Beatrix Potter at the Morgan Library & Museum

When I saw a news announcement about the Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan, I knew it would be worth the plane ticket to take my mother for her birthday on my last free weekend in May. My maternal grandmother--from whom I got my middle name--was a children's librarian, and my maternal grandfather was a Shakespeare scholar, so we all grew up with a lot of British literature, including Potter's delightfully illustrated little books about Tom Kitten, Mr. Jeremy Fisher (frog), and Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail (bunnies).

My Awesome Parents (MAP) drove up with my aunt to their brother and his wife's house in northern New Jersey on Saturday morning. We lunched on their back deck, watched my cousin's son play a little baseball in a Memorial Weekend tournament, played Trekking the National Parks, and chowed down on ribs.

Sunday morning MAP, Aunt B, and I took the NJ Transit train into Penn Station and then walked to the museum in time to join the queue at opening. We had wisely purchased tickets the day before and quickly got into the gallery. One room was dedicated to Potter's childhood in a wealthy London family who were also artistically inclined. She wasn't allowed to go to school like her younger brother, so she visited local museums with her governess, sketched in local parks, and practiced watercolors.

Potter developed into an extremely talented artist. She had a particular fascination with mushrooms and fungi, and she preferred the Lake District to London.

When she wrote letters, especially to children, she would add little drawings about the things she talked about, and sometimes she imagined little stories about her pets or wild animals.

The "picture letters" were the origins of her books that quickly became best sellers: the first run of The Tale of Peter Rabbit went from 450 to 2,000 to 28,000 in one year! She even had merchandising ideas, such as a board game and stuffed animals, like this Jemima Duck.

She eventually moved to the countryside, married, and ran farm. In addition to land conservation and preserving a heritage breed of sheep, she also invited the Girl Guides to camp on her property.

The original plan had been to have high tea for lunch at the museum cafe, but they had such a varied and enticing menu that everybody got a different entree, including one that was inspired by the Potter exhibit. Afterward we poked our heads into the original "Mr. Morgan's Library." Robber Baron John Pierpont "J.P." Morgan (1837-1913) had a small but extravagantly appointed building for his collection of books, manuscripts, and artefacts built in the early 1900s. His son, J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), opened it to the public with an annex built in 1928, and an airy glass atrium was added in 2006.

You HAVE to look UP!

It's a bibliophile's dream, here.

Then we hopped a bus uptown to Central Park, where we met one of my dad's old friends and her family. We walked around the pond, enjoying both the sun and the shade, while chatting amiably. Their son fished and played with the turtles. An Italian ice truck had a flavor for everyone, and we managed to take the subway back to Penn Station juuust in time to catch the train back for baseball on the telly and Aunt R's famous lasagna for dinner.

National War War I Museum & Memorial, Part II of II

 Part I of my visit to the National World War I Museum & Memorial is here.

After the history of medicine conference ended, I took a quick second trip back to the National World War I Museum and Memorial across the street. I went up the elevator to the viewing tower and saw the special exhibit on children's experiences.

It's a small elevator, built in the space allocated for the original lift in the 1920s, but with more modern mechanics. A volunteer runs the elevator, with only fits 6-8 people. 

Below: looking south from the top of the tower.

Downtown Kansas City, with Union Station in the foreground and the Crown Westin Hotel in the bottom right.

Close-up of downtown.

Looking at the lawn at the foot of the tower.

One of the more interesting features of the special exhibit hall was the mural entitled the "Pantheon de la Guerre" painted by French artists Pierre Carrier-Belleuse and Auguste Gorguet. I believe the figures represent real and idealized members of the Allies. At 40 feet tall and almost 400 feet long, it was first displayed as a cyclorama in Paris in 1918. It was shown at the Chicago Exposition in 1933 but then forgotten outside a warehouse in Baltimore for more than two decades until restauranteur William Haussner bought it. Some pieces were donated to the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, while others returned to Baltimore. Although I ate at Haussner's Restaurant once before it closed in 1999, I can't remember if the WWI mural scraps were on display.

Above right: a child's American Red Cross dress-up outfit. Below x2: German embroidery cards with  patriotic designs and messages such as a Zeppellin and "Through conflict to victory."

Below: a Black American family remembers their war hero

(along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson.

There were a number of artefacts from the Boy and Girl Scouts,

such as this leader's trench coat with many patches on the arm.

Above: a child's set of toy soldiers parading through a farming village.

Below left: a German poster. Below right: view of the display hall with the mural on the back wall.

National World War I Memorial & Museum in Kansas City, Part I of II

With the annual history of medicine conference happening at the Westin Crown Center Hotel (named for the world Hallmark headquarters next door) and literally across the street from the National World War Memorial and Museum, how could I not go? I found a hole in my panel schedule one morning and navigated through a construction site to reach Penn Valley Park.

On one side was Union Station, one-time railroad gateway to The City of Fountains and The City of Champions.

On the other side of the street, a grassy lawn gently slopes upward toward the memorial that had opened in 1926 as the Liberty Memorial. The museum followed in 2006 and has been expanded since then.

There's a bas relief below the stele that I didn't get very good photographs of.

If there is not yet more construction, apparently you can approach the museum from this direction, but I had to walk the long way around to the south to find the sunken entrance.

Above: The parking lot is behind me from this perspective.

Below: After buying my ticket and dropping my bag and jacket off at Guest Services, I entered the museum via this glass bridge over a field of poppies.

For a small museum, there is a LOT of stuff and information, and I don't think anyone could look at all of it. There are big things like posters and artillery as well as small things like postcards and personal objects. There are large panels with general information about the war as well as smaller panels with specific details. There's a comprehensive timeline in the center of the space as well as many glass cases of clothing, weapons, implements of various kinds, etc.

Hardtack!

There are life-sized dioramas of British, German, and French trenches,

as well as a one toward the back about the trench as "one long grave."

The photo below is part of a quotation about the experience of being shelled.

(Maybe from Ernst Junger? I forget.)

There are three well-done films about the beginning the war, the middle of the war with an emphasis on the American perspective (uniforms below), and the aftermath.

I was interested of course in the medical side, which had a lot of details on the American side, with several cases of women's experiences. I didn't see anything about the influenza epidemic until I got to the gift shop, however.

I buzzed by the gift shop to pick up a book on the history of food and the war that I somehow hadn't already read, as well as a poppy pin and a "food as ammunition" magnet before hurrying back to the conference hotel. Luckily, I was able to come back after the conference ended to see some of the special exhibits. (See Part II.)