100 Years of WWI Collecting - Encore; Unknown

today on k pr presents it's a visit to the national world war one museum in kansas city i'm j mcintyre it's the last week to see their exhibit one hundred years of collecting which closes sunday august eight the national world where one museum and memorial began collecting immediately after the war ended and has amassed a wide range of artifacts and documents that tell the story of world war one will walk through that exhibit and find out why the museum might be interested in your great grandfather's old army boats but not his pants and later this hour what happens to a kansas town when its hospital closes its doors it's another chapter of where it hurts as seven part series looking at the closing of mercy hospital in fort scott cancers and how it effected the town's health care economy and sense of community it's chapter four of where it hurts dedicated to human suffering that first one hundred years of collecting a look at how and why the world war one museum collects

the things it does when the exhibit opened i walk through the door and cart he's the senior curator at the national world war one museum in kansas city our conversation was originally broadcast on tape your presents on june fourteen twenty twenty first things first it may sound like the warren and i are standing side by side at the museum but thanks to the magic of radio and to really long my chords were standing at what was just a door and a couple of the device or ten foot sections on the floor okay we're doing this interview in keeping with npr as the best practices for a safe field reporting during this time of the covered pandemics i just wanted to assure listeners we're not we're keeping socially distanced with that out of the way let's step back a little bit to get some fourteen to two thousand nineteen were huge years for the national world war one museum and memorial as an institution we mark the one hundred anniversary since the

beginning of the war one hundred years since america's entry into the war and then obviously one hundred years since the end of the war what has that meant for this organization well it really has certain place us on the global stage even though we've always think global from the very beginning as you'll see in here in this exhibition on the museum a memorial really got its place as far as the international resource for the history of the material culture of world war one family showed that throughout these centennial exhibitions from the road toward to over by christmas all the way up to our police question mark in nineteen nineteen and so when i was looking at the next exhibition it's hard to kind of break the chronology viewpoint but it was the beginning of

the hundred year anniversary of the collection of the national warbler one museum a memorial and so it was kind of a natural but it was also not that the other for fun but it was a different kind of attitude that i had towards this because i was really not limited by anything other then a hundred years old that the museum's been collecting and so i know a lot of interesting things and i was able to pull out and finally get on exhibit in someone said the other day all well uber had been working on this for months and i said norman work to listen to the question life hacks are this is that you can put an exhibit together in a month and haven't really tell what you wanted it to tell so on and i might really invitation to the people who can come back to the museum and be safe while when they come here cause we're bringing her car she's about that

they'll see some incredible things their own exhibition on me like i was saying everything from ireland a german doll color all the way to a uniform or by the emperor of austria's court so and really goes the gamut so take us back a hundred years how big this election began well i wasn't here quite yet i've been i've been here thirty years that i wasn't people think i've been here a hundred years now but it really started our was one person on the jd who is an artillery man in world war one and he was appointed as the chairman of the trophies committee and so they the association liberty memorial association at that time which was actually founded in november of nineteen eighty nine he was appointed that to really start gathering the

material culture of being caught that at that time a column trophies and at the material culture of that time and go his orders really new marching orders that he had was that he was to collect globally anything in the world of countries that were involved in the war and for us to have stayed true to that for the hundred years we've never varied from that it's always just been a cool collection of all the countries who are involved in the world and have not gone beyond that now the other part of the collections as will see you to walk around is the history of the liberty memorial itself and so on a hundred years ago they were very forward thinking and i've read some quotes in here from jay li yan down on that he said that this was so important to have this

kind of collection and he said that in nineteen twenty five and so i have inherited that kind of incredible foresight are in the years that i've been here and have tried to stay true to that throughout and we also in this exhibition and are not just showing things but also kinder talking about how museums collect how they operate why are certain things are in the clock and there's even a little humor in it i'm not gonna tell you the joke you have to see them yourself but your eye does so wanted to be interesting and for people to see look at the things from the past and coming get them in the setting of when they came to the museum because we're still very active in collecting the museum is organic and the collection still

has a lot of stories to tell him are still looking for those things it tells those stories let's go back a hundred years do you know what some of the first items that we collected sure the actual first items that were collected for the museum were posters of the cost posters were the medium of the time there was no radio was no television and so a posters were the advertising medium of the time and with the creation of the krona fog of the process that could really make these attractive and soul of posters for more once were fair to capture the one passer bys attention and to tell a story and so they were the first objects and then map squeeze jerry lee was an artillery man and so he used a lot of maps in his war effort and they and since there was no building

