U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders is pleased with the progress the gift shop at the National Museum of American History has made in switching over to selling more American-made products. The independent from Vermont had visited the shop before Christmas in search of presents for his grandchildren and was disturbed to find that small busts of U.S. presidents were made in China,
The Washington Post reports.
“Any museum owned by the American people, discussing American history, should have American products. I made that my concern,” Sanders told the Post. “I’m proud to see that, in a short period of time, there have been changes.”
After Sanders’ pre-Christmas shopping trip, he met with Smithsonian officials, who promised to search out more American-made products and start getting them into museum shops. The Price of Freedom shop, which stocks about 300 items, was first. Museum Director Brent Glass told the Post, “Now 100 percent of the products in this store — the books, the puzzles, the throw rugs — are all made in America.”
The various Smithsonian museums sell about 12,000 items, with one-third made in the United States. As for those presidential busts, they’re designed by an American, and they will be replaced with busts made in the United States when the inventory is used up, Glass told the Post.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.