Harry S Truman Library Research Paper

Harry S. Truman Library Review

Today was a nice day to go outside, the temperature was perfect and the wind was not too harsh, so I decided to go visit the Harry S. Truman Library with my mom who has not drove to Independence before, so this was a very entertaining trip. The Harry S. Truman Library is located in Independence, MO and the building was huge in comparison to any other museum I have seen before. When I looked at the museum on a website before we went I noticed that the front of the building had two flags on it, but when I went today there were no flags put up.

The Harry S. Truman Library was made to show Truman’s life before and after his Presidency as our thirty-third President. This museum had a lot of artifacts from Truman like his wife’s wedding shoes to political documents. The museum also tells about the events that were going on at the time while Truman was in office for example: picking up where Roosevelt left off, the Cold War, when he dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and another bomb on Nagasaki. Besides his Presidency the museum also talked about his earlier life as a family farmer, how he met Bess the love of his life and started a family, then his retirement.

The artifacts were astounding to see; I mean it does not matter that they look all rugged and worn out it at least they could salvage it for others to see.

The museum even had a camera from when Truman was in the White House, and the guns from the attempted assassinations. My favorite kind of artifacts were how some rooms were set up like the Oval Office replica and President Truman’s office that you could see if you walked outside to the courtyard. It looks like it is all untouched which makes it look like it is frozen in time. Some other interesting artifacts were the Chrysler, and the Bible that was used at Truman’s

Inauguration.
In my opinion the strengths of this museum were the artifacts and how the rooms were set up, I mean they told a story of their own. It was also interesting on how the events were set up, we backwards from his death, to his presidency, then his early years but either way it was a perfect timeline of his life. It was also nice that they had a few places for kids to draw and color, if they had elementary schools visit the museum. I guess a weakness of the museum were the little remote-control radios they had around telling some of the soldier’s stories during the war, because some of them would be too long for some people. I mean I have no ill will towards the people who fought for our freedom and everyone has a story waiting to be told, but with all the other noises going on in the background you would not be able to hear the stories well.
In conclusion, this is a great place to visit when you first come into Missouri, I mean besides the Capital in Jefferson City I would also recommend going to the Harry S. Truman Library. I mean it does not hurt to learn something new every occasionally, but on a scale of one to ten I would give this place a solid eight and a half or nine. The reason I give it this rating is because of the remote-control radios, but besides that I would recommend it to people who have an interest in Harry S. Truman and to see the history of a President that came out of Missouri. It is a shame though that he still is not around to see how his library turned out today and still give people tours of the museum, or wave through his Presidential Office window at people visiting the museum.