the house i'm at that time they were i should place in the public library which used to be downtown in kansas city there was the building was opened in nineteen twenty six o a third president calvin coolidge then they were able to put a lot of the collection here are an end over the years the collection has grown immensely ah but those were the real starting points but we got materials given to the museum by human four countries got donations from japan and from australia are very early on and a lot of these materials are on exhibit in the main gallery ah but these other nations quickly understood that this was an important cause a tory were there any opposition to the idea of collecting items like did people choose any extent just wanna put the war behind

us well actually when they were looking at the ritual goes on art for the memorial the one that got the most votes was a memorial within his museum so very early on all from the people of kansas city of course they were the ones who paid for and built it originally also know i don't i think they were very excited about having these at that time they called the mentos and reminders of the people who served in the war wasn't allowed to glorify the war but it was to remember the people and what they did and not only those who served in the military but also those who made these mature adults who worked in the factories aren't though women munition our workers and things like that so i never really seen that people were opposed to the content itself and of course we're

always very careful about you know we're representing your glorifying war because of the horrible thing there's nothing there's nothing good about war itself but if you don't learn your history and what's occurred on thing you really don't know how to base your future on it and so you know you'd learn that didn't even win this win nineteen fourteen when the war started oh a lot of these weapons and tools of them were obsolete already and so they've very quickly are made this war a very modern war and that everyone was involved and so like in this exhibition you'll see in the things that children did during the war effort and that you know common tools

became useful for the war effort by a typewriter and at a typewriter that we use on a british ship and a crying porn that was in that region and cars was developed to work people to a gas attack and so that was sort of an adaptation of society's tool i guess the corollary to that question have you found any evidence that other countries hat were hesitant at all to send their artifacts to the united states which may have been their enemy during were well now you're reading the gifts from the civil power it's interesting how a lot of the materials the early ones in the collection that came from the super powers which were germany austria hunt austria hungary all bulgaria and the ottoman empire was ever brought back the souvenirs are american soldiers were huge souvenir helps

and so they brought a step back and but they didn't and were the americans didn't fight were not in action set out on the eastern front all they really we've had a really concentrate on working with the governments and the private collectors and things in those in those countries to actually be or collection out and unlike her the ottoman empire had been really hard to get materials from aisle because they basically have a lot of other upheaval that occurred and these pictures were just use and lost and ah but week we have an international network we work with people around the world and show them that this is truly great repository for their materials and they whipped or in part he's the senior curator at the national world war one museum and memorial in kansas city

tore and is the curator of what things do you look for in terms of what makes an artifact or a document museum or a b or a collectible and what makes it just jumped well it's the story behind it it's really what does it tell us about the people who used it and also it's a responsibility of any curator that you have to make some very hard decisions because i'm on time people will think that what they have because it's family is one of the most important things and we totally agree with that we don't have i don't have a problem with understanding of that but we also have to look at what the collection needs what these space can handle because i'll in a

word the nation's collection but were not the nation's attic and so you know you you have to be very selective and you have to make difficult decisions on what to accept or not and my third point there is always be diplomatic because these do have special places for families and we understand that and sometimes don't have something that they don't think is very important and will say oh yeah that's a really good thing for the museum to have and so i in your hardest thing is now with four million americans in service during the war ii i really don't need another care breaches but a pair of boots are rules or to come up and you can see that in the collection because americans especially

the warm home they'd have an extra pair of boots a warm home they warm out they disappeared and when somebody says or get a diagram gets boots and say let's talk you know of that might seem like a real simple thing and another thing and we've got it in this exhibit here is underwear you don't really think about underwear at a museum collection but was another thing people had it was very important to him to have their summer underwear to have the winner on the war but when they went home they wore it out and so and we just found out on our project that we're doing now with a lot of our staff as transcribing in our collections and one of our staff people i gave them a preview to come up and look at the new exhibition and she said all she does but the transcribing these letters and the guy talk about his underwear and

