My daughter’s class went on a field trip to the Titanic exhibit here in town. I went with them as a chaperone
It was very interesting to see the artifacts and recreations of the state rooms and the grand staircase. I learned that the floors on Titanic were covered in this new invention…linoleum, and this was quite the thing in upper class homes. Funny, back then everyone was ripping up marble tiles to lay down linoleum, and now, we’re ripping up linoleum to lay down tile.
I also learned that more first class men survived the tragedy than third-class children. And that there were enough lifeboats according to the law at the time, which was not based on passenger load but on square footage of the ship. :rolleyes:
When we entered the exhibit, we were given a ticket with a name of one of the passengers. At the end of the exhibit, we all checked a wall to see if “we” lived or died.
It got me thinking.
This horrible tragedy happened almost 90 years ago. Now children dash around exhibits, looking at the artifacts recovered from the bottom of the sea and squealing, “I was a crewmember and I died!”
Do you think in 90 years or so there will be traveling Sept 11 exhibits? Where you can choose if you’re in Tower One or Tower Two or the Pentagon, or perhaps one of the planes?
The thought curdles my stomach. I still can’t handle certain images from that day. But I’m sure back in 1914 the loss of 1500 people at sea was also a tragedy. This was a ship on her maiden voyage that hit an iceberg, and there weren’t enough lifeboats.
Will our great great grandchildren take field trips to traveling 9/11 exhibits?
And I don’t really know. One thing, though, is that the Titanic, though tragic, was an accident, whereas the events of 9/11 were planned and executed, so if there were a 9/11 exhibit, would the kids also get the option of being a terrorist hijacker?
This is a superb topic, but don’t get me started here.
As many of you know I take my history very seriously. I’ve given questions like the one posed by the OP a lot of consideration. I’ve concluded that the biggest flaw in the way we teach history (outside the classroom, that is) is that we target it to CHILDREN. This is a huge – in terms of purpose and cost. Still, museums and – and the donors that finance them – piss millions of dollars down a hole trying to get kids to appreciate a subject that they have little interest in or respect for.
Meanwhile, adults get watered-down, cartoonish treatments that dare not bore the little tykes who run around squealing, “I was a crewmember and I died!”
Well as far as I know there is nothing like this for Pearl Harbor.
I was on the Oklahoma and I died!
Another thing to consider is that the actual Titanic did not sink on live television. True in the days and weeks that followed there were dramatic accounts in the papers but it really very different expierence. In 90 years you will be able to watch the actual towers fall, not a computer generated idea of what probably happened but the real deal.
Living in NYC I can imagine an 9/11 gift shop. Trust me. I wonder if there is a gift shop at Pearl Harbor.
Oops. I just reread my post 2 days later. In paragraph two, it should read “This is a huge MISTAKE…” Sorry about the omission.
Ivylass, personally I see no problem with a traveling exhibit – the universal curiousity about the event is staggering. It just needs to be done well.
BTW, immediately following the 9/11 event a number of historical institutions addressed the issue of “preserving the event” for historical purposes. A handful of institutions emerged as frontrunners in this endeavor (off the top of my head they included the N-Y Historical Society, the NYS Archive [or Museum?], and the Smithsonian; the Museum of the City of NY and the Skyscraper Musem might have been among them too). They soon realized that they’d get farther by combining forces and organizing the work – which they have for the most part done. BTW, all of the groups agreed that should there be created a 9/11-specific museum in the future, they would turn over their materials to it.
Anyway, not too long ago the NYS Archive [or Museum] created a quasi-exhibit in Albany featuring a crushed fire truck or bus. So there, that might qualify as the first 9/11 traveling exhibit.
I suspect any kind of September 11th exibit would be more like the amazing and tasteful Holocaust Museum in DC. It does have a gift shop, IIRC, but it’s more like a bookshop that specializes in holocaust/jewish author books. There might have been some posters by jewish artists too, but I don’t think there we postcards.
The closest that museum has to a “I was a prisoner in the camps” moment is the part where you can walk through one of the train cars. (possibly a recreation, but I think it was real.) It wasn’t lighthearted, it was somber and scared the heck out of me. A classmate of mine who I barely knew grabbed my hand tightly as we walked through, and I grabbed back. <shiver> We never mentioned it afterwards.
NY’s holocaust museum is pretty amazing too. I was ok until I got to the section about the kindertransport, and watched a short film (well, part of it) about parents who put their children on trains and boats alone, because they knew they would not survive staying with them.
I thought there was a travelling 9/11 exhibit which included some steel girders, crushed trucks, etc. It was out in CA in 2002 IIRC.