100 Years of WWI Collecting

one hundred and one years ago world war one formally ended one hundred years ago collecting began i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr prisons were visiting the national world war one museum and memorial in kansas city just reopened with them brand new exhibit one hundred years of collecting i'll be walking through this exhibit with orange car he is the senior curator at the national world war one museum and memorial great to see you again i see you 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 in a beautiful has a 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 before we talk about your new exhibit door and

let's step back a little bit two thousand 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 a 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 maternal 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 peace 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 others work fine 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 that finally get on exhibit in someone said the other day all well uber had been working on this for months and i said norman were to listen to last july facts 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 well when they come here cause we're bringing very cautious 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 here i've been here thirty years that i wasn't people think i've been here a hundred year ah but it really started our was one person by jd who was 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 mccollum trophies and at the material culture of that time and i know 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 beyond the other part of the collections as will see you to walk around it 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 on are not just showing things but also colic talking about how museums collect how they operate why are certain things are in the clock and there's a little humor and a bum i'm not gonna tell you the joke you have to see them yourself but your ideas so wanted to be interesting and for people

to see look at the things from the past and kind of 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 and also 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 ah because 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 from laura wand were there too capture the with 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 a house i'm at that time they were i should place in the public library which used to be downtown in kansas city name was the building was open in nineteen twenties six oh with the president calvin coolidge then they were i worked for a lot of the collection here are an end over the years the collection has grown immensely ah but those for the real starting points but we got materials given to the museum by him and for countries we've got donations from japan and from australia our 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 was there any opposition to the idea of collecting items like did people to 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 at ridley also know i don't i think they were very excited about having these at that time they called the mentos 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 materials 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 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 why how to base your future on it and so you know you'd learn that even when this when 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 the typewriter and at a typewriter that we use on a british ship and a growing corn that was in richland cars was developed to work they would to a gas attack and so there 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 came from the central towers which were germany austria hunt austria hungary all bulgaria and the ottoman empire was ever brought back the souvenirs are consort rouge were huge souvenir helps and so they were all our stuff back and but they didn't and were the americans didn't fight or 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 the turtles from while because they basically have a lot of other upheaval that occurred and these pictures were just use and lost and auerbach 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 their new exhibit is one hundred years of collecting doren 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 a 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 auction 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 with four million americans in service during the war ii i really don't need another care breaches but a pair of boots are really hard to come by and you see that in the collection because americans especially the warm home they'd have an extra pair of boots they warm oh 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 what 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 is transcribing in our collection and one of our staff people i gave them a preview to come up and look at the new exhibition and she said she just didn't get 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 but i'm visiting the door and part he's the senior curator at the national world war when museum and memorial in kansas city their newest exhibit is one hundred years of collecting storing 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 essentially 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 that we have here that i really think is unimportant not because of what he did during the war and 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 gone 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 as a rule 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 trotter really look at that they 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 mention that were obviously in the midst of a covered pandemic the museum like most institutions closed down and is just starting to reopen and i know you'll be taking lots of precautions but 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 this 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 online and done so you can go to the website though world war dog orgy and it to me therefore can i slap one out one item that i thought on the website a piece of the one hundred year old heart attack us actually is one hundred years old now 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 real simple formula of flour salt water and hart dexter 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 audible even 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 right now it's a 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 no thing and we were comparing these obvious we were showing both a lot of things that were military like that right next to a phonograph record and again how they were entertained and with love 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 started 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 well 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 we work with them 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 darren carter is the senior curator at the national world war one museum and memorial

in kansas city the museum reopened this month with the new exhibit one hundred years of collecting and a related exhibit one hundred years of collecting art and j mcintyre just ahead we'll visit another exhibit at the world war one museum the vietnam war nineteen forty five to nineteen seventy five that says kbr present continues right after this