I can hear you now. National Archives? Exhibit? Who wants to go look at a bunch of old papers and photos? Borrring! I had my doubts too. How do you make something interesting when it's potentially really dull?
Creating a Vibrant Exhibit
The trick is something I recently saw at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii at the new Pacific Aviation Museum. While the museum contains lots of vintage aircraft, what makes the museum so meaningful is that it focuses not on the planes but on the stories they tell and on the people who flew them.
This is precisely what the creators of Eyewitness: American Originals from the National Archives were able to achieve with this exhibition at the National Constitution Center. Rather than focus on the letters, diaries, photographs, and audio and audio/video recordings themselves, the exhibition focuses on the related stories that make these eyewitness accounts significant in our nation's development and history.
While a singe archived letter may be somewhat interesting, it becomes fascinating when viewed in the context of when and why it was written. In his remarks to an exclusive press preview prior to the official opening of the exhibit, National Constitution Center President and CEO, Joseph M. Torsella, described the exhibit as "truly gripping accounts of watershed moments in U.S. history."
Through a unique combination of audio, photos, video and actual objects the stories associated with each of the 25 items in the national exhibition come alive - many as if they just happened yesterday. The exhibit also features an optional audio tour. Let me say right now, get the audio tour.
Exhibit Examples
I was privileged to tour the exhibit with National Archives and Records Administration Curator Stacey Bredhoff as my guide. Bredhoff stressed that "the exhibit is really all about storytelling."
Here are two examples of how this works so well.
One of the exhibit items is President Jimmy Carter's notes from his private meeting with Pope John Paul II on October 6, 1979. By itself these notes are an interesting read, but what makes them fascinating is that they are accompanied by photos of the meeting as well as a commentary on the meeting recorded by President Carter in which the President boldly confronts the new Pontiff on issues that concern Americans specifically involving the Middle East and the ongoing Arab/Israeli confrontation.
A letter from Pfc. Harold Porter to his parents written from the 116 Evacuation Hospital stationed at the former Dachau Concentration Camp on May 10, 1945 is striking not only because of the visual impact of reading Porter's first hand testimony of the conditions discovered at the camp following its liberation, but also because the letter was written on actual SS stationary that Porter had found in the commandant’s office. The letter is accompanied by several photographs showing the actual conditions that Porter encountered among the survivors of the Nazi holocaust.
Eyewitness debuted at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. from June 23, 2006 through January 1, 2007. The National Constitution Center is the second stop on the nationwide tour.
The exhibit will next be shown at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia and then other locations through 2008.
The National Exhibit
The Exhibit includes not only the 25 items in the national collection, but also a special section of Philadelphia Treasures presented in the same effective manner.
The national collection itself is divided into nine sections: Confrontations for Justice, Scenes from Hell, Free at Last, Passing of an Era, Fallen Leaders, Leaders in Crisis. War at Sea, Personal Encounters, and America on the Move.
In addition to the two exhibit items previously mentioned, highlights include:
- A letter from George Washington to John Hancock expressing his concern about the possible threat of a bioterrorism attack by the British.
- Testimony of President Lincoln’s doctor from the night of his assassination.
- The infamous audio account of the Hindenburg explosion by radio newsman Herbert Morrison.
- Lady Bird Johnson’s audio diary account of the Kennedy assassination.
- Testimony of John Lewis from a federal hearing resulting from the 1965 March for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, during which he was beaten.
- Footage of a 1966 TV interview with Jeremiah Denton, an American POW in Vietnam. During the interview, he blinked his eyes in Morse code spelling out the word "torture."
- The broadcast from the crew of Apollo 8 while in lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968.
- A 1974 diary entry from George H.W. Bush, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, recounting President Nixon’s resignation.
