The napkin that changed the world

A few scrawled lines that disrupted the entire American economy and Republican politics to this day

The business of America may be business, but we generally don’t spend a great deal of time really thinking about the subject. At least not the same way we reflect upon history or sports or even pop culture, all of which are explored in major museums (plural) across the country. Until now that is. Now, business gets its turn, as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. readies “American Enterprise: A History of Business in America,” the museum’s first deep exploration of commerce in our country. The Smithsonian recently let Yahoo Finance in for an exclusive, sneak preview of the exhibit, which opens July 1st.

What strikes you right away when you walk into the exhibit is how rich our business history is, and how much change our country has witnessed and driven over the past 300 plus years. “This exhibit is about American business and how it changes American lives,” says David Allison, the exhibition project director. “We’re really focusing on the way that innovation has driven American business from the Colonial era right up to the present.”

Innovation, or put another way, disruption. Here you get a super clear picture of how one business or industry is constantly changing another, or even putting it out of business. From covered wagons to trains to cars to jets for instance, you can truly get a feel for the linear arc of American business history here. But you also see its elliptical nature. There are over 600 carefully chosen emblematic objects; everything from cell phones to antique china, the napkin that economist Arthur Laffer drew the famous Laffer Curve on. Yes the giants like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs are represented, but so too are lesser knowns.