Spencer Crew (born 1949) [1] is an American professor, museum director, curator and writer.
Spencer Crew | |
---|---|
Director of the Museum of African-American History | |
Interim | |
Assumed office 2019 – 2020 | |
Member of the United States Postal Service's Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee | |
Assumed office 2018 | |
Crew received a PhD degree from Rutgers University in 1979. [2] In 2003,he was named to the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni. [3]
Crew's career in museums began in 1981 when he was hired to work as a historian at the National Museum of American History (NMAH). [4] In 1986,he curated his first exhibition at the museum,Field to Factory:African-American Migration,1915–1940. [2] He became the first African-American director of the NMAH in 1994. [2]
In 2001,he became the director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. [5]
In 2019,Crew was appointed the interim director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. [6]
Crew is the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of U.S. history at George Mason University. [3] [7]
George Mason University is a public research university in Fairfax County,Virginia,with an independent City of Fairfax postal address in the Washington metropolitan area. The university was originally founded in 1949 as a Northern Virginia regional branch of the University of Virginia. Named after Founding Father of the United States George Mason in 1959,it became an independent university in 1972. The school has since grown into the largest public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mason operates four campuses in Virginia,as well as a campus in Incheon,South Korea. The flagship campus is in Fairfax.
The Smithsonian Institution,or simply the Smithsonian,is a group of museums,education and research centers,the largest such complex in the world,created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10,1846,it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor,British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum,but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967.
Rutgers University,officially Rutgers,The State University of New Jersey,is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766,Rutgers was originally called Queen's College,and was affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States,the second-oldest in New Jersey after Princeton University,and one of nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American Revolution.
The National Mall is a landscaped park near the downtown area of Washington,D.C.,the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institution,art galleries,cultural institutions,and various memorials,sculptures,and statues. It is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit of the National Park System. The park receives approximately 24 million visitors each year.
Spencer Fullerton Baird was an American naturalist,ornithologist,ichthyologist,herpetologist,and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He eventually served as assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1850 to 1878,and as Secretary from 1878 until 1887. He was dedicated to expanding the natural history collections of the Smithsonian which he increased from 6,000 specimens in 1850 to over 2 million by the time of his death. He published over 1,000 works during his lifetime.
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers.
The Anacostia Community Museum is a community museum in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington,D.C.,in the United States. It is one of twenty museums under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution and was the first federally funded community museum in the United States. The museum,founded in 1967,was created with the intention to bring aspects of the Smithsonian museums,located on the National Mall,to the Anacostia neighborhood,with the hope that community members from the neighborhood would visit the main Smithsonian museums. It became federally funded in 1970 and focuses on the community in and around Anacostia in its exhibitions. This museum also houses a library.
The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill,it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration (WPA),and the largest of the New Deal art projects. It was created not as a cultural activity,but as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals,easel paintings,sculpture,graphic art,posters,photography,theatre scenic design,and arts and crafts. The WPA Federal Art Project established more than 100 community art centers throughout the country,researched and documented American design,commissioned a significant body of public art without restriction to content or subject matter,and sustained some 10,000 artists and craft workers during the Great Depression. According to American Heritage,“Something like 400,000 easel paintings,murals,prints,posters,and renderings were produced by WPA artists during the eight years of the project’s existence,virtually free of government pressure to control subject matter,interpretation,or style.”
Avery Franklin Brooks is an American actor,director,singer,narrator and educator. He is best known for his television roles as Captain Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek:Deep Space Nine,as Hawk on Spenser:For Hire and its spinoff A Man Called Hawk,and as Dr. Bob Sweeney in the Academy Award–nominated film American History X. Brooks has delivered a variety of other performances to a great deal of acclaim. He has been nominated for a Saturn Award and three NAACP Image Awards. Brooks has also been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre and bestowed with the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre by the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
The National Museum of American History:Kenneth E. Behring Center collects,preserves,and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social,political,cultural,scientific,and military history. Among the items on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner. The museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution and located on the National Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW in Washington,D.C.
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution,located on the National Mall in Washington,D.C.,United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021,with 7.1 million visitors,it was the eighteenth most visited museum in the world and the second most visited natural history museum in the world after the Natural History Museum in London. Opened in 1910,the museum on the National Mall was one of the first Smithsonian buildings constructed exclusively to hold the national collections and research facilities. The main building has an overall area of 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2) with 325,000 square feet (30,200 m2) of exhibition and public space and houses over 1,000 employees.
George Sidney was an American film director and producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His work includes cult classics Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and Viva Las Vegas (1964). With an extensive background in acting,stage direction,film editing,and music,Sidney created many of post-war Hollywood’s big budget musicals,such as Annie Get Your Gun (1950),Show Boat (1951),Kiss Me Kate (1953);Jupiter's Darling (1955),and Pal Joey (1957). He was also a president of the Screen Directors Guild for 16 years.
Douglas Jerome Preston is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child,he has also written six solo novels,including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie,which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker,Smithsonian,and other magazines.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is a Smithsonian Institution museum located on the National Mall in Washington,D.C.,in the United States. It was established in December 2003 and opened its permanent home in September 2016 with a ceremony led by President Barack Obama.
The Mint Museum,also referred to as The Mint Museums,is a cultural institution comprising two museums,located in Charlotte,North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown,together these two locations have hundreds of collections showcasing art and design from around the globe.
Lonnie G. Bunch III is an American educator and historian. Bunch is the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,the first African American and first historian to serve as head of the Smithsonian. He has spent most of his career as a history museum curator and administrator.
Albert H. Small was a real estate developer,and philanthropist.
Uncle Beazley is a life-size fiberglass statue of a Triceratops by Louis Paul Jonas. It is located near Lemur Island in the National Zoological Park in Northwest Washington,D.C.
Addison N. Scurlock was an American photographer,founder of The Scurlock Studio,and businessman who became prominent in the early and mid-20th century for photographing Black Washington.
Deborra Richardson is a past Curator Emerita at the Archives of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH). Her research specialties were African American Music Collections and Archival Administration. She grew up in Long Island,New York,and currently lives in Brentwood,Maryland.