Exhibition Reviews

The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Mo. http://www.libertymemorialmuseum.org/.       Permanent exhibition, opened Dec. 2, 2006. 30,000 sq. ft. Mark Cox, interim executive director; Eli Paul, museum director; Doran Cart, museum curator; Jonathan Casey, archivist; Ralph Appelbaum Associates, designer.
The largest and most impressive World War I memorial in the United States is the 217-foot limestone Liberty Memorial tower in Kansas City. In 1919, a community-based fund drive raised more than $2.5 million in ten days for a monument "in honor of those who served in the world war in defense of liberty and our country." Sprawl and the loss of industry have since robbed downtown Kansas City of its preeminence, and the Egyptian revival and art deco style of the tower evokes the Jazz Age more than it does a largely forgotten and distant conflict. Even so, proud city advocates describe the monument as their Space Needle, Gateway Arch, or Golden Gate Bridge. Although the original exhibit halls still display artifacts, enormous murals, and bronze tablets listing Kansas City war dead, the space was inadequate for the "world-class" museum that twenty-first- century civic leaders envisioned.	1
Encircling the subterranean base of the tower is the new National World War I Museum, a 30,000-square-foot exhibit space excavated during the tower's recent restoration. The Liberty Memorial Association claims that the museum's $26.6 million price tag, mostly financed by city-issued bonds, will pay for itself by bringing more visitors downtown. (The museum opened to the public in December 2006 and had one hundred thousand visitors in its first six months.) Such hopes necessarily influenced the design and content of the museum, resulting in dramatic high-tech features and expansive coverage of world events beyond Kansas City's war experience. Taking a politically neutral and family-friendly approach, the museum neither pushes pacifism nor glorifies war, and it forgoes violent images. Exhibits reflect the latest historical research but avoid contentious interpretations. As it strives to attract and educate visitors, the museum offers intellectual and experiential nudges, without pushing too hard.	2
The Horizon Theater at Kansas City's National World War I Museum displays a high-tech diorama of no man's land on the western front. Life-size models of British soldiers slog through the mud beneath a German Fokker aircraft, while projected battle footage flashes behind them. Courtesy National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri.
In 2004, Congress recognized the new institution as an official national museum "so that generations of the 21st century may understand the role played by the United States in the preservation and advancement of democracy, freedom, and liberty in the early 20th century" (Public Law 108–375, 2004). The museum has embraced the congressional designation as an official national museum, but has also chosen to expand the scope of its mission: "to bring history to life, and to foster timely discussions of ethics, values, decision making and conflict resolution." Steve Berkheiser, the retired Marine Corps brigadier general who directed the Liberty Memorial Association during the museum's construction, explained that "we didn't want this just to be America beating its chest in how we saved the world." They wanted to make the events of World War I relevant to the tough questions of war today. The association raised funds by appealing directly to local voters and donors rather than legislators. Concerns about Iraq, Berkheiser said, "absolutely helped" with fundraising (December 2006 interview by Elizabeth Cafer du Plessis). Yet ethical queries and critiques of U.S. actions come in small doses, usually in short quotations from the era sprinkled throughout the exhibits and films.	. . .