The Lemelson Center explores invention and innovation with diverse audiences of all ages through exhibitions and programs.
EXHIBITIONS
Places of Invention
Since 2015, the Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation at NMAH has featured our award-winning exhibition Places of Invention, which explores how place—whether physical, social, or cultural—supports, constrains, and shapes innovation. Invention hotspots across the United States are examined through a focus on six geographically and chronologically diverse communities: Silicon Valley, CA; Bronx, NY; Fort Collins, CO; Hartford, CT; Hollywood, CA; and Medical Alley, MN. Exhibiting these regional clusters next to each other highlights the transformative role of invention and innovation for the United States, while drawing out the importance of collaboration and risk-taking to changing technologies.
Game Changers
The Lemelson Center’s Game Changers (GC) exhibition project embraces a dual mission. It invites broad audiences to explore how inventors, athletes, and technology have continuously changed how we play and relate to sports. But perhaps more importantly, the GC project will transform visitors into inventors who will recognize their own inherent capacity for inventiveness and self- identify as “game changers” who invent their own game-changing technologies. Thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Lemelson Foundation, the GC team finished a front-end audience study; initiated work on a conceptual design; met with our Exhibition Advisory Committee; and submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning Program. Throughout the year, the team continued to conduct research and refine exhibition concepts, themes, and goals; developed an initial list of stories and objects for the exhibition; and began to test content delivery and interactive strategies with priority audiences.
Inventive Minds
Inventive Minds is a changing exhibition gallery that introduces museum visitors to the Lemelson Center’s mission to foster an appreciation for the central role of invention and innovation in the history of the United States. Through first-person videos, artifacts, and archival materials, visitors to Inventive Minds learn about the traits that successful inventors share—insatiable curiosity, keen problem-solving skills, tenacity, and flexibility in the face of failure—and explore the creative spirit of American invention.
Throughout 2019, the Inventive Minds gallery featured a selection of stories illustrating the creativity of women inventors over more than a century.
Some of the stories in the exhibition included:
- Madam C. J. Walker, an African American inventor who created a highly successful business with her line of hair care products
- Neonatal intensive care unit nurse Sharon Rogone, who invented medical supplies specifically for premature babies
- Professional skateboarder Cindy Whitehead, whose brand, “Girl is NOT a 4 Letter Word,” is empowering girls and women in action sports
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
INNOVATIVE LIVES
The award-winning Innovative Lives program series engages audiences of all ages and backgrounds in public conversations with diverse inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs about their pioneering work and careers.
James West and Ellington West
Our first Innovative Lives program of the 2019 series on March 6 featured Dr. James West, inventor of the electret microphone, alongside his business partner (and daughter) Ellington West, CEO of Sonavi Labs, a company that develops modern medical products to diagnose disease by analyzing body sounds. The Wests shared generational stories connecting the encouragement of creativity early in their lives to their success as inventors in adulthood.
Merry Lynn Morris
On May 1, Dr. Merry Lynn Morris, choreographer and dance educator, began exploring the area of integrated/inclusive dance in 2002. Her long-term personal interest in the needs of people with disabilities stemmed from her experience caring for her father, who used a wheelchair. Morris described her work collaborating with engineers at the University of South Florida to invent new mobility devices such as the Rolling Dance Chair.
J Rawls with Martha Diaz
This special Innovative Lives program, part of the museum’s America Now hip-hop festival on June 22, featured hip-hop DJ, producer, and educator Dr. J Rawls, with former Lemelson Center Fellow and hip-hop activist Martha Diaz in a conversation moderated by independent curator and museum consultant Jon West-Bey. The David H. Horowitz Fund, established by the Susan and David H. Horowitz Foundation, supports Lemelson Center programs related to musical creativity and innovation.
Kathryn D. Sullivan
On December 4, Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, former astronaut and the first American woman to walk in space, recounted her experiences as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope, the most productive observatory ever built. Sullivan also signed copies of her new book, Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention, part of the Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation series, published in association with MIT Press. More than 300 visitors joined us for our best attended evening program of the year.
FESTIVALS
Major day-long festivals attract large numbers of visitors, allowing us to create in-person experiences that advance scholarship on the history of invention, share stories about inventors and their work, and nurture creativity in young people.
Military Invention Day
On May 18, the third annual Military Invention Day festival celebrated the crucial role for the United States of invention and technology development by the Armed Forces. Visitors learned about the evolving relationship between military research and entrepreneurship and enjoyed the opportunity to meet diverse scientists, engineers, and inventors from the military. By interacting with virtual reality, night vision, and dozens of other leading-edge technologies, attendees learned about active research and technology development projects and envisioned how advances in military technology will impact their daily lives in the future.
ACCelerate
In collaboration with Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), we presented the second ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival celebrating creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering, arts, and design across the 15 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) colleges and universities. The three-day festival during the first weekend in April provided an opportunity for museum guests of all ages to engage with the leading student and faculty innovators of the ACC’s member institutions. Addressing themes of culture and society, environment, and health and the body, the festival included 38 interactive installations, 13 performances by students and faculty, and the ACC Debate Championship.
Innoskate London
Innoskate public festivals bring skateboarders and non-skate audiences together to appreciate the creativity, invention, and innovation that are all around us—often in unexpected places. The 2019 Innoskate festival, held at Here East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, England, featured informal panel discussions, hands-on educational activities, learn-to-skate clinics, open public skating, and a best trick contest. Participants experienced skateboarding as an interdisciplinary lens for exploring the intersection of history, invention, and innovation with science, technology, engineering, art, music, and culture.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Researchers, scholars, and academics participate in lively talks that probe questions about invention and innovation.
New Perspectives Symposium: Religion and Innovation
On April 12, the Lemelson Center partnered with the museum’s Religion in America Initiative to co-host a one-day public symposium and webcast on religion and innovation. The symposium brought together 15 leading scholars and an engaged audience to explore the historical and contemporary intersections of technological innovation and religious practice. Speakers described the religious inspirations underlying various inventions and the ways spiritual leaders have used emerging technologies—such as the telegraph, sound recordings, and virtual reality headsets—to spread their teachings.
Software as Intellectual Property
On June 12, the Center hosted a panel discussion about the history and development of software intellectual property protections, in collaboration with the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Historian and former Lemelson Center fellow Gerardo Con Diaz, IBM “master inventor” Susann Keohane, and Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy Robert Bahr considered the need to balance the concerns of inventors, corporations, and consumers with the benefits, limitations, and inherent complexity of patents or copyright on the software that increasingly controls everything from our thermostats to how we shop online.