Former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History Brent Glass ‘69 is not done discussing history.
“The point of a museum exhibition, or especially a history museum, is to challenge the viewer to think in new ways about familiar subjects,” Glass said. “History is complicated sometimes, and we trust the visitor to understand that it’s not just good guys and bad guys.”
“It can be complex, especially when we talk about issues concerning race or gender or class in American history,” he added.
Glass directed the Smithsonian from 2002 to 2011, during a time he felt was a great transition.
“It lacked what many people felt was a coherent presentation of American history as a narrative,” he said.
Glass said he is drawn to themes of freedom, war, innovation, diverse cultural traditions, landscape and the American dream.
“For some people, the American dream is a fixed definition, and that we’ve already achieved it. And that’s not what I mean at all,” he said. “It’s always aspiring to progress, but never quite ever realized.”
As director, Glass was charged with implementing a new master plan, which meant closing the museum from 2006 to 2008 for a physical transformation of the space, including increasing natural light and introducing more thematic order in galleries.
He believes that museums have three directives — to educate, engage and entertain — and advocates for the representation of history’s more painful moments in museums.
At age 78, Glass said he has no plans to retire. He now runs the company he founded, Brent D. Glass & Associates, as a consultant for museums and cultural organizations.
Glass is currently helping establish Sing Sing Prison Museum, a museum about criminal justice in Westchester County, New York, as the correctional facility is commemorating its 200th year.
“I really knew nothing about criminal justice history,” Glass said. “It’s just been fascinating to learn how significant this history is.”
Glass said that he appreciated meeting formerly incarcerated men and women who wanted to share their stories and seeks to meet people who provide him with different perspectives on life.
In graduate school, Glass decided to pursue public history, which he describes as an interdisciplinary field that includes everything from archeology to folklore.
“I like working with people who are coming from other disciplines and professions, and public history gives me that opportunity,” he said.
“What’s wonderful about him is that you believe he is listening for the purpose of trying to understand, and that’s a rare and unusual quality,” said Riley Temple ‘71, who attended Lafayette College with Glass and worked alongside him at the Smithsonian.
Before graduate school, Glass studied history at Lafayette College and was part of the now-defunct chapter of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
Glass said he once drove Lafayette speaker and consumer protection activist Ralph Nader in his mother’s 1963 Pontiac Bonneville’s backseat, which had no seatbelts — Nader spent much of the drive fretting about his safety.
“The 1960s was a great time to be in college,” Glass said. “It was a time of really challenging everyone to think in some new ways.”
He donated a stipend to Skillman Library to finance students’ archival work. Dean of Libraries Charlotte Nunes said his money paid the student employee who helped curate the Alpha Phi Omega exhibition.
