Everyone knows we enjoy going to museums but, thanks to the education we have received from Cheryl, we can also be rather critical. Those feelings affected our attitude at the two museums we visited in central Tennessee.
Approaching The American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge one is greated with s sculpture of two towers made from steel from the World Trade Center.
The museum is located on the site where the Manhattan Project was developed and where uranium was enriched to fill the bomb dropped on Hiroshima to end WWII. That is the story we went to learn. Instead we found a standard children’s science museum combined with illogical exhibits on the historical significance of the area.
We were presented with displays on the various types of energy with oil and nuclear getting praise. We wondered how an energy museum could omit Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Japanese Tsunami from this discussion. There was a quotation warning about a shortage of energy given by Dick Cheney of Haliburton back in the 1990s, with no mention of the rest of his career. We noted there were no updates of the exhibits since the early 2000s, a huge omission given changes and concerns about energy during the past decade.
We did enjoy the demonstrations on electricity done by the docent as well as the conversation we had with her about the people who lived in what was the Secret City of Oak Ridge. Originally intended as a town for African-Americans, after the US entered WWII , thousands of scientists and laborers were moved with their families to this area. Secrecy and security were vital, meaning no casual talking about your job in or outside the town and ID checks going in and out.
There were exhibits relevant to the bombs. The first was a brief but good film on the crew of the Enola Gay and the dropping of the bomb.
Outside the main building is The Flat Top House, an actual prefab two-bedroom home built cheaply, poorly and minimally for the individuals and families who lived there from 1942-1947. A temporary exhibit has photographs of the town and the people taken by a professional photographer. Any other project exhibits were mingled in with the science ones and out of context. We left the museum less than satisfied.
Our expectations on visiting the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville were minimal. We are not country music fans but both grew up listening the Grand Ole Opry on radio in the 1940s. We anticipated this museum was just a walk down memory lane mingled with a bit of learning.
The auditorium was originally the Union Gospel Tabernacle.
Captain Thomas Ryman, a riverboat captain and devout sinner, built the Tabernacle for evangelist Sam Jones to save the souls of Nashville in 1892. Renamed the Ryman Auditorium in 1904, it served as a venue for various activities.
Lula C. Nuff was a local promoter who booked performers and then became manager of the auditorium in 1920. She was a brilliant businesswoman who brought in national and international entertainers. She didn’t care if they were white, black, Christian, Jew, American, or Russian. She cared that they filled the theater with paying customers. The auditorium was called “The Carnegie Hall of the South.” and “The Mother Church of Country Music.” Its wooden walls and ceiling create excellent acoustics. Starting with Lula’s direction, it housed the Grand Ole Opry from 1942-1974 when the Opry moved to a lavish new venue and there was talk of razing the original building. Saved and declared a National Historic Landmark, it is now a museum as well as a venue for entertainers.
We opted for a self-guided tour. An excellent brochure supplemented the displays. Posterboards lining the walls of the upstairs lobby are filled with lists of noted individuals she hired ranging from William Jennings Bryan, Billy Sunday, John Philip Sousa, Sara Bernhardt, Helen Keller, Will Rogers, Marion Anderson, Al Jolson, and more. Each listing tells when the person was there and a lesser known tidbit about him/her. Here are some samples.
This one about Louis Armstrong reminded us that we were in a city that practiced segregation of the races.
A large display is dedicated to the immortal Minnie Pearl whose “How-w-w-dee-e-e-e, I’m jes so proud to be here,” brought a warm smile to her listeners. Sarah Ophelia Colley was as different from her alter ego as can be. She was raised in a wealthy home and planned to prepare for a career on Broadway. While she was in college, her father lost his business and she had to give up her dreams. Patterning a character for a skit at the Grand Ole Opry after a women she had met, Ophelia found a new direction for her career and became the charming Minnie Pearl with the price tag on her hat.
Videos of her on the Grand Ole Opry television show filled us with nostalgia.
We found the Ryman enjoyable and educational, Oak Ridge unexciting and leaving us with unanswered questions. Country Music 1, Nuclear Science 0.
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