WASHINGTON D.C. — As U.S. farming becomes more efficient, fewer Americans are involved in agriculture or have little to no contact with it. There’s nothing new in that idea – it’s a message heard often nowadays.

But it is a new inspiration for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. That museum is developing a new exhibition, “American Enterprise,” which has a strong agricultural theme running through it, said Peter Liebhold, curator and chair, Division of Work and Industry.

In preparation for the exhibit, the museum is unveiling a new website where the public can upload stories about technologies and innovations that have changed their lives in agriculture, Liebhold said. These can be stories about precision farming, environmental concerns, biotechnology and more.

“As we looked at out agricultural collection in preparation for the exhibition, we realized that we had done relatively little collecting related to modern farming,” Liebhold said. “So what we’re trying to do is collect material related to agricultural innovation and general experiences in this modern era of the post-World War II period.”

While the museum cannot collect tractors or combines, what it can do is gather people’s personal stories, photographs, some objects, seed sacks and similar objects. Those who are interested can go to the website at http://americanenterprise.si.edu to submit stories or offers of objects. Then the museum will contact them.

“One of the things that’s really important about this archive is that while we certainly want to build a collection for the future, and we want to be able to form our exhibition, it is also really important it is an archive that anybody will be able to use,” Liebhold said.

Students or researchers, or anyone who is interested, can read those firsthand experiences, he said. This kind of project is new for the Smithsonian.

“The Smithsonian has been around for over 150 years and we really want to make sure that we modernize, that we keep up with the times, and it is clear that social media is an important frontier,” Liebhold said. “What we think we can do is we can reach out to more people, from all across the country.

“We really encourage people to think broadly, to think about successes, failures, to think about how their life has changed. Just the other day a farmer was telling me about watermelons, as an example. He usually grows soybeans and corn and got it in his mind that watermelons would be good.

“He planted watermelons; had a fabulous crop. It looked beautiful – 30-pound seedless watermelons. He thought it was fantastic. He harvested them and found out he had lost his shirt because nobody wants 30-pound watermelons anymore, they want personal-sized ones,” he said.

This was an insightful moment for him, Liebhold explained. He realizes agriculture is now about much more than just growing crops; it is about marketing, about making many difficult decisions. This exhibit should help let non-farmers know how complex farmers’ lives really are.

The collection of stories, photos and objects will play a role in the “American Enterprise” exhibition, an 8,000 square-foot multimedia experience that will immerse visitors in the dramatic arc of the nation’s story, focusing on business and innovation in the United States from the mid-1700s to the present.

The exhibit is scheduled to open in May 2015.