museums few people know about include:
• The Patent and Trademark Office museum at its Alexandria, Va., headquarters, complete with an “Inventors Hall of Fame,” which includes Michael Jackson’s patent for the moonwalk.
• The Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, which displays a history of military medicine, as well as medical curiosities, such as a giant human hairball.
