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Over the course of a collaboration between the LSE and the Smithsonian Institution, the underpinning research has been used to create innovative new digital collections and physical exhibits. These collections and resources have contributed to the preservation of the cultural heritage of West Africa, engaged new audiences and enhanced understanding of its monetary history, and also helped to decolonise Smithsonian collections. Digital collections tailored to the 10th-grade history curriculum and posted to the Smithsonian’s education platform (Learning Lab) highlight the applications of the collection for teaching. This collaborative project has also developed a new "research-led digitisation" approach to showcasing small but historically significant collections, one that has already influenced other Smithsonian curators.

Smithsonian-LSE collaboration

The collaboration began when Gardner approached Dr Ellen Feingold, Curator of the National Numismatic Collection (NNC) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), for permission to digitise images of a selection of coins and notes for a forthcoming book. This led to broader discussions based on recent research about the ways in which currency objects could tell wider stories about political and economic change in West Africa for use in teaching, research, and public history. As the Smithsonian did not have resources to support the digitisation of small but historically important collections like this one, the LSE agreed to provide funding for the project from its knowledge exchange and impact funds.

Creation of new digital collections for the Smithsonian

The heart of the project is a new open-access digital collection of 880 coins, banknotes, and other objects used as currency from West Africa [A]. This collection was first made publicly available on the Smithsonian website in August 2019. Subsequently, sub-collections have been curated for classroom use. Availability through the Smithsonian’s platforms is particularly significant; as the world’s largest museum, and through its vast physical and digital presence, it aims to reach a billion users worldwide. According to the Head of Digital Programs at the NMAH, the West Africa project “ offers a new way of engaging with wider audiences and, crucially, assessing the effect of that research outside academia” [B].

Understanding the history of currency objects themselves – why they were created, where they circulated, and what they communicated to their users – has been central to knowledge about how monetary systems developed and reflected wider economic, political, and social changes. However, access to these objects remains a challenge, and research is often targeted at specialist audiences. As of 2020, there is no comparative numismatic collection in sub-Saharan Africa, and much of what is held in museums elsewhere has either not yet been digitised or is not easily discoverable in large, museum-wide collection databases. Catalogue entries for these objects often reflect dated understandings of how they were used. This project offers a new perspective on the economic, political, and social histories of the region, engaging new audiences and contributing to an enhanced understanding of the topic.

The 880 objects digitised as part of this project included coins and banknotes from the colonial and post-independence eras as well as a range of alternative currencies like cowrie shells, manillas, and iron bars known as Kissi pennies. The images created are open access and can be used freely by scholars and educators in Africa and beyond. As part of the digitisation process, Gardner’s recent research [1] [2] [3] [4], among others’, was drawn upon to update object descriptions, for example by removing dated or often offensive language referring to alternative currencies as “primitive” or “curious”, and replacing with new versions which reflect more recent scholarly understandings of indigenous monetary systems [C]. In this way, the project has contributed to a decolonisation of this Smithsonian collection.

The project has been well-received among professionals in public history, digital humanities, and other fields. In May 2020, Reviews in Digital Humanities described the project as “ a wonderful resource that will bring an otherwise rather obscure collection into a wide range of lesson plans and research projects” [D]. It has also featured in the February 2020 edition of E-Sylum, a numismatics newsletter with a large readership.

Smithsonian Learning Lab – impacts on educational practices

As literature on digitisation notes, it is one thing to place an image of an object online, and another to get people to use them in teaching. To facilitate the use of these objects in teaching, several sub-collections were curated for use on the Smithsonian’s Learning Lab platform [E], which is targeted for use by educators and has around 600,000 current users. Gardner and Feingold selected relevant objects for each sub-collection and wrote the supporting material, based on the underpinning research. One of these collections, “Money and Exchange in West Africa”, used a selection of the objects to tell the story of how money has changed in West Africa since the nineteenth century. Others focused on particular themes in West African history, including: 1) the shift from indigenous colonial currencies; 2) decolonisation and the transition to independence; and 3) the impact of the Second World War in West Africa [E].

To illustrate the potential for Learning Labs to be customised for particular education goals, three of the Learning Labs (colonialism, decolonisation, and World War II) were tailored to specific modules in the World History curriculum taught to 10^th-graders (15-16-year-olds) in the Loudoun County, Virginia, school system. Loudoun County has 96 schools and a total enrolment of 81,964 students, including 6,829 in 10^th grade [F]. The Labs were designed and developed in collaboration with the NMAH’s educators team and their network of teachers with the intention of promoting their use in classrooms, with “ Dr Gardner’s scholarship [playing] a key role” [C]. The social studies department chair at one school wrote that she “ definitely [thinks] our students would benefit from seeing these”, and identified various ways in which students might engage with the objects in the course of their learning, such as researching who appears on coins and notes in different periods, and using their findings as a basis for debating who should be the next person on US currency [G].

The Senior Education Specialist at the NMAH has highlighted the impressive and diverse pedagogical potential of these new digital resources. After they were shared with teachers in the northern Virginia region, she commented not only on their benefits to learning, but also on their deeper cultural value: " the resources present significant potential learning opportunities for developing global competencies and critical thinking skills among students, as well as providing a powerful method for validating and centring the experience of students who may have cultural ties to the nations represented. Teaching with the West African currency can help students develop cross-cultural understandings. They will have the opportunity to see connections across time and cultures and through this broaden their understanding of what it means to be a global citizen with awareness of and empathy for the experience of people in nations outside of their own. The currency provides a launching point for understanding not only economic systems, but also cultural identities and how people adapt to change and continuity, through which students may recognise similarities and differences to their own cultures and see others as part of their global community" [H].

While the promotion of actual classroom use was delayed by school shutdowns, the objects and Learning Labs have received significant downloads thus far. As of February 2021, object pages have been accessed 5,071 times by 3,517 users. Collectively, the Learning Labs have been viewed 2,813 times by 540 unique users [I]. As schools reopen, we will build on these initial foundations by reaching out to additional networks of teachers.

Contribution to National Museum of American History exhibition

Alongside the digital sub-collections was a physical display on the history of the US dollar in Liberia, based on [1], opened in October 2019 as part of the “Value of Money” exhibition at the NMAH. The Curator of the NNC has called this “ a meaningful contribution in terms of diversifying the lenses through which we interpret American history and which histories are included in it” [C]. The museum receives around 4 million visitors annually. A virtual version of the display also appears on Learning Lab. The display was the subject of a post on the Smithsonian’s O Say Can You See? blog [J] and a presentation at the NMAH Colloquium series in November 2019, with an audience of around 30 curators and other museum staff. As of 5 January 2021, the blog post has received 2,380 unique page views.

Development of a new “research-led digitisation” approach

This project has also provided a new template for partnerships between museums and universities: “research-led digitisation”. Digitisation projects at museums generally aim to place images online so that they become the subject of research, maximising access by digitising as many objects or documents as possible with minimal description. Such projects are dependent on grant or donor funding and tend to prioritise large collections. In research-led digitisation, scholars and curators can digitise smaller but historically significant collections, using current research to update object descriptions and help facilitate the use of the digital images in teaching. The Curator of the NNC has noted how " this approach is already having an impact on how other Smithsonian curators think about digitising their collections" [C]. Similarly, the Head of Digital Programs at the NMAH has said “ this same model is potentially generalisable across multiple public history institutions, and may help in diversifying sources of funding for digitisation projects while at the same time providing new avenues for the public dissemination of academic research” [B]. An article explaining this new model of collaboration is the cover feature for the November 2020 issue of Perspectives on History [K], the American Historical Association’s news magazine, which is circulated to 15,000 individual and institutional AHA members, 40% of whom are students, teachers, public historians, and publishers.

