The Reopening of the Truman Museum, Part 2; Unknown

welcome back to keep your prisons and j mcintyre to keep your prisons were visiting the harry s truman presidential library and museum in independence missouri it's just reopened this past week after a two year twenty nine million dollar renovation were ready to walk through the museum with clay pesky he's the chief curator clare let's go does the introductory gallery and it's it's it's basically based on a drum is when true learns that franklin roosevelt has died and then we see what's going on in the world and then at the end of the video were left with questions as harry truman able to carry on and do the job that franklin roosevelt had done before him and i think that's something that maybe you we've forgotten a little bit is how much doubt there was about whether truman within be up to the task right there are many people around the country who had no idea who truman was to begin with and and he had not really been closed

roseville at all and so there was a lot of doubt that he can step in the roosevelt shoes because roosevelt had been president for more than twelve years and it was legitimate of me who knew what dreams can this program ends with a number of quotes on the wall one that truman song recollections about what he did that night he said it was impossible to replace franklin roosevelt but only to do is go home get as much rest as possible and chased the music and then none of leaves with a question what can truman's past prepared him for the presidency and it's that quotation that leads us into sort of a flashback to truman's early years and entering a gallery devoted to truman's childhood and his

ancestors and what he did when he was young man this this gallery is dominated in the center with a tower with reproductions of letters that gerry wrote to bats beginning in nineteen ten and these letters in the tower simply represent letters that he wrote to her until he went off to war one so it's a very small collection of the letters that we have in our collection altogether you easily this is really striking or the most we hope for here is that people really realize that that we got a treasure trove of handwritten letters that gerry wrote to us we all sort of song oh the letters that she wrote back to him and we do include our own website address on this exhibit so people can go home and you can actually read all of the letters that he wrote over the years for our website and that website as w w w

dot truman library director of gop so from this point on we turned into a gallery it's a the first four months of a presidency and this is the gallery were year you face a timeline for months each month this show head or above it that we're in april at the beginning and it says may june july and august an issue walk through the gallery you see a timeline on the wall of the events that happened each month also accompanied by videos of things that were happening that month around the world and so as you get into maybe the war in europe bands without a little display cases showing the panda refused to sign the german surrender and it was

after the surrender was signed the pen was given the president truman by dwight eisenhower who was then the supreme allied commander in europe so we have a smattering of original artifacts videos and timeline time one of events in this area and the exhibit was designed purposely to get narrower as you walk through it so did it sort of evokes this sense of contraction and focusing in on a particular moment and that moment was at the end of the first four months when the atomic bomb was used and we have a circular gallery that has served music in the background and in the center of the gallery is one artifact display by itself and that's the safety

plan that was taken from the atomic bomb that was dropped on nagasaki was the law that was in the bomb when the plane took off and electronics officer aboard the plane took a safety plug out and replaced it with an alarming plug which allowed the bomb to explode actually dropped from the plane so it's and we're surrounded by photograph of the devastation in hiroshima and on the floor it's a circular thing with quotations from people who witnessed the event is a very supposed to be very quiet space with music in the background but also a little niche where you can hear interviews with japanese and american people who are either witnessed a bomb or affected by the bomb

what we've done in this renovation as we juxtapose as the atomic bomb itself with on the opposite wall another case displaying yet another single object and that's a little tiny paper cranes and this was such a forward by a japanese girl so taco society who was in hiroshima them was going die of the class but was affected by the radiation and developed leukemia and while she was dying she folded a thousand paper cranes which was japanese sign of goodwill or good luck are life and this paper crane is one of the very last one should fold and then was given the library by her brother a few years ago so it's one gallery we have both the cause of all the atomic bomb and

because of the atomic bomb that with the same people and also sort of a healing it's reconciliation which is symbolized by the paper cranes and then when you turn going to the next gallery or your taste with what we call the centerpiece of the whole exhibition and that's this fourteen foot globe and it's dotted with the cracks that are illuminated and it symbolizes the world in shambles after world or to heart problems and she's and so harry truman is just lived through very traumatic for months ending the war and the next thing he has to face is how to handle the team's fans with the united states being really the only wealthy countries left on earth really falls to states to do

something and that's what drove the next case and i'm guessing that quite badly hit the chief curator of the president truman presidential library and museum in independence missouri we've just walked out of the main exhibits ace and into the newly redesigned a space that includes the thomas hart benton painting buford to earlier this hour there were now and what used to be our main lobby we now put it at the end of war exhibition and what we've done with it is we've created a touch screen interactive that has a large photo of the mural and you can just touch on the screen and explore various parts of the story both of the what the themes of the mural are and the process that thomas hart benton used to paint a mural you can learn about the figures in the mural explore the various characters that are shown in the mural and it's also

accompanied by narration by thomas hart benton plus what he wrote about doing the mural and then finally there's a section you can go through that talks about the relationship between harry truman thomas heard that claim and sweet wines through this newly imagines presidential museum for harry truman what is it that you hope that people will take away well i think that there are only so many things you can do with the museum exhibit what we hope has accomplished here on the on the broad level we hope is that people who come and visit the museum will get interested in the subject matter will will will learn something about the truman presidency but their imagination will will make them go home and go and they're lighter and pick out books on the

particular topics that they really want to explore further so this is only an attempt to get people interested and motivated to explore further along on another level what we've tried to do in the exhibits is pretty much showed that the truman was president had a particularly critical moment for the nation's history he had to finish out a war and then he had to face a world in which the united states was really the only superpower and he had the ability to reshape that world and reshape the united states and so does his role in that are either right that's richer he made lots of mistakes but what we have today what we what we're living with today is to a very large extent the structure that was created or drums

administration craig people want to know more about the truman presidential library and museum at any information about how to come visit where we're sitting out the best place to store would be our website w w w dot com and life for a dactyl cioffi can find pretty much all the information you need there we are at least temporarily only taking tickets online so you need to reserve a ticket online at that web site if you just walk up to the door we can't let your union were still living under some of the restrictions have coated we hope that will be a little open that open the doors to the public in general soon but we just don't know when so for the time being go to the website and reserve a ticket for a time when you come to migrate today it pr present we've been visiting be harry s truman presidential

library and museum in independence missouri it just reopened this past week after a two year twenty nine million dollar renovation i'd been visiting with clay barsky he's the chief curator i thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through the museum and telling us so many interesting things about harry truman to iraq my pleasure totally and kate mcintyre keep your prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas