Analyzing The Success And Failures Of Prior Museum Interpretation

Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.

In the essay “The Scar,” the author Kildare Dobbs reports the parallel stories of Emiko; a young Japanese girl and Captain Robert Lewis; a U.S. army Captain harrowing events of Aug 6/1945 in Hiroshima, a day that forever changed their lives. Emiko, a 15 year old “fragile and vivacious” Japanese girl lived an hour’s train ride away from Hiroshima, in a town called Otake with her parents, her two sisters and brother. At that time, her youngest sister was extremely sick with heart troubles, her 13 year old brother was with the Imperial Army and her father was an antique dealer. Emiko and her 13 year old sister Hideko traveled by train daily to Hiroshima to their women’s college. Captain Robert Lewis was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a U.S.

Positioned alongside Central Park in the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museum, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a certain set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within the museum. Brent Plate in Religion, Art, and Visual Culture argues that “objects obtain different meanings in different locations and historical settings.”An object placed on display behind a glass case inside a museum would hold a vastly different meaning if it was put on sale by a street vendor, like the ones who set up their tables in close proximity to the Met. The different meanings that objects are able to obtain is attributed to the relationships that are established between the object itself and the environment that surrounds it. These relationships often involve the kind of audience that a museum attracts, where the work is exhibited, and how the exhibits within a museum is planned out. Museums subsequently have the ability to control how these relationships are established which influences the way a viewer is able to construct meaning. When a visitor observes an object on display at the Met, they instinctively construct a certain set of

The Hiroshima bombings was a crucial point in history that ended World War 2. Different perspectives are important into gaining an understanding of the event during that era. The two sources analysed, one being an interview with Paul Tibbets, a pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and second Yoshikata Kawamoto, a boy in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb had dropped, show both positive and negative impacts on the atomic bomb plummeting in Hiroshima.

Thank God for the Atomic Bomb by Paul Fussel is a provocative essay about the opposing views on the two atomic bombs that America dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan ending World War 2, the most defecating event to happen in history. Over a few million-innocent people died that day, and thousands of the survivors and their offspring have suffered or died since of the result of the chemicals used in the bomb. Fussel was a purple hearted second lieutenant military man frontline in the war. He writes about the difference of opinion of using the atomic bomb from two views: those with firsthand combat with the Japanese and those without firsthand combat experience with the Japanese. Paul Fussel’s essay has the primary aim of persuading the reader that the Atomic bomb was the best choice as a means to end the war and he uses the primary mode of evaluation to persuade. His secondary aim is referential, to inform and explain to those who had no firsthand experience in that war and he uses the secondary mode of description to do this, citing from those against the bomb and those with their hands in the daily blood.

When the Atomic Bomb exploded over the city of Hiroshima, the people who experienced it were not expecting it to occur the way it did. We were given an insight of the lives of several characters on that fateful morning in August in 1945. Neighboring towns had all been bombarded by American B-29 raids, but so far Hiroshima had been spared and rumors spread that “something special” was in store for them. Every plane that flew overhead was a considered a threat and would set off the air raid warning, consequently that morning people even though the siren sounded earlier people were either going about their everyday routines or preparing for the worst. The people of Hiroshima were completely confused when the atomic bomb was dropped over their city because they were all expecting a warning of some kind, either from the U.S or the air-raid sirens but there was nothing heard before the bomb was dropped. Hersey describes it as a “noiseless flash,” which conjures the image of silence and a startlingly bright light as total buildings were decimated. With the dropping of the Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima, we ushered in a new age of

However, the discussion of whether the bomb should have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki still continues. What would happen if the bombs were never dropped? Was it right to incinerate not only soldier, but also innocent civilians? These rhetorical questions may never be answered, but analyzing the effects and possible theories could lead to a conclusion. Furthermore, Hiroshima illustrates the personal incidents to help the audience understand and feel the individual’s physiological and emotional trauma: to cause the reader to feel like they are personally at Hiroshima or

