This week, in honor of our nation’s birth, the selection of objects from our four public museums is inspired by the phrase E Pluribus Unum – “Out of Many, One.” Approved as the motto for the new United States in 1776, during the same year as the Declaration was signed, this Latin phrase reflected a determination to assemble a single unified nation from a collection of states. In recent weeks, we have been reminded of the challenges to realizing the ideal of unity in a country of people from different backgrounds and beliefs, especially in the face of powerful forces working to tear it apart. But E Pluribus Unum expresses more than an ideal. It reflects an essential truth about both nature and human society – that we are stronger and more resilient together, embracing all of our diversity, than we are apart.
