The Stuff of World War II Curators Shape a Modern Museum of History
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EXPLORATIONS The Stuff of World War II Curators shape a modern museum of history. by nell porter Brown uring a field trip to the Mu- Clockwise from top: a Sherman tank seum of World War II in Natick, dominates the Massachusetts, a burly high- “America Enters school junior stopped at the the War” exhibit; a D German doll’s belt glass case holding Adolf Hitler’s personal buckle sports a swastika; British effects: pills, powders, and ointments from propaganda targeting women; his medicine cabinet; a monogrammed sil- Rendell, Carter, and Heywood; ver hand-mirror; and a leather mustache- flags and other artifacts from trainer, worn at night to keep stray hairs the Pacific theater in line. ing off Route 9, behind a Dick’s “He said, ‘Ah, I get it now!’” reports di- Sporting Goods. It holds the rector of education Marshall W. Carter, most comprehensive collection Ed.M. ’97. The student had connected the of World War II artifacts in the “personal vanity and megalomania with the world. “Other places will have dictator.” It’s just this sort of insight, Carter a complete set of guns, or of believes, that the museum—especially in uniforms,” says Carter, or focus its planned expansion—should induce. on one nation’s involvement, or “The opportunity here,” he explains, “is to historic events, such as the Ho- understand that individuals in history had locaust. “But what we have is temperaments and agency that were very the most global collection—ma- complex, and that those traits ended up af- terial from every theater, from documents and objects are on display, in fecting millions.” battlefronts, and home fronts, and no one mind-boggling breadth: from a draft of the The museum is a plain, low-slung build- else has attempted to do that.” Some 8,000 1938 Munich Agreement (with penciled Photographs courtesy of the Museum of World War II Harvard Magazine 12g HARVARD SQUARED marginalia by Hitler and Neville Chamber- Samples of lain) and a complete set of plans for D-Day Hitler’s art supplies and (as well as a map with original notations watercolor on landings and units), to explosives dis- works. Rendell guised as lumps of coal, German enigma says, “He machines, a French sewing kit used to rarely painted people.” relay messages for the Resistance, and the bronze bust of Hitler that General George have died were saved and went home.” war. “In the 1940s I remember neighbors and S. Patton used as a doorstop. That mobile hospital will likely be set up friends of my parents coming back, mostly Another half-million items are in stor- in the museum’s pending reincarnation as medics from the Pacific, and talking about age, including the latest acquisition, the a two-story, 62,000-square-foot structure the horrors,” he says, “but by the 1950s ev- most complete known mobile auxiliary (six times its current size) slated to be eryone was talking about the glories of war; surgical hospital—a 50-foot canvas tent, built and fully open to the public within no one could afford to remember the horrors two operating tables, anesthesia equip- three years. because they were too devastating. I was ment, thousands of instruments. “What’s struck by this and concerned, even though amazing about it is the atmosphere it cre- Kenneth w. rendell, who built his ca- I was just a kid.” His goal in amassing the ates,” says Carter. “People entered that reer as a dealer in historic documents, be- ephemera, then and now, is to “save the re- tent hanging on to life. And because of the gan the collection at age 16. Born in 1943, ality of the war, which reflects the very per- innovation of the MASH, which was new the Somerville native was unusually sensi- sonal and complex causes and consequenc- to World War II, many people who would tive to shifting cultural perceptions of the es, which were horrible—for everyone.” CURIOSITIES: empowerment, and play,” per exhibit notes from the original show organized by Lisa Small at the Brooklyn Museum last year. ORN Not Made for Walkin’ Take Walter Steiger’s fetishistic “Unicorn Tayss.” Leopard- H print vamps and ankle straps top six-inch curved stiletto heels, Less a fête for the feet than a feast for the eyes, much of the à la golden horns. Rem D. Koolhaas’s “Eamz” capture the in- haute couture footwear on display in Killer Heels: The Art of the dustrial chic of mid-century designers Charles and Ray Eames: ZUCKER JAY BY High-Heeled Shoe at the Currier Museum is “barely wearable,” fire-engine red flats that appear hoisted by a metallic lever at ph admits curator Samantha Cataldo. “Any woman who has put her the heel. Nicholas Kirkwood’s suede “Pumps,” encrusted with OTOGRA foot in a non-sensible shoe knows they are not comfortable.” Swarovski crystals in a floral pattern, lack any utility. H Instead, the 