Flanders Fields

Some of the museum studies grad students took a "field trip" to the National World War I Museum in Kansas City today, and I can't believe I had never been there before! It was surprising how nice of a museum it is-- one of the best history museums I have been to.

We were lucky enough to have the curator give us a run-down of some behind-the-scenes information regarding their 25,000 square foot expansion, such as how important it is to know architectural terms (every once in a while I do find reasons why my year studying architecture was not a waste...) and how they went about designing the interior and having cases built for the expansion.

He also explained the different types of  visitors in museums: streakers-- apparently me since I run around quickly to everything (and still manage to learn a thing or two), and scholars-- my three other friends who moved slow enough so that they could read every label. Maybe it was the fact that they did their undergraduates in history, and I in anthropology, but I just did not feel the need to spend as much time there as we ended up doing. Still, being able to make it through the museum twice gave me enough time to take mental notes on things that work well in museums.

To divide the entrance from the exhibits, there is a glass bridge and a poppy "field" underneath. They are not live, but there are 9,000 of them-- one to represent 10,000 deaths as a direct result from the war (there were many deaths later on from disease, etc.). I had forgotten about their symbolism until my mom saw the picture and mentioned the poem by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

(The curator explained to us that the real reason these flowers grow so well on the former battlefields is because of an increase in nitrates as a result of the soldier's bodies.)