A purse containing keys and a wallet recovered from the World Trade Center site. Seat belts and a flight attendant call button salvaged from the doomed United Airlines Flight 93. The desk telephone U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson answered when his wife, Barbara, phoned from a hijacked airplane.

These deeply personal artifacts are among dozens of rarely seen objects on view this week at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks through searingly human details.

The temporary display, which concludes on Saturday, takes place as the institution comes under increasing pressure from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans over how American history is presented.

While the Smithsonian started gathering items mere months after the tragedy and routinely exhibits a selection along the National Mall, this week’s presentation is distinct because the artifacts rest openly on tables rather than behind protective glass. The museum's director, Anthea Hartig, noted that several featured items are "so fragile they'll probably never go on display."

The objective, she explained, is to enable visitors to "both never forget, but also kind of reconnect" as a generation comes of age without any direct memory of the event.

"This has truly slipped into history rather than being part of our memory landscape," she said.

A number of the objects recall workplace culture at the turn of the millennium, including a beeper belonging to a worker on the South Tower's 97th floor. Another item, a candy dispenser retrieved from the Pentagon, still holds melted chocolate.

The museum has drawn conservative criticism following a White House report released on Independence Day that described its leadership as radical activists. Hartig subsequently testified during two days of congressional hearings in July, where Republicans insisted the museum should offer a more unifying narrative of the nation's past—a push that raised concerns among historians that lawmakers and the White House were promoting revisionism over accurate history.

Trump later ordered officials to erect signs outside the museum alerting visitors that certain exhibits are inaccurate. More than a month later, those signs have not been put up.

In an interview, Hartig said the political scrutiny had no bearing on how the Sept. 11 exhibit was put together.

"This museum exists as a repository, as a place of memory," she said. "And so the current political moment is like many other political moments that we document. There’s different opinions and contestation over how we do our work."

Further changes could be coming after Lonnie Bunch announced his intention to resign as head of the Smithsonian Institution. The organisation operates independently of the executive branch, and Bunch's successor will be named by a Board of Regents that includes Vice President JD Vance, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, and citizen regents.

Hartig acknowledged that "leadership transitions are always complicated."

Even so, she remarked: "I wake up every day confident in Americans' ability to embrace the complexities of their past."