National Archives altered signs critical of Trump in 2017 Women’s March photo
First posted March 9, 2020 3:50pm EDT
Last updated May 14, 2020 6:56pm EDT
All Associated Themes:
- Artistic Expression
- Protest Politics
In January 2020, a Washington Post reporter discovered that the National Archives had blurred out at least four signs criticizing President Donald Trump in an exhibited photograph of the 2017 Women’s March. Signage referencing female anatomy was also altered. After receiving backlash, the Archives released a statement indicating its intention to replace the photo with an uncensored version.
Key Player
The National Archives, based in Washington, D.C., is an independent federal government agency charged with preserving, documenting, and increasing public access to government records. The agency says it has always been committed to preserving its holdings “without alteration,” according to the Associated Press.
Further Details
News of the altered photo first emerged after Joe Heim, a reporter for The Washington Post, tweeted on Jan. 18, 2020, how he had happened upon the photo: “I was at the Archives earlier this week for a totally unrelated story about tourists coming to the Archives to look at the Constitution. … On the same floor there is the Women’s Suffrage exhibit with this very large photo at the entrance. … I stopped to look at it. As I was trying to read some of the signs the marchers were carrying, I noticed one was blurred out.”
Criticism quickly circulated concerning the obscured images. Among the strongest critics was Purdue University history professor Wendy Kline, author of the 2010 book Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave. “It is literally erasing something that was accurately captured on camera,” Kline said in an email to The Post. “Doctoring a commemorative photograph buys right into the notion that it’s okay to silence women’s voice and actions.”
The National Archives said it had obscured the words while the exhibit “Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote,” which opened in May 2019, was being developed by agency managers and museum staff members, according to The Post. It further said that David Ferriero, the 10th archivist of the United States, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2009, supported the decision to edit the photo. Archives spokeswoman Miriam Kleiman told The Post, “As a non-partisan, non-political federal agency, we blurred references to the President’s name on some posters, so as not to engage in current political controversy.” The removed anatomical references were meant to keep potentially inappropriate material out of sight from the museum’s young visitors, Kleiman said.
The agency contends that the photograph, which is still displayed outside the entrance to the aforementioned exhibit, is not an actual archive but rather a licensed promotional graphic from Getty Images. According to emails obtained by Buzzfeed News, a Getty representative in 2018 had signed off on the altered photos.
Outcome
National Archives announces it will remove the altered image
On Jan. 18, 2020, the National Archives published an apology on its website. “We made a mistake,” it reads, before further admitting that the museum was “wrong to alter the image.” According to the statement, which, as the Associated Press notes, was issued on the same day as the 2020 Women’s March, Archives officials will begin a “thorough review” of their exhibit policies and procedures to prevent this issue from arising again. The Washington Post reported that, four days after apologizing, the Archives replaced the modified image with an undoctored version of the original, according to a Jan. 22 announcement on the agency’s website.