Eisenhower National Historic Site and the Service’s Park Museum Management Program [PMMP], working together, recently launched a multi-media online museum exhibit on the Eisenhowers.
The Eisenhower story presented in this virtual exhibit covers Ike’s careers as General and President, Mamie as his First Lady, the Eisenhower Farms cattle operation, and the popular culture of the 1950s that both Ike and Mamie had a part in shaping.
This virtual exhibit is the latest in a series created by PMMP in collaboration with featured parks to increase access to NPS collections across the US. These exhibits, together with “Teaching with Museum Collections” lesson plans bring park museum collections, interpretation, and education programs directly into homes and classrooms to engage learners of all ages.
The Eisenhower project was the result of a major team effort. Working from an initial list of over 600 objects, the site’s staff selected about 300 museum items for inclusion. A professional photographer took high quality images of the objects and the interior of the Eisenhower home. These images, along with historic photographs from the site’s collection and the collections of the National Archives and the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas, are included.
Eisenhower staff wrote the interpretive text and object captions. PMMP staff coordinated the project and designed the web exhibit. The web site features multimedia slide shows and sound clips, a virtual tour of the Eisenhower home, a time line of Eisenhower’s life, and “Teaching with Museum Collections” lesson plans for teaching with objects featured in the virtual museum exhibit.
