Our New Traveling Exhibit Partnership: The Civil War in Missouri

In the current economic environment, new humanities initiatives become much more practical when collaboration is involved.  One very good example of this is a joint effort of the Missouri Humanities Council and the Missouri History Museum to provide a special traveling exhibit developed by the museum, The Civil War in Missouri, to communities across Missouri in 2012-2015. This traveling exhibit will be a smaller, portable version of the Missouri History Museum’s major civil war exhibition by the same name, which opens in St. Louis on November 12, 2011.  The tour of the portable version will kick off in May, 2012.

The Civil War in Missouri will feature three sections focusing on major aspects of the war in Missouri: slavery and its essential role in the origins and execution of the war; the issues of conflicting loyalties, interests and beliefs among the state’s diverse population, and nature and impact of the guerilla warfare which occurred throughout much of the state of Missouri during the war. The context for these themes will be provided through an interactive timeline which will depict specific battles and other events during the course of the war.

The traveling exhibit will have four stops in Missouri during 2012, including:

  • Kansas City—May 5- July 1, 2012, Kansas City Public Library
  • Kirksville—July 21- Sept. 16, 2012, Kirksville Arts Center
  • Joplin—Oct. 6- Nov. 21, 2012, Joplin Museum Complex
  • Sedalia—Dec. 22, 2012- Feb. 17, 2013, Sedalia Heritage Foundation and Sedalia Katy Depot

MHC and the Missouri History Museum will offer assistance to each host site in developing a local exhibit element to augment the traveling exhibit.  This is a key aspect of this program, as it hopefully will foster cooperation and collaboration among various organizations in each host community.  Ideally, this should help make the stories being told even more meaningful for the audiences in those communities, by creating a situation in which the local stories are presented within the larger context that is provided by the History Museum’s exhibit.

Starting in December, organizations and communities that may wish to host The Civil War in Missouri during 2013-2015 will be able to submit an application to the Missouri Humanities Council.  For more information on this program, please contact MHC Community Outreach and Programs Director Anna Wingron at 314-781-9660.

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