Early in October, staffers from the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History went through the
Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York’s Zucotti Park collecting hand-made posters and
other material to build up a record of the embryonic movement in case
the protesters end up in the history books " and not just in jail for
unlawful assembly and messing up public spaces.
As the Occupy
protest widened to other cities, so did the museum’s search. But museum
officials declined to go into detail about what was being collected and
from where.
Valeska M. Hilbig,
deputy director of public affairs, referred to a museum statement that
puts the initiative in the context of similar recent efforts. “The
protests are still ongoing, and things are still unfolding,”
Ms. Hilbig told The Washington Times. “Historians like to take the long view and
see how things play out. They wouldn’t feel comfortable to discuss it
until they have had a chance to get the historic perspective.”
