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Post date: Apr 14, 2015 8:49:22 PM
This was my most highly anticipated visit. We've seen the first and second floors and will spend one more day going through the third and last. On the first floor is the "Transportation & Technology" section showing power machinery, money, electricity, cars/boats/planes and food sciences. On the second floor is the "American Ideals" section, divided up into "American Stories," the "Star-Spangled Banner" and the "Documents Gallery." In brief, Edison, Tesla, and Julia Child on the first floor and Francis Scott Key and Archie Bunker on the second. You can see Julia Child's kitchen, hear Alexander Graham Bell's voice and see the actual Star-Spangled Banner (it's huge)!
Also on the second floor is an ingenious exhibit called "Within These Walls," of an actual Massachusetts house inhabited continuously for 200 years. It is cut away to show the structural changes and additions and documents all of the families that lived there. Off by themselves are the Greensboro lunch counter and a wonderfully intricate dollhouse built in the late 1800s. The American Stories section is a huge collection of American memorabilia spanning over 300 years - the Ruby Slippers from Oz, Archie Bunker's chair, a piece of Plymouth Rock, Lincoln's life mask, etc. In various display cases around the Museum are, among other things, Gene Krupa's drum, Duke Ellington's electric piano and a portrait of Ella Fitzgerald by Tony Bennett.
All this and it's FREE!
My only criticism of the Museum is that many of the exhibits are so dimly lit that you can't see the details, even close up. You miss much of the tiny furniture in the doll house, for example. I guess they are going for a dramatic effect, but it's annoying.
It's mind-boggling in its complexity and yet I wish there were even more! Seeing things in person that you had only seen or read about second-hand is addictive! Right now, I'm a little let down that it is almost over.
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