History
The origin of the National Railroad Museum dates to 1956, when local residents advanced the concept of a national museum dedicated to American railroad history. Two years later, a joint resolution of Congress recognized the museum as the National Railroad Museum. Since then, the museum has operated as a privately funded 501(c)(3) educational organization with a mission to foster an understanding of railroading and its significance to American Life. What began as an effort to acquire a single steam locomotive for a city park has grown into one of the largest railroad museums in the nation. It now serves over 75,000 visitors annually. Today, a professional staff of 12 and more than 100 unpaid staff members welcome visitors from all over the world.
Read more about this topic: National Railroad Museum
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)