The Smoky Hill Museum's traveling exhibit is premiering right at home.
Museum personnel designed and produced Life in the Trenches, an exhibit that will be sent around Kansas, and its first stop is in the lobby of the Smoky Hill Museum, 211 W. Iron Avenue. The exhibit will be on display at the museum through Nov. 30.
The museum is open to the public at no charge from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.
Life in the Trenches explores the human face of World War I and the miserable nature of trench warfare. This unique exhibit focuses on the harrowing first person accounts of Kansas soldiers’ lives in the trenches, according to information from the museum.
The exhibit is based on a previous temporary exhibit, In the Trenches, the Museum showed in 2018. That exhibit was about Company M of Salina. The new exhibit, Life in the Trenches, has morphed into a traveling exhibit focusing on the miserable nature of the trenches using vivid, first-hand accounts from Kansas soldiers of their ordeals, trials, and tribulations.
Exhibit themes include the following.
●What was the reasoning behind using trenches in the war?
●What did the trenches look like?
●What was life like in the trenches?
●What are examples of Kansans in the trenches?
Included with this exhibit are three interactive elements including:
●Vet Vignettes – Information and accounts from Kansas, American, Allied, and Central Power troops in a simple to navigate touch-screen format
●Gas Attack – Users will be challenged to respond quickly and prepare themselves for a gas attack before it is too late
●Not Five Star Food – Explore a World War I era mess kit and the recipes they might have used on the battlefield
A packet of educational activities will also be available to host venues for staff and/or teachers to use to expand upon the topics covered.
This mobile exhibit comes in a flexible arrangement that can be modified to meet a host venue’s space requirements. Visitors will love the concise story that focuses on Kansas soldiers in the trenches of World War I.
For additional questions about becoming a host venue, contact Joshua Morris, curator of exhibits, at [email protected].
The exhibit was made possible thanks to the Earl Bane Foundation, City of Salina, and the Friends of the Smoky Hill Museum.
Director Susan Hawksworth noted that "the Smoky Hill Museum gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the many individuals who shaped our thinking during exhibition development, including Doran Cart, senior curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial, in Kansas City."