I posted this already at the Unaboard and in my Livejournal so I apologize to anybody who’s reading this for the third time.
There are lots of museums in the USA that tell how life was in the 18th and 19th centuries. I want there to be a museum about life in the first half of the 20th century. Things now are sufficiently different from things then to make it worthwhile, and it should be done now while there are still folks who remember well enough to do it right.
It would be the type of museum that actually recreates buildings from the time period: living history displays, one for each decade. They’d have living interpreters acting in character to explain things to the visitors, and special demonstrations once in a while. It would be an immersive experience, with sound effects when appropriate playing on tape in the background, and the scene as authentic as one can make it without sacrificing safety and ease for visitors. The living history displays would be connected by halls that would hold traditional museum displays - artifacts in cases, posters with explanations of the displays, etc.
For the 1900s, the living history would be a Victorian parlor. A live demonstrator could teach you about manners of the turn of the century, perhaps.
The 19-teens, I’m not sure about, because I can’t think of anything that happened in that decade besides the sinking of the Titanic and the Great War, neither of which lends itself readily to living history rooms.
The 1920s would be a speakeasy, and you’d learn about the change in women’s place in society from a flapper or about Prohibition from the bartender.
The 1930s would be a Hooverville shanty. You’d see how the poorest of the poor lived, and hear about the Depression from an interpreter.
The 1940s would be a kitchen! You’d learn about wartime rationing, and there could be special demonstrations about how to bake without sugar or lard, using substitutions (one group would get to help bake the cake, and others would get to help eat it later one).
And the 1950s, the last exhibit, would be a malt shop! It would also hold the museum gift store.
The hallways between the rooms would be where you learned about everything that didn’t fit in the rooms, like the wars.
The building would be set up like a rotunda, with a gallery in the middle. You could enter the living history room for each decade from the rotunda, and they’d be connected by the museum exhibits in the hallways. That way you could pick whether you wanted to just see the living history for one decade, or see the entire first half of the century in order by starting in the 1900 room and walking around the circle to the malt shop.
There’d be a second floor for the second half of the century, but it would be under construction until we figured out what to put up there. The '60s living history would be a civil rights rally (achieved with photomurals on the walls and a soundtrack of shouting and singing “we shall overcome,” and there’d be a Martin Luther King Jr thing there too), and the '70s a disco, but we’re still too close to the '80s and '90s to come up with ideas for those decades (not enough perspective yet). The rotunda for the second half of the 20th century could hold a '00s memorial for the events of September 11, 2001.
There’s probably something much like this in the Smithsonian, but the Smithsonian isn’t JUST this. It’s this and a million other things. You can’t see that whole museum in a day.
You could see THIS whole museum in a day, and wrap it up with ice cream in the malt shop.
If you know any rich possible benefactors, let me and Gunslinger know, ok?
