Federal Decisions, Local Consequences: What a Shutdown Means for Our Museum

An unidentified woman in a gingham dress with a newborn baby -- from the Charles Vandersluis Images, BCHS Collection.

Federal government shutdowns and cultural policy shifts don’t just affect Washington. They have immediate, painful consequences for families and communities. The loss of WIC funding means mothers and babies are left without secure access to food and basic necessities. Federal employees in our region are working without pay or navigating unemployment, rather than receiving a steady paycheck. These crises deserve urgent attention.

At the same time, the shutdown and related policy decisions also threaten the institutions that safeguard our history and culture: museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies. When these institutions are underfunded, sidelined, or censored, we lose something else vital: the ability to tell the stories of the very communities most affected by these decisions.

National Impacts

• Shutdowns stall support. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is currently closed, halting grants and payments nationwide. The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) warns that closures and suspended grants harm not only national institutions such as the Smithsonian but also state and local museums that rely on federal pass-through funding.

• Exhibit censorship is spreading. In 2025, multiple cases drew national attention:

  • At Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, staff were directed to remove or cover interpretive signs about slavery and racial discrimination (WJLA; Van Hollen Senate statement).

  • The U.S. Army Women’s Museum removed a display honoring transgender soldiers and temporarily took down its website for a “content review” under an anti-DEI executive order (Progress-Index; The Independent).

  • At the Smithsonian and across the National Park Service, exhibits and signage deemed “ideologically driven” have been altered or removed. The National Museum of American History deleted references to former President Trump’s impeachments from its presidential power exhibit (Washington Post); the Parks Service was ordered to remove the historic Scourged Back photograph of an enslaved man who escaped to freedom (ARTnews).

• Funding structures weakened. The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) emphasizes that IMLS is a critical agency for state and local organizations. Without it, federal funding streams, grant administration, and technical support for local museums break down.

Local Impacts

Here in Bemidji, the Beltrami County Historical Society is directly affected. The County Board of Commissioners has voted to approve a preliminary budget that cuts $7,500 from our allocation, representing a 7.5% reduction of our operating budget. That $7,500 is the salary of our sole part-time staff member, the person who answers phones, greets visitors, and keeps the front desk running. If the cut stands, those tasks will fall back to the director, pulling time away from exhibits, programs, grant writing, and preservation (Bemidji Pioneer).

As Director Emily Thabes noted in that report:

“Stopping or slowing work is what happens when funding is withdrawn.”

She also tied the local picture to the national one:

“The (Institute of Museum and Library Services), which is the federal funding that is available … this is one of the congressional arms that the administration attempted to eliminate. Many of the grants were eliminated. Many of the employees who administered those grants were (terminated).”

The County Board’s preliminary budget cuts 42% of community services funding overall. The final budget will be set in December, leaving a narrow window for the community to make its voice heard. Alongside the loss of immediate supports like WIC and federal paychecks, cuts to cultural funding mean something different but just as profound: fewer programs, fewer collected stories, and fewer opportunities to document how today’s challenges are shaping the lives of local families.

How Our Mission Meets the County’s Mission

Section crew, Anton Hoyum, Kelliher, 1914. The six-man crew is on and around a hand car on railroad tracks, all with their tools of the trade. Photo courtesy of the BCHS Image Collection.

Beltrami County’s stated mission is “to be the catalyst to firmly establish a community that promotes healthy families, environmental quality, expanding economic opportunity, and a quality of life second to none,” achieved through innovation, commitment, hard work, collaboration, leadership, and customer responsiveness.

The Beltrami County Historical Society directly supports this mission by fulfilling our own: to collect, preserve, and share the history of Beltrami County.

• By collecting artifacts, documents, and oral histories, we strengthen family and community connections across generations.

• By preserving materials, we protect the environmental and cultural heritage of our region, from its water heritage to agricultural history, to the stories of immigrants and Indigenous peoples.

• By sharing history through exhibits, programs, and education, we expand economic opportunity by drawing visitors, supporting tourism, and anchoring cultural vitality.

  
  

Our work fosters collaboration with schools, libraries, veterans’ groups, tribal nations, and civic organizations. It provides leadership in interpreting our past truthfully and openly; it also supports quality of life by making history accessible to every resident and visitor, free from censorship or omission.

When museums are underfunded or censored, the county’s mission itself is weakened.

A Semiquincentennial Reminder

The United States will soon mark its 250th anniversary. Already, 250 years ago, ordinary Americans were taking extraordinary steps. In October 1775, the Portsmouth Committee of Safety in New Hampshire reported to Commander-in-Chief George Washington that they had captured British supply ships and seized critical war stores (Founders Online, National Archives).

Those early patriots understood that preserving their future required courage, truth, and collective action. As we prepare for the Semiquincentennial, our responsibility is to ensure that the history we safeguard—nationally and locally—remains accurate, accessible, and unaltered.

Postcard sent by Victor Fishbeck to his sister, Winnie Fishbeck, at the Fishbeck home, 600 America Ave. Bemidji, MN, April 25, 1919. Victor Fishbeck was the grandson of Freeman Doud, a Civil War veteran and the first white person to permanently reside in Bemidji. His father, Lane Fishbeck, had been adopted by Freeman Doud. The front of the card shows soldiers mailing letters: FROM AN AMERICAN RED CROSS L.O.C. CANTEEN IN FRANCE.

What You Can Do

Community members can take lawful, nonpartisan steps to support truth in history:

1. Learn more from resources like AAM’s Info Sheet on Shutdown Impacts, IMLS, and AASLH’s defense of IMLS.

2. Contact your representatives through nonpartisan tools like Common Cause or the League of Women Voters.

3. Use Five Calls, a nonpartisan civic action resource that provides phone numbers, scripts, and background to help you call your federal representatives on issues that matter.

4. Share your story. Let decision-makers know why truth in history matters to you: whether through exhibits you’ve visited here in Bemidji, resources your family has used, or national museums you value.

5. Speak up locally before December. The County Board will finalize its budget at the end of this year (December 2). Inform commissioners that supporting museums enhances the county’s own mission of promoting healthy families, economic opportunity, environmental quality, and a high quality of life.

Museums are more than buildings. They are the living memory of a people, a place, and a culture. Federal shutdowns, funding cuts, and exhibit censorship do not just happen “out there.” They land here, in our community, at our Historical Society.

Truth in history matters everywhere: local museums, state humanities councils, and national institutions all depend on our voices to ensure that history remains preserved and accessible for generations to come. Future generations will only know what we preserve now; if we lose that capacity, their understanding of this moment will be incomplete.