Extension to South Africa

This project and its “research-led digitisation” model has already been extended to South Africa. Gardner and Feingold were approached by Johan Fourie at Stellenbosch University, who wanted to digitise the NNC’s South African materials as part of a series of events commemorating the centenary of the South African Reserve Bank. Again supported by the LSE’s knowledge exchange and impact funds, 714 coins, notes, and other currency objects are to be digitised and will be used as the basis for new digital sub-collections on the Learning Lab, offering new perspectives on the history of political and economic change in South Africa over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the establishment of colonial regimes to the South African War and the rise and fall of apartheid. Alongside the Learning Labs, lesson plans specifically tailored to the South African history curriculum will enable the use of the digitised objects in teaching at school and university level, providing the basis for a new, “bottom-up” history of money in South Africa [C]. This was due to commence in Autumn 2020 but has been delayed by the forced closure of the Smithsonian.

The underpinning research has had three principal impacts. It has:

• Brought about a new understanding of its own history among the leadership and staff at the Economics Ministry, uncovering new perspectives, reckoning with its difficult past and challenging previously-held narratives.

• Contributed to the process of commemoration of staff to have been murdered during the war, while also facilitating a meaningful reconciliatory dialogue between the ministry and former ministry staff members of East German origin who had served on the staff of East Germany’s central planning board before unification.

• Informed the development of a new suite of web resources and a training programme, which are intended to enhance understanding of the historic objectives of the ministry and how they interacted with the economic structure of the German state.

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In his capacity as member of the German Economic Ministry’s academic advisory board, Ritschl was asked in 2009 to comment on a book proposal to commemorate the ministry’s reestablishment in 1949. He advised against limiting the scope either to West Germany or to the Nazi years for lack of historical contextualisation, instead encouraging the ministry to confront its full past since its foundation in 1919, to include East Germany under communism after 1945, and to communicate findings both internally and to the wider public. This led directly to the establishment of the project and the task force of historians in 2011. Impacts have been realised throughout the project lifecycle, with those to have occurred during the current REF period described below.

The project intended findings of the research to be shared with external audiences but also to enhance understanding and stimulate debate among the ministerial staff (c. 2,000 employees). To do so was a sensitive task given the ministry’s limited acknowledgment of its role in Nazi crimes and the persecution of its own staff members, and so a degree of confidence-building was required at both leadership and staff levels in order to facilitate an open discussion. Accordingly, a series of seven workshops and events (one in October 2012, the others all during this REF period **[A]**) with ministerial staff, external academics, and members of the public were held to provide a forum for discussion and encourage mutual feedback, including two well-attended internal conferences chaired by the ministry’s policy director, Alexander Gross. Presentation of the research by Ritschl and the other project participants at these events served not only to deepen and enhance understanding of the ministry’s difficult history among its staff, but also contributed directly to institutional processes of commemoration and reconciliation.

A September 2013 event was particularly successful in provoking dialogue among staff. Presentations by Ritschl and others covered the ministry’s complicity with the Nazis and provided details of staff members to have been killed in the 1930s. Subsequent discussion uncovered contrasting views of the former East and West Germans among the staff. Both groups concurred that those staff members who had been murdered by the Nazis should be commemorated in some way, but disagreed on whether those staff who were also communists should be included. All those present welcomed the ministry’s new openness but demanded visible and explicit acts of commemoration and acknowledgment by the ministry’s leadership. The former East Germans also took a strong interest in the East German part of the project, voicing concerns about whether their previous work would be researched accurately and fairly, and offering to establish contact between researchers and former East German officials. This helped to establish a conversation the ministry’s staff had previously felt uncomfortable with, and that had not been encouraged. At their suggestion, a follow-up meeting was arranged between the project staff in charge, some of the activists among the ministry’s staff, as well as former staff members who had played leading roles in East Germany’s economic planning apparatus. The meeting was welcomed on all sides as a very meaningful step towards reconciliation [A] [B].

