Jun 9, 2011

Smithsonian Shop Sells US Made GiftsBy Nicole GaudianoUSAToday.com

Washington — Visitors to the Smithsonian now have one gift shop where they can indulge their buy-American desires with complete confidence.

The Price of Freedom gift shop at the National Museum of American History began selling only American-made gifts Wednesday. The change came after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., threatened to introduce legislation requiring taxpayer-financed museums to sell more merchandise made in this country.

“I think we’re the first major museum gift shop to use exclusively made-in-America products,” said Brent Glass, the museum director. Sanders said that the move is a good start, but that he wants to see a greater effort to sell American-made merchandise in all Smithsonian gift stores.

“It seems to me that a museum owned by the American people, designed to express our history and our greatness, should be, to as great a degree as possible, selling products made by American workers,” said Sanders, who visited the gift shop Wednesday.

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