Photo by Tom LeGro/NewsHour, courtesy flickr

When Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she slashed the budget of the Dorothy G. Page Museum.

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When the Republic nominee for vice president was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a suburb of approximately 9,000 people outside of Anchorage, she declared war on a local museum, Artnet reports.  

Shortly after assuming office in 1996, Palin began attacking Wasilla’s Dorothy G. Page Museum, a city-run institution dedicated to Alaskan history. She fired museum director John Cooper in a purge that included other city officials, and, though the city was running at $4 million surplus, cut $32,000 from the museum’s $200,000 budget, provoking the resignation of three long-term employees. "They’d rather quit than continue working for a city that doesn’t want to preserve its history," the Anchorage Daily News reported at the time.

Palin also reportedly pressured Wasilla's librarian to ban books and tried to fire the woman when she refused.