National World War I Museum

Kansas City, Missouri

For reasons too old to matter, Kansas City became the site of America's World War I memorial (a war fought from 1914-18, but that the US didn't enter until the last year). In 1921 KC built a 217-foot-tall tower topped with an eternal flame, and in its base was a museum; small but earnest. It had a walk-thru replica trench and lots of dusty weapons, but in the 1990s it was closed for safety reasons. The World War I museum, like the war, might have faded into history.

But Kansas City didn't want it to stop. It dug a big pit under the tower, hired a renowned architect with Washington, DC, credentials, and in 2006 it opened the National World War One Museum in the pit. The architect praised the new museum in its press material for its "experiential environments" and "sense of immediacy." Actually, for us it's kind of lame.

The replica trench is back -- but from an experiential perspective, you can't walk through it any more. You can only poke your head into uncomfortable holes that don't let you see much of anything. Elsewhere there's a 100-foot-long recreation of "No Man's Land" (the blasted terrain between the combatants' front lines), but you can only view it from an elevated distance, and its sound-and-light effects are only turned on during a much-too-long multimedia show.

The National World War One Museum has the second-largest collection of World War I relics in the world, and most of it obviously isn't on display. A few clusters of artifacts catch our interest, such as a glassed-in collection of grenades dangling like Christmas decorations. An ironic nod to once-a-year cross-frontline caroling and gift exchanges, perhaps? Probably not. And it's all kept distant, a no man's land of glass between you and most items. You can touch a couple of howitzers, but they're so perfect that you don't.

One gallery is dominated by a long, interactive light table where visitors use laser pens to call up photos and files about the Great War. There are a number of hi-tech computer touches at the museum that are probably great for school groups, but to us seem to be taking up room that could have been inhabited by a horse in a gas mask.

Cavernous and dark, the museum also seems designed to make you sad. Everyone here is cast as a French victim. For example, there's a replica bomb crater you can enter from the side, but it's just an excuse to place you at the bottom of a big cone where disembodied voices make you feel bad for the people whose house was blown up.

When first entering the museum, visitors cross a broad glass bridge over an indoor field of poppies, signifying the fields of war dead. Yes, it made us sad too, but nice touch...

As World War I rapidly becomes as distant as the War of 1812, we wonder if it can sustain prolonged, protracted interest. This is a challenge for the war more than the museum. Can it ever be made as moving as the Civil War or the Holocaust? Can the experience ever be as kitschy-tearful as the Titanic museum, or as crazy-eyed as an atomic museum?

The oldest people who visit are at best the children of the men who fought WWI. Where is the passionate fan base for the National World War One Museum?* Even the nearby J.C. Penney Museum can count on occasional visits from ex-employees.

* Aside from Doug's history buff Mother-in-Law, who says it's her "favorite war."