WW1 America (review)

WW1 America constitutes an ambitious undertaking as the only national traveling exhibition commemorating the centennial anniversary of the United States’ entrance into World War I. Created by the Minnesota Historical Society in partnership with the National Constitution Center, the National World War One Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Bullock Texas State History Museum, WW1 America presents a sweeping range of diverse stories to reveal the impact of war on American society and culture from 1914 to 1919. Additional institutions collaborated by contributing artifacts or serving as venues in the exhibit’s national tour, further emphasizing the national scope of the endeavor. The exhibit’s run at the Minnesota History Center, which ended on Veteran’s Day, brought in an intergenerational audience and connected beautifully with the exhibit located just outside its entrance: a series of portraits of Mexican and Mexican American military veterans taken by Xavier Tavera. The timing and spatial context of the exhibit speak to how the realities of war reverberate through the decades and continue to shape the collective American experience.

After entering through a set of yard fences with facts and images introducing American culture in 1914, visitors navigated through a series of nodes exploring various aspects of the American experience during World War I. Each node featured a blend of objects, video and audio, panels with images and text, and interactive features. For example, crates, rope, and full-size photographs of early twentieth-century travelers on a dock lined a wall near the entrance of the exhibit to evoke a wharf. The wall included text panels exploring the impact of immigration and its restriction in the United States during the early years of the war as well as an interactive area with model ships that triggered a film about how Americans profited from the war. Thoughtful, well-researched segments of narrative communicated through a range of multimedia characterized the wharf and the entire exhibit.

As part of a wharf scene, an interactive module displayed short clips exploring how Americans profited from World War I before entering the conflict. (Photo courtesy of the author)

The nodes continued in roughly chronological order. An area on the Great Migration—a thematic and spatial neighbor to the wharf—utilized visual elements, multimedia, and objects to evoke movement. An introductory panel featured a bowler hat, a copy of the Chicago Defender, and another life-size historical photograph of a traveling crowd. Inside a cove lined with suitcases, a cluster of chairs allowed visitors to take in a video on the Great Migration. The occasional opportunities to sit down throughout the exhibit not only increased accessibility but effectively invited visitors to spend more time with video content.

On the opposing wall, a replica of a Model T ambulance visually transported the visitor to the war front. The bed of the truck contained an interactive module for visitors to listen to correspondence from a diverse cross section of Americans serving in France. The rest of the modestly sized area condensed a substantial historiography on trench warfare into a handful of artifacts, photographs, and text. A single gun nestled in an unassuming nook nevertheless managed to attract a small crowd of ebullient teenage boys during my visit. WW1 America clearly articulates the war front as just one of many aspects of the American experience, but in doing so it stopped short of a full exploration of the unique horrors of modern warfare.

While the exhibit paid adequate attention to Doughboys, Hello Girls, and other stories from the front, it devoted significantly more space to exploring domestic issues. A series of columns labeled “American Witness” sprinkled throughout the exhibit highlighted the stories of activists such as Emma Goldman and Madam C. J...