In response to the demands for transparency, and to show the ministry’s determination to publicly confront its history at the leadership level, subsequent events were directed more towards public audiences and featured notable contributions from government ministers ( Staatssekretaere). Research findings were presented at a public conference on the Nazi ministry in March 2014, at which the Nazification of the ministry in 1933 and the role of the ministry’s own Judenreferat in the dispossession of Europe’s Jews were discussed in the presence of the ministry’s leadership, staff, and members of the public. A second such conference on East Germany took place in October of the same year. In December 2014, a third event (hosted by and in collaboration with Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, Germany’s business organisation) discussed the research findings on the postwar West German ministry, including the role of former Nazis [A]. The Deputy Director General has subsequently confirmed that this session " generated considerable interest in confronting the ministry's past. Participants gave very positive feedback and asked for the event to be repeated" [B].

As details from the research were being shared among staff, the Economics Ministry took the decision to name its library after Eduard Hamm, the influential former secretary ( Reichsminister) [1] and the most prominent staff member murdered for his allegiance to the resistance movement. A public event was held in September 2014, again with speeches by the secretary and the political director acknowledging the role of the ministry in Nazi crimes and honouring the memory of the persecuted among the ministry’s staff [C].

Material from the project and information on the activities of the history committee was made available on the ministry’s web pages [D]. Here, the ministry lauds the work of the committee for its incorporation of new or previously overlooked perspectives, and for having “ developed a comprehensive insight into the function and effectiveness of the economic department. The result is not ‘an exclusively correct interpretation with the sole claim to truth’, but expressly allows for different evaluations and weightings. Important focal points are the analysis of the Nazi era and the – largely non-existent – denazification in the young Federal Republic as well as the investigation of the structures in the former GDR” [D].

In December 2016, the handbook [1] was officially launched at an event at the Economics Ministry. Some 225 guests were in attendance, including former secretaries, business leaders, policy experts, and academics [E]. The event featured speeches and a roundtable discussion and was subsequently widely covered in the German press [F], with Die Welt hailing the project’s “ important insights”, while Der Tagesspiegel compared the project favourably with the histories of many other ministries, which had ignored the period of the Weimar Republic and the history of economic policy in East Germany [F]. Video of the event has been made available on the ministry’s web pages, including a speech by the ministry’s then secretary, Sigmar Gabriel, who thanked the history commission: " Your study makes it clear how the terrible catastrophes in German history - two devastating wars, the failure of the first German democracy, and the National Socialist genocide - also influenced economic policy strategies" [F] [G]. An extended brochure summarising key findings of the research was distributed to attendees and remains available on the ministry’s web pages [H]. The exhibition was moved to the library, where it remained for a year. Owing to “ broad interest” [A] and “ high demand” [B], the exhibition was also extended to include scans of key documents.

In 2019, the ministry hosted a public event, not to mark the 70^th anniversary of the West German ministry, as was originally planned, but instead to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of its establishment in the Weimar Republic. Ritschl gave a keynote speech providing a summary of the project’s approach and its findings. In his own speech, the new secretary, Peter Altmaier, again emphasised the importance of the ministry confronting and recognising its full history including its active participation in the Nazi policies of persecution, plundering, and genocide [I].

The sustainability of the project and its impacts is assured by the suite of new resources created by the ministry. Findings of the research have informed the design of the ministry’s internal training programmes. Staff workshops on “Administrative Procedures and Responsibilities between Constitutional State, Public Welfare, and Official Duty” draw directly on its research contributions [B]. These workshops, which the ministry confirms have been much in demand [A] [B], aim to raise staff awareness of the consequences of economic policy by enhancing understanding of the historic objectives of the ministry and how they interacted with the economic structure of the German state.

The ministry has also subsequently developed a dedicated historical website [J], with input from the project. The website combines qualitative archival materials (images, audio, video), historical statistics, and a concise, accessible narrative of economic events over the last century of German history. The site has received 40,000 visits since its inception in early 2019 [K].

Overall, the research has brought about a changed understanding of the Economics Ministry, both among its own staff and at institution-level, as attested to by the Deputy Director General: " The history project that you devised and coordinated has changed the way we think about the history of our institution. Staff have developed a new awareness of what the consequences of economic policies can be if they aren't grounded in a deep commitment to the principles of democracy, economic freedom and social justice. These are the pillars of the Social Market Economy, which has guided the Federal Ministry since its foundation in 1949" [B].