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#THE ENOLA GAY EXHIBIT CONTROVERSY ARCHIVE#
Today, the hull of the Enola Gay is presented with a plaque and a video about the crew.īelow is a sampling of articles which were collected as part of THE LIBRARY archive and are currently available at the Exploratorium. After five official script revisions the display was radically reduced. Kohn, Richard H, History and the Culture Wars: The Case of the Smithsonian Institution’s Enola Gay Exhibition, The Journal of American History 82, no. Over the next year a battle ensued between the veterans groups, historians and anti-nuclear war activists over what should be included in the show. The Enola Gay controversy or some might called it the Smithsonian atomic bomb exhibit debates sparks a History Wars in American public. Hubbard, Bryan and Hasian, Jr, Marouf A, The Generic Roots of the Enola Gay Controversy, Political Communication 15, no. Several veterans organizations who recieved a copy of the first draft of the exhibition expressed concern over what they saw as a revisionist lean to the information displayed. In summer of 1993, the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum began planning a show about the atomic bombing of Japan and the end of World War II to accompany their display of the refurbished hull of the Enola Gay. Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. "The institution has an obligation to be historically It dropped the bomb that ended the war.’ It doesn’t take a position on the morality of it,” Heyman said.The Enola Gay Controversy The Enola Gay Controversy “I don’t believe that this is a glorification of nuclear weapons. Michael Heyman defended the exhibit that has been the focus of a sometimes-bitter controversy. “The story is not complete if people aren’t aware of the devastation and the loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there’s almost no attention to that at all on the exhibit inside,” said Jo Becker, executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.īut Smithsonian Secretary I. What does this fight between museum curators, historians, veter- ans, and the military have to do with librarians What makes the. Others argued the exhibit didn’t tell the whole story. Some protesters called the B-29 bomber a destructive symbol that should not be in a museum commemorating human achievement. Hist 1112 Spring 2020 Reacting to the Past: The Enola Gay Controversy at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, 1995 Overview With the 50 th anniversary of the.
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The pamphlets questioned the necessity of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring an unprecedented deadly end to the war. Those arrested were charged with making a public nuisance. Then the doors were temporarily closed by protester disruptions.Įight demonstrators unfurled banners from a second-floor balcony above the main entrance, shouting “Never again! Never again!” Antibomb pamphlets rained down on people waiting to enter the museum, as one annoyed tourist shouted back, “Take your politics elsewhere!” Lines of tourists snaked around the block outside the Smithsonian Institute as the Enola Gay exhibit opened after months of controversy. In 1995, the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum (NASM) created an exhibit to feature the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb. At the approach of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM) planned an exhibit with its centerpiece, the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Police arrested at least 20 protesters Wednesday at the National Air and Space Museum where the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb to end World War II went on display. The controversy surrounding the Enola Gay exhibit stems from disagreements between the Smithsonian, historians, members of Congress, veterans, and those who.