An interview was conducted on a man named Theodore Van Kirk, who was originally the navigator of the aircraft called “Enola Gay” (The Telegram, 1945). Van Kirk explained on August 6, 1945 that Colonel Paul Tibbett’s was under command of the famous B-29 bomber plane which dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan to end World War II and begin the Atomic Age (The Telegram, 1945). “The B-29 was a pleasure to fly,” Paul Tibbett’s

Built in 1942, the Boing B-29 Superfortress became one of the world’s most famous and infamous aircraft when it dropped the world’s first nuclear bomb. It was crewed by twelve, the Commander and most famous of these men was Colonel Paul Tibbets, whose mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, will forever be linked to the single most catastrophic act of war the world has ever known. It was the Enola Gay that dropped a “little boy” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan in an attempt to force Japan into an unconditional surrender, ending to the Second World War.

History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past is an anthology of writings about the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian and the controversy surrounding the Enola Gay Exhibit. Each author, though discussing the same events, told a different story about the controversy. The overall themes of this book have to do with control, differing perspectives, education, and the role of the historian. The Enola Gay controversy became a cautionary for historians and museums; their expertise, interpretations, and freedom of expressing history were questioned.

One of the biggest controversies of the 20th century was caused by one little plane, the Enola Gay. The Enola Gay was a B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. August 6, 1945 was a historic day. Lives were lost and it was the start of the very end of World War ll. The use of this very destructive weapon could be seen as inhumane, but it was a decision that had to be made. Americans and people from other countries today have their own opinion of our war ending tactic. What is important to think about is that sometimes tough decisions have to be made for the greater good of everyone. The use of the Enola Gay was justified in that it was used for the greater good of saving thousands of lives, but also helping to

Questions have arisen concerning the ownership of history and the role that professionals and amateurs should have in the retelling of events in our nations past. Regardless of the different answers to these questions what is clear is that it is upsetting that common ground could not be reached between the multiple interests involved in the Enola Gay controversy. This exhibit is paramount in educating the populace about a pivotal moment in American history. I find its absence is unacceptable and deplorable. The following details the unique structure of how I would set up a museum concerning the use of the atomic Bomb, which will aim to educate visitors on events from Pearl Harbor to the dawn of the Cold War. Mature and curious visitors to my Atomic History Museum will be made aware that these events in history are controversial, emotionally jarring and gruesome by nature.

The Enola Gay exhibit should be separated into three elements, each covering a different time period surrounding the atomic bomb. The first element covers the events prior to August 6th, 1945, when the United States government was still deliberating on whether to use the atomic bomb. While it may seem obvious to some, it is important to note that the Enola Gay is an American plane and the decision to use the bomb was made exclusively from the American

Throughout the exhibit, individuals get the message of the reasons why war had started and the outcome of winning over freedom of land or religion but they also get the message of all the horrible things that came out of war. The exhibit leaves it up to to the individual of whether they are pro or anti war. Whitmarsh also mentions the theme of how the museum presents its own country vs the other countries involved in the war. Throughout the museum as a whole, there was no sense of favoritism towards England or the United Kingdom. Every piece of the exhibit gave full details of each and every side of the war, again, giving the individuals the ability to decide who was in the wrong during the

The narrative of the events surrounding the Enola Gay can be told differently, but the facts have to be accurate. To them, leaving out details is also not something the museum should do. In this case leaving out the devastation to the Japanese people caused by the bombs, as well as statements by U.S. officials that thought the bombs were not needed could be looked upon as an inaccurate portrayal of the Enola Gay and the atomic bomb. Historians from the Committee for Open Debate on Hiroshima, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, wrote a letter to Secretary Heyman of the National Air and Space Museum outlining their complaints about the Enola Gay exhibit.2 They showed how the museum had their death totals wrong at the incidents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that they overlooked the findings that the bombs may have not been needed to be dropped for the Japanese to surrender in the war,and other critiques of the information being shown at the exhibit. I think that the first drafts of the script for the exhibit have a noble cause about them. Trying to tell a narrative about