Elizabeth C. Babcock and Dalila Scruggs will join the Smithsonian as Director of Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum (AWHM) and the inaugural African American Art Curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) respectively.
Babcock has been selected as the AWHM’s first director after the initial appointee Nancy Yao withdrew amid controversies last July. Babcock comes from her current role as president and CEO of sustainability organisation Forever Balboa Park in San Diego. She will commence her directorship on 3 June, taking over from the museum’s interim director Melanie Adams.
Currently curator for photography and prints at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, Scruggs will be SAAM’s first Augusta Savage curator of African American art. Hers is a new position named after artist and educator Augusta Savage associated with the Harlem Renaissance – and created after a $5 M endowment has been gifted by an anonymous donor. The role will entail curatorial and collection responsibilities as well as the reinstatement of the museum’s collection as part of a cross-departmental initiative ‘American Voices and Visions’. Scruggs will start the position on 22 April.