150 shoes range from eighteenth-century European Some 50 examples on display are historic, such as satin-weave- embroidered precursors of the “pump” to Dutch designer Iris embroidered silk Manchu-era platforms, Chinese shoes for bound van Herpen’s mounds of tangled black strands, which resemble feet, and traditional wooden Japanese geta from the 1800s. They the roots in a mangrove point to the Eastern origins of high heels. (Shoes have always swap, and were pro- walked the line “between form and function,” Cataldo says.) duced by a 3-D printer. Stilted bath sandals in the Ottoman Empire kept feet dry, and RT; COURTESY STEIGER,RT; OF WALTER P All are presented as heeled equestrian Persian footwear kept riders firmly in stirrups, A design objects akin to but both soon evolved as fashion styles that represented physical USEUM OF titled sculpture, and as status, beauty, and even worldly power. M IA “layered cultural sym- Fast-forward to the twentieth century and Roger Vivier and ph bols in narratives of at- Salvatore Ferragamo, the designers most often credited with “in- ILADEL traction, transformation, venting” the stiletto heel. To create the blade they adapted ex- H At left: “Unicorn Tayss,” truded steel, Cataldo explains, a material also on the rise in ANADA; P Walter Steiger, spring 2013; transforming the world of architecture and the urban built C Casuccio e Scalera per Loris landscape, largely in the form of skyscrapers. “That shoe Azzaro, 1974-79 (below); and ORONTO, T gingham platform shoes, was really when the high heel became a sex symbol,” she Vivienne Westwood, 1993 adds. Wearing them “changes our whole posture…pushing USEUM, M certain parts of the body out and other parts in.” However OE glamorous “killer heels” can be, they do have a polarizing Sh ATA ATA effect. “For some people, putting heels on makes them feel B taller and more confident and offers a sense of authority,” ©2014 T: Cataldo notes. “For others, they symbolize objectification H and constricting standards Currier Museum of Art of beauty. Sometimes, too, Manchester, New Hampshire www.currier.org people just find them erotic.” February 6-May 15 vN.P.B. LOCKWISE FROM LOWER RIG C 12h March - April 2016 HARVARD SQUARED By 1999, his private collection had been torian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D. ’68, Last fall, Rendell and his wife and busi- consolidated at the Natick facility, but was and the director of the Churchill Museum ness partner, Shirley McNerney Rendell, open just to friends, scholars, war veterans and Cabinet War Rooms in London, Phil once a local television news reporter, hired and their families, and military person- Reed.) The nonprofit museum was incor- professional senior staff: Carter, formerly nel. (Longtime trustees include retired porated in 2011, when it started admitting the K-8 principal of Milton Academy, and four-star general George W. Casey Jr., his- members of the public by appointment. Samantha Heywood, who left the Imperial War Museums to become the founding director and direc- ALL IN A DAY: Woolapalooza tor of exhibits. The museum is expected to stay open through- The 206-acre Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln out construction, which could is Mass Audubon’s only working farm-cum-educational cen- begin as early as next spring; ter. Staff members tend livestock and bountiful vegetable visit museumofworldwarii.org/ and flower crops while safeguarding meadow, woodland, visit.html or e-mail museu- and pond habitats, and providing refuge for injured or or- [email protected] to phaned wildlife—turkey vultures, red-tailed hawks, barred make an appointment. owls, a great horned owl, pheasants, and a fisher. “Ms. G,” Just what shape the new the Commonwealth’s official state groundhog, also resides museum’s content, design, and on site, but is generally not on public view. narrative structures will The farm’s annual Woolapalooza festival on take is still a matter for March 26 supports these efforts to highlight the curatorial interpretation. interconnection among animals, people, and the Right now, items are dis- natural world. Twenty-six ewes will be freed played chronologically in from their winter coats, some just weeks after some two dozen areas— giving birth. (Seventeen appeared to be expect- from “Germany in the ing at press time.) The rest of the celebratory 1920s” to “War Trials.” day is filled with herding-dog demonstrations The white walls are and farm-life and arts activities. Artisans also largely covered by inge- demonstrate how raw wool is washed, card- nious and often vitriolic ed, spun, and eventually turned into sweaters. propaganda posters pro- “Many people think of farms as being active only when Scenes from an early duced by all the combatants; the rooms are everything is green and growing,” sanctuary director Re- spring festival at simply lit.