so you know this is what was important food underwear wants and when they could go home were all important things now i'm saying that from american viewpoint but it was the same for all countries i'm visiting the door and part he's the senior curator at the national world war when museum and memorial in kansas city doreen can you pick that say three items that you think are especially poignant or important well one of the most recent acquisitions that we have in the exhibition is a russian woman uniform and she was a machine gunner and so and they just came in in the shared twenty twenty and luckily i got in the collection before the pandemic really close everything down you said see she yeah she was a she was a lieutenant a commanding machine gunners and so

that's here and it's not only incredible because of what it was but also so beautifully sung and you would think that this was cannot survive for a hundred years but yet here it is in the museum we have the either one of the other pieces that we really thought that we have here that i really think is unimportant oddly not because of where what he did during the warren and i mentioned this earlier was a gas along and it was the machinery on that thing and what it took to make it and iraq and it still makes an incredible sale but it still has an instruction now you know that's pretty stout over all these years to have and then the third thing we talk about communication and how we communicate and get information around we have half the messenger

pigeon signal kid and so it has slowed it has that role like tissue our message pad in it it has the little containers that they put on the lengths of the message or pigeons to write these and send them off and it was all a new look at it and you think well that's kind of boring but we think about how important that kind of communication was in the kitchens were a major way of communicating on within the different than all the countries use messenger pigeons and so to have that in the show that i think do children really look at that may see my gosh you put these on bird's legs and peace in these messages off and you know i think you like everything in here are wouldn't have chosen it to being here

but i think those kind of tell the three different times story's darren you mentioned that were obviously in the midst of a covered pandemic for people who aren't necessarily comfortable coming out to the exhibit you've got a pretty extensive selection online as well that's correct in all of our exhibitions over the uses are featured on our website this one is on our website as well now of course we have a limited number of views of things you can see but also on our social media they'll be different things are all over the time that to some exhibitions up and so yeah if we want to come and we won but we also understand that and so that's why you were really doing a lot of our digital on learning and vitriol center on line and down so you can go to the website

though world war dog orgy and it to me therefore can i stop when out one item that i saw on the website a piece of the one hundred year old heart attack us ashley's years i don't do math well that's why when in history but yeah it's a bizarre attack and it was an issue i think for almost all the armies or navies in the war and as a rule simple formula of flour salt water and hart text around for hundreds of years and our piece of hard tack and i'm looking at a right now in the case was probably made around nineteen eighty and then still edible i'll say was edible human in nineteen eighty eight both of ida one a buddy coming here think they're going to eat it all but no he was he was an emergency kind of

food mainly they would break it up and ordered in their coffee or a liquid becomes so caught up for or their slum down and slow him down was a student was made of and instead of potatoes tomatoes and some kind of meat and so they get so caught up in there as well but turned their yeah it's it's amazing how much attention just from the social media already that that hard to hackers got and so on are but we've had a heart attack on exhibit in the main gallery for many years and but you know we wanted to show a loathing and when we were comparing these obvious we were showing both a lot of things that were military like that right next to a former girlfriend and again how they were entertained and where's our by doctors and eyeglasses so that's kind of these comparisons that you know that we've done in the design of

this exhibition there's one thing that you want people to take away from this exhibit one hundred years of collecting what in the world that are museums been here a long time our museum is the second oldest collecting institution of world war one the true culture in the world are the oldest is the imperial war museum in london awkward starring in nineteen seventeen and i told the director general who was here one time by emily's words a good friend of the museum and i say will die out you you'd been collecting for three years longer which only had to cross the english channel we had to cross the atlantic ocean and so she's use that i've heard a repeat that sort of different time so they were great friends with imperial war museum that we worked with him closely they've got a great website good information on there and elton but yeah that i think that's the thing a lot of the work that you're in kansas

city missouri is this international collection of materials from the great war from nineteen fourteen to nineteen ninety and it's kept me here for thirty years so but i would say it has been great having with you you too as always thank you lauren card is the senior curator at the national world war one museum and memorial in kansas city their exhibit one hundred years of collecting is closing on sunday aug eight and at two o'clock sunday door and card as museum president and ceo dr matt naylor we'll talk about the museum's one hundred year history this event will be in person and streaming on youtube live it's free but you do need to register in advance find out more at the world war dot org under upcoming events i'm kate mcintyre well have more kbr present coming up right after this