Is this the museum shop you’re talking about? Or was it another one within the same building? Some of the buildings have several shops within them. Also, you described it as being the “History museum”, as though there was only one Smithsonian building with the word “history” in its name. All of the following buildings in D.C. are parts of the Smithsonian and have the word “history” in their name, and several of the others have a lot of historical material in them although the word “history” isn’t in their name:
National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Museum of American History
National Museum of Natural History
The Smithsonian is such a huge institution that I would be reluctant to make any general statement about what’s in all of its buildings without spending a lot of time searching through all its museum shops in all its buildings, including checking whether there are several shops in a building.
Don’t be obtuse. There’s one big Smithsonian Museum of American History right smack in the middle of the Mall, next to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. That’s the one I meant, and that;'s the one in your picture.
It is a woefully tiny fraction of what it was back in the 1990s, when the bookstore portion alone took up several rooms.
When I visited two years ago, my goal was to obtain a copy – if I could – on the Jefferson edit of the New Testament. I did indeed find a copy*, but there really wasn’t a huge collection of books there.
*It’s a beauty, too – it’s a page-by-page photoreproduction of Jefferson’s original, with glued-in notes, even. Even the cover is a reproduction of Jefferson’s personal volume. I’d have been satisfied with a simple copy of the contents in print.
It has a small section of books for kids. The entire museum shifted its emphasis from adult-oriented exhibits to kid-friendly ones many years ago. The gift store followed; it is virtually all literally kid stuff.
The International Museum of Photography’s gift store had a corner with books. I’ve never been in a comparable museum so I can’t rate it, but at the time it was about the size of the book area in the Art Gallery before they downsized it. I should check it out when and if it ever reopens.
I have the impression than many museum gift shops have more geegaws for entertaining kids than they used to. The transport museum near us has models, postcards and chocolate (we are in Switzerland), and not much else. Their on-line website lists quite a few books, but I couldn’t even tell you if they have any in the shop, and we are normally there about once every 2-3 months, for the last 20 years.
Dagnabit. They sell marzipan-filled dates, covered with dark chocolate, at the museum. They aren’t even sold in the normal Lindt stores. And the museum is open again.
As a contrary opinion, the IWM shops have seemed increasingly anemic every time I’ve been in in the last decade.
Then there’s the case of the British Museum. When they launched the Great Court redevelopment at the turn of the millennium, it included a spectacular bookshop. Instantly the best archaeology bookshop in town. Which had the effect of running all the specialist similar bookshops that had previously clustered in the neighbourhood out of business. Then the BM just gradually dumbed down their shops. Net loss.