Image from Sportkc.comThe main museum is beneath this courtyard/tower structureEven tho I've lived in Kansas City most of my life, I never made it to our
National World War 1 Museum at Liberty Memorial until today. I went with
my friend Bob, who'd also never been there, and we had a really great time. Also, since it was Wednesday, we got a 2-for-1 ticket deal, which was GREAT cause it's a bit expensive: $12 per ticket.
I can't go to museums anymore without being very observant to how they flow, treat guests, display objects, etc., etc. since I have a degree in museums, and I have to say I think the WW1 museum is the most well put-together, interactive, multi-layered museum in this area that I've ever seen. It blew me away!
Some of the spiffy display techniques they used were:
An interactive display table with many different sections that discussed things like camouflage. Using little flash lights you could answer mini quizzes, move from one "slide" to the next, and find out a bunch of multi-layered information. This was one of the most popular sections for both kids and adults.
Close-up of one section of the interactive table display.
To one side of this table, were four small rooms, each seating about 4 people, where you could close yourself off from the rest of the museum, rest your eyes, and listen to a variety of selections from the WW1 period.
Touch-screen display goodness!
You could pick from music, poetry, quotes and... uh, dang, I already forgot what else. Bob and I listened to the entire poetry selection since we like poetry. That was just slightly over 11 minutes long and had 4 or 5 poems with short introductions. We listened to most of the songs as well, which also were briefly introduced before a partial clip was played.
The museum also showed some films. Many were simply playing silently while splashing across a space in the museum floor. One introduced the museum by laying out the general events that led to the war starting, and one was splashed across a HUGE screen you watched from a balcony that overlooked a huge diorama (below) where sometimes other additional silent films would show troops marching or loading artillery.
This film was mostly about how the Americans joined the war and it did a good job of covering the many viewpoints that existed at the time (i.e. not just the tired ole "we did it cause of the Lusitania" story that normally one hears in school). This film also discussed the experiences of the soldiers and the general state of the war at that time. It was short, but managed to pack a lot of information and images in.
This last display was much simpler than that, but it was so unique I was absolutely delighted by it:
That's my friend Bob using the WW1 museum's moveable magnifying glass on a case of old photographs. Being able to bring the people's faces closer to yours really brought out the humanity in these group photos and helped me to pick out details I never would have noticed otherwise. It's such a good idea! I wish more museums would use it.
This gives you an idea of the scale of the place. Since most of it is underground, you really don't realize how HUGE the museum is. This picture shows two very large artillery pieces. They were surrounded by cases full of many different artifacts, a side wall with the timeline of the entire war, and the opposite wall where cases were interspersed with an audio-visual trench scene set-up. And this was just one of the very first sections! The size of the place was just astounding.
I loved all the historical uniforms! The fashion is one of the major draws of studying history for me and this place was STUFFED full of uniforms for both men (the majority) and women for all sorts of warfare and in many different armies. There were so many uniforms that I was actually astounded to keep finding more every time I entered another section of the museum. Just SO MANY!
Red Cross uniforms 
British nurse uniform, like my heroine Vera Brittain would've worn.
Asian uniforms
Unusual uniforms, for the time, since the others were all more dandified Uniforms were usually displayed along with the types of items a person wearing it would use, such as the battle garb shown with hand grenades and knives below:
Of course, there were many cases that were just dedicated to all the neat STUFF that military and civilians used and read:
This shows many personal items a soldier might carry in his pack, as well as military-issued supplies. 
Sharp and shiny bayonets & knives.
I actually did a happy dance in front of this case.
I <3 knives!
A French death certificate. Fancy, huh?
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