Harry S. Truman: An Ordinary Man, His Extraordinary Journey. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, Independence, MO

Shock and uncertainty greet visitors at the new Harry S. Truman Library and Museum permanent exhibit. The exhibit’s first gallery, an immersive theater space, shows a video of Truman’s surprise vice-presidential nomination at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. Then, disaster strikes without warning. A siren interrupts the nomination video and the darkened space flashes with bright light as visitors learn that incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt is dead. Harry S. Truman, a former senator from Missouri most known for ties to the Tom Pendergast political machine, inherited the presidency during a world war. Truman did so with little preparation—as the video notes, he was vice-president for only eighty-two days and had met Roosevelt alone just twice. Skeptical newspaper editorial quotations flash across the screen, deriding Truman’s lack of experience, capabilities, and fitness for the presidency. The harsh words draw audible laughter from the exhibit audience. The video ends with a question: What in Truman’s past prepared him for the Presidency?

Primed from the introductory video, visitors enter the exhibit’s first full section, “Plow to Politics.” Visitors examine artifacts from Truman’s boyhood home and view genealogy charts for both the future president and his beloved wife, the former Miss Bess Wallace. Truman and his wife were both regular letter writers and their correspondence surrounds an illuminated pillar. These displays allow visitors the opportunity to read a few pages of their communication on the pillar, peruse the printed material, or snap a QR code that links to the library’s online archives and collections. Another area interprets Truman’s World War I service as a respected officer in an artillery battalion, complete with an informational video on the war and a video-game interactive detailing the mathematics and trial-and-error process for firing artillery. The game is a bit underwhelming, an outlier among dozens of otherwise clever interactives that pepper the exhibit.

After interpreting Truman’s failed haberdashery business (all historians love a detachable collar), the exhibit details Truman’s rise to national politics from Kansas City’s Pendergast political machine. Here the designers include a pair of cogs and three reproduction ballot boxes. As visitors spin one cog, it rotates the other, showing how machine politics achieved political ends through unethical means. Then visitors can pull the tabs on the ballot box to learn about the many ways that officials rigged municipal elections in Prohibition-era Kansas City.

The next section, “First Four Months,” uses an innovative series of constricting spaces to represent the pressures of Truman’s early presidential term. The black and red color scheme create a clear sense of increasing pressure and anxiety. Visitors funnel into a stark chamber addressing Truman’s most controversial decision: the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The green safety plug removed from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki floats hauntingly in a pillar at the center of the room. Unlike other areas of the exhibit, where scripted videos provide neat summaries, here the focus is on primary sources. Label text acknowledges the controversy but does not take a definitive position. Instead, the exhibit challenges visitors to reach their own conclusions based on primary source testimonials and provides a guest book inviting them to share their conclusions.

Moving on from the solemnity of the bomb, the exhibition details “The Hard Problems of Peace” in a section entitled “Postwar World.” The entrance to this section centers on an oversized globe with lighted cracks that transition between blue and red. The highlight in this section is a video that uses the Berlin Airlift as an explication for the nascent Cold War. The video space is unfortunately easy to miss, hidden away in a corner. It combines projections, moving images, and a pile of rubble that transforms into a map of Europe when illuminated during the film.

Following sections explore Truman’s decision to recognize Israel, his surprising reelection in 1948, “Fair Deal” domestic policy proposals, and his efforts to prevent the Korean War from escalating into a World War III. Each of these sections centers on a video explaining the events and includes interactives and kiosks where visitors can post reactions. The “Fair Deal” display effectively outlines Truman’s desired domestic policies and uses simple but effective flip panels to explain how much of his proposed agenda was ultimately not implemented. Additional areas focus on Truman’s Korean War decisions such as bypassing a congressional war declaration and eventually dismissing General Douglas McArthur for failing to respect the authority of the president.

This area also intersects with the original 1950s main entrance to the library and museum, including a mural by Thomas Hart Benton, a noted Missouri artist. Displays around the mural educate viewers on the form and function of American government. This section is no doubt helpful for student tours, as permanent exhibits at presidential libraries most effectively feature evergreen educational content and leave the latest scholarship to temporary exhibits. The exhibition ends with a section on Truman’s impact, including a wall display connecting unrealized “Fair Deal” goals with modern efforts, and a “Look Who’s Quoting Truman” display that invites folks to select a Truman quotation and photograph themselves holding it up to share on social media.

Harry S. Truman: An Ordinary Man, His Extraordinary Journey provides a comprehensive account of a president whose decisions and impact remain contested. Its design is moving—especially the sections surrounding “The First Four Months” and “The Postwar World.” The deft handling of the atomic bombing provides an innovative, primary source-focused strategy for addressing one of the most controversial topics in American history.¹ A recording of the president from the original museum shares Truman’s hope “that the exhibits in this library will give you, and especially the young people among you, a better understanding of the history and nature of the presidency and the government of the United States.” The new permanent exhibit delivers all Truman hoped for—and more. As a practical man who appreciated accountability, Truman would have agreed with the decision to showcase his successes, failures, and controversies. With its candor and transparency, the exhibit is a model for future interpretive spaces that address contentious issues by educating visitors and trusting them to formulate their own evidence-based conclusions.