With its executive order targeting the Smithsonian, the Trump administration opens up a new front in the history wars

A portrait of President Donald Trump in the 'America’s Presidents' exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. Win McNamee/Getty Images

I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums.

I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society.