The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 45 From Pirates to Passports When presented the opportunity in the spring of 2019 to develop an exhibit for the United States Diplomacy Center (now the National Museum of American Diplomacy, or NMAD) on the history of consular work, a small but motivated group of FSOs— led by Kelly Landry, William Bistransky and Karin Lang—gath- ered a team of department employees, myself included, to plan it. Our goal was to identify predecessors who personified the values that drew us to the profession, and to share their stories to inspire others. At the time, our collection of original artifacts was slim, and our resources sparse, so we worked quickly in Washington and with overseas posts to secure these artifacts to document our history before it disappeared. In what rapidly became a passion project, our team reached out to colleagues across the department, working closely with the Office of the Historian, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Without a budget, and at our own initiative and expense, we personally collected items related to department history from private vendors in more than 30 countries, an effort that produced an extensive collec- tion of antique passports, visas, photos, documents and other items; and we asked our consular colleagues in the field to check their closets and basements at post. Through this process, we discovered just how little we know about the State Department personnel who came before us and built the department into what it is today—which is particularly important as we envision the department of the future. The result of our initial effort was the May 2019 NMAD exhibit, “From Pirates to Passports: A Timeless Commitment to Service, ” which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Bureau of Consular Affairs and featured information and artifacts from consular history from 1780 to the present, covering pass- ports, visas and overseas citizen services. Showcasing the visually stunning work of the bureau’s in-house designers, Jodie Tawiah and Christi Hairston, this exhibit impressed the many active-duty and retired State Department employees who visited it, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We are now working with NMAD to make a digital version of the exhibit available online in the com- ing months. And this is only the beginning. Interest from across the department was so strong that we realized we needed to find ways to permanently document what COURTESYOFLINDSAYHENDERSON FSO Karin Lang gives remarks at the exhibit, “From Pirates to Passports: A Timeless Commitment to Service,” at the U.S. Diplomacy Center in May 2019. (Inset) Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the exhibit featured information and artifacts from consular history from 1780 to the present, covering passports, visas and overseas citizen services.