Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

[Dignann]

Gettysburg National Military Park Expands On-Line Virtual Museum

Oct. 15 2006--The National Park Service has expanded its virtual museum exhibit, “Gettysburg: Camp Life: Civil War Collection”, according to Gettysburg National Military Park Superintendent John Latschar.

Working together with the Museum Management Program of the National Park Service’s Washington headquarters, Gettysburg NMP’s museum specialists have collected and added new images and information from the park’s collections related to the life of the soldier and the Battle of Gettysburg. Looking at the website gives the public a better understanding of Civil War soldiers’ life in camp, their day-to-day existence, and how they battled boredom with games, writing, drinking, smoking, whittling, playing music, and praying. Seldom seen images include a soldier’s toothbrush, his underwear, a bullet-torn diary, and many more.

“Gettysburg: Camp Life: Civil War Collection” continues to be one of the
National Park Service’s most popular virtual exhibits, attracting more than
800,000 people per year. The website is http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/gettex/index.htm .

http://www.nps.gov/gett/parknews/upload/GETT%20Virtual%20Museum.pdf

Eric

[FranklinGuardsNYSM]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

The truly sad part is that this website now contains more artifacts than the new multi-million dollar museum will have on display.

Artillery fans, say goodbye to the current display of tubes, for the new place will have but ONE cannon on display, the Napoleon on the carriage. Its accompanying limber will not be part of the exhibit.

The times they are a-changin' at GNMP, I'm afraid.

[boozie]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

That's a nice web site, my sons will love it. Thought the poker chips made of bullets was a very clever idea, have never heard of that before. Hope they kept their hands out of their mouths after playing.

[Ken]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

The truly sad part is that this website now contains more artifacts than the new multi-million dollar museum will have on display.

Artillery fans, say goodbye to the current display of tubes, for the new place will have but ONE cannon on display, the Napoleon on the carriage. Its accompanying limber will not be part of the exhibit.

The times they are a-changin' at GNMP, I'm afraid.

Marc,
I heard rumors that instead of an expanded display of artifacts befitting the new enlarged facility there will actually be fewer items on display than what was offered at the old facility. I hope this isn't true. What a crime that would be. To be in a position to display some of these great artifacts that haven't seen the light of day in decades and not do so would be a loss for everyone. I'm going to voice my displeasure if this in fact the case.

[FranklinGuardsNYSM]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

Ken -

It is, in fact, the case. There's something rotten going on there. The company being contracted to design the museum has been dictating terms to the NPS (when it should, in fact, be the other way around) for how things will be displayed ("you're not getting any new mannequins;" claiming that timed/visitor-activated lighting "can't be done" so certain fragile items can be displayed.)

The current Visitor Center, at its peak, displayed 6-8% of the Park's collection. The estimates for the new Visitor Center put it at about 2% of the Park's collection. Rotating items on loan from the MOC, Gilder-Lehrman, etc. will fill out the rest.

The museum is supposed to cover the entire Civil War, including causes and effects, which, if you think about it, makes sense since the average American visitor wanting to learn about "the Civil War" will likely choose to visit Gettysburg by default. For example, they wanted an interactive display about the 1860 election. It was suggested that visitors be able to read profiles of each of the candidates, and cast a "vote" for the person of their choice, see the visitor results tallied and compared with the actual election results. The administration squashed this exhibit, their reasoning being "the recent Presidential elections were very controversial, and we don't want to strike a sour note among our visitors," and even "it would be historically inaccurate to have all our visitors do this since women and children couldn't vote."

They're missing the boat on socio-political aspects of the war and the battle, too. Despite a really amazing collection of slavery-related items, including a super-rare abolitionist book for children from the 1850s, slavery will simply be represented by a pair of shackles. The immigrant soldier's experience will be represented by something from the August Bodler papers (no Irish/Italian/French/Asian/Hispanics fought in the war, apparently...)

There will be nothing about Civil War photography.

None of the womens' clothing in the collection will be displayed.

The original interpretive plan called for the exhibit on how a soldier loaded and fired his weapon to be placed just before the Gettysburg section, AFTER you've already passed through the "Mobilizing for War," "battles of 1861," and "battles of 1862" sections. Mercifully, this will be corrected.

There are lots of things that will have people scratching their heads and wondering why. History is suffering for the benefit of public-private partnerships that are made to look good on the surface and reap personal advancements for those responsible for them.

[MBBursig]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

Sounds like the New York State Board of Education, who write the Regents exam, planned the new museum (cynical sarcasm).

[boozie]

Re: Gettysburg's Virtual Museum Expanded

It is ashame that alot of these artifacts will not be seen in the future. Around 1993-94 while doing a LH at Ft. Donelson, Ranger Jimmy Jobe took us to the basement one evening. There was a room filled with artifacts from the battle, it made one who had viewed the few artifacts in the small Visitor Center seem like nothing. I felt very privileged to have seen this wonderful collection, but at the same time, wished that it could be shared with everyone. Jim stated they did not have room to display anymore artifacts. If you have been there it is not a very large visitor center.

I have been to the Gettysburg Visitors Center and thought it a wonderful collection. In this case, it seems a waste to spend millions on a new Visitors Center, not only to downsize the artifacts collection, but also to condense C.W. history into a neat little package. But, as Marc said, times are changing, a grand monument to contractors and architects while our history suffers a little more.