On May 15, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) Forum blog published an article by Atomic Heritage Foundation Program Manager Alexandra Levy on "The Manhattan Project: Interpreting Controversial History." The article discusses AHF's goal of developing a national traveling exhibit on the Manhattan Project, the challenges of creating such an exhibit, and why the time is ripe for such a project.
AHF hopes to develop a national traveling exhibit in time for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the creation of the Manhattan Project in 2017. The exhibit would focus on such themes as the morality of the bomb, secrecy, the international race to make an atomic bomb, and the scientific innovations that came out of the Manhattan Project and which continue to influence our world today.
"The Manhattan Project: Interpreting Controversial History" discusses the furor that erupted over the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s attempt to create an exhibition on the Enola Gay and the atomic bombing of Japan in 1995 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Veterans opposed the exhibition’s proposed narrative, concerned that it didn’t give enough credit to the bomb for ending the war and was too sympathetic to the Japanese. The uproar over the Enola Gay exhibit has caused national museums to shy away from tackling the topic in a meaningful and comprehensive manner.
This past February, AHF hosted a workshop, funded by the National Science Foundation, to bring together historians, humanities scholars, and museum and science education experts to explore how to put together a national traveling exhibit on the Manhattan Project. The participants discussed how to present a balanced narrative featuring diverse voices, which should help diffuse opposition to the exhibit.
AHF is currently using the recommendations to begin work on and fundraising for the national traveling exhibit. With the likely prospect of Congress establishing a Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act this year, this is the right time to plan a comprehensive exhibit on the Manhattan Project and its legacy.
From Japanese internment camps, to sites of massacres of Native Americans, to Civil War battlefields, America has a contested history. But that does not mean such episodes should be screened from public view and that the sites where they occurred should be demolished or forgotten. AHF, in partnership with NTHP, the National Parks Conservation Association, and other organizations, is working to make sure that the Manhattan Project is remembered, in all its complexity.