Museum of Westward Expansion

This is the museum at the base of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  It has some interesting displays, including a full-size teepee and some full-size taxidermy animals, including a horse and a bear.  It had quite a few authentic artifacts, dealing mostly with the technology of westward expansion (surveyors tools, weapons, canteens, wagons, etc.).  It also has some good information about American Indian tribes.  It is mostly sympathetic to the Indians.  I think the Indian displays could be described as overly sentimental.  There is much more talk about the damage caused by westward expansion than a real understanding of who they were and how their cultures varied.

My main criticism of this museum is that there is really no sense of context at all. It is a dark museum with rich blue paint and high ceilings. It has a feeling reminiscent of an airport museum.  Most of the displays were not labeled, my wife said it was because it was designed for somebody to show you around.  There were some animated figures, which were interesting, but a little creepy.  There was a time when I was very young when people decided that having animated figures representing various historical figures was a great way to preserve history.  It seems that this museum itself is a type of artifact.  It shows how Americans in our recent past thought that history should be presented.

We also saw the old St. Louis courthouse.  This is an overwhelmingly beautiful building.  This is the building where the first two Dred Scott hearings were held.  I liked that they have much of it set up to look like it did when it was in use.  There were some areas dedicated to museum-type displays, but these were mostly in side rooms and did not distract from the experience.

St. Louis has a lot of historical sites, and the feeling I get from every place we have been in the Mid-West is that the past is very important here.  There are so many museums that we are worried every ten miles or so that we are missing something that we are going to regret.  It is also remarkable the degree to which preservation of the past is an industry here.

We are currently in Hannibal, MO.  We will look at some sites relating to Mark Twain tomorrow.  We drove around here, and images of Twain are everywhere.  It is interesting to speculate what Twain would think if he could walk these streets today.  It seems that there are people living lives not too different from young Mark Twain, but they probably are not doing it here.

Nothing brings history to life like a plastic robot.

This guy made peace medallions.