‘A re-imagining’: At last, Truman Library to reopen. Sneak peek at the $29M makeover

The last time the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum was renovated — almost 20 years ago — Instagram, Facebook and TikTok didn’t even exist.

But now the museum has a special area that’s picture-perfect for social media: a giant photo of the 33rd president for visitors to pose with. Nearby, signs shaped like quote bubbles contain some of Truman’s famous sayings, such as “The Truth is all I want for History” and “Not all readers become leaders. But all leaders must be readers.”

That area is just one of the ways the museum has jumped ahead in time while exploring the past with a $29 million makeover, showcased in a special sneak peek for the media last week.

After closing for two years, first for the largest renovation in its 64-year history, and then because of the pandemic, the museum is finally opening its doors to visitors on Friday, July 2.

“This isn’t just a refresh of a familiar story, it’s a retelling and a re-imagining,” said Kurt Graham, the museum’s director. The new exhibits take pains to show the nuances of history.

In the middle of the section about Truman’s first four months as president, for example, is a safety plug from the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, bringing World War II to an end. The wall behind it displays a picture and introduction to 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki, who died from leukemia caused by radiation from the bomb.

In Japanese myth, if you make 1,000 paper cranes you will be granted one wish. Next to Sadako’s biography, is one of the paper cranes she made after she was diagnosed. This is its first time as a permanent fixture in the museum. The backdrop contains hundreds of paper cranes folded by students and families in the Kansas City area.

Renovation and reopening

While other major attractions in the Kansas City area reopened last year, the Truman Library had to wait for the green light from the federal government. It is one of 15 presidential libraries overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration (including the online-only operations for the two most recent past presidents).

Walk into the Truman Library today and it hardly looks like it did two years ago.

For one, Thomas Hart Benton’s mural is no longer the first thing visitors see; nor must they travel downstairs to see many of the artifacts. Instead, visitors enter on the east side through the 3,000-square-foot addition and chronologically experience the exhibits on one floor.

“We completely gutted the exhibition space and basically flipped it,” said Cassie Pikarsky, director of strategic initiatives at the Truman Library Institute. “The entrance was previously in the middle of the exhibit experience.”

The exhibition starts by introducing Truman’s early life and military career, transitions to the eras of his presidency and ends with a timeline about his legacy.

It features touchscreen displays, interactive exhibits and films narrated by notable people such as television host George Stephanopoulos and anchor Judy Woodruff. In one digital exhibit, visitors can take a questionnaire from the Red Scare period about whether they harbor communist sympathies.

A cracked globe with the phrase “hard problems of peace” symbolizes the fractures around the world after World War II. A bar graph on the wall shows civilian and military casualties from the war by country. A partial model of an aircraft interior offers facts on how American pilots dropped food and supplies to West Berlin residents.

Telling both sides

As president, Truman made controversial choices, and the museum shows the human and political toll of these decisions. For example, it provides quotes supporting and criticizing his decision to bomb Japan.

“We do present opinions both from that time period from some of the scientists, General Eisenhower and more contemporary opinions about whether or not this was truly Truman’s decision to make,” Pikarsky said.

The section on Truman’s decision to enter the Korean War now focuses on the veterans’ perspective, showcasing uniforms of a U.N. prisoner of war, an American nurse and others. Most of the collection came from the Korean War National Museum in Springfield, Illinois, which closed in 2017, and the Center for the Study of the Korean War, a nonprofit in Independence that donated its collection in 2015.

“This tells the story of real American men and women who served in uniform,” said Samuel Rushay, a supervisory archivist at the Truman Library.

Questions on the wall also ask visitors to consider whether the Korean War could have been avoided, whether it created a safer world and whether Truman prevented World War III.

“We’re asking people to not just take what we’re presenting at face value but take that next step and evaluate it,” Pikarsky said. “That’s what museums should really do, present what really happened and allow the public to draw their own conclusions.”

Digital feedback stations encourage visitors to type their thoughts on such complex issues. Their comments show up on a screen above, and other visitors can like and comment on the post. One station asks visitors to consider whether foreign aid is necessary to promote American interests. Another asks whether the federal government should wield its power to protect civil rights.

“Yes, I believe the government should be able to control some aspects of civil rights especially in the case of racial inequality,” a visitor named Jonathan typed during an earlier sneak peek for the public.

Humanizing a president

The new museum also dedicates more space to Truman’s family — wife Bess and daughter Margaret.

A “Dear Bess” tower displays the letters Truman wrote to his wife, as well as family photos.

One exhibit explains that Truman met his wife when he was 6 years old in Sunday school. They married after he returned home from serving in the Army during World War I, and they lived in Independence.

Pikarsky likes to tell this story: One evening near Christmas in 1955, Truman caught Bess throwing piles of her old letters to him into the fire. “What are you doing?” he asked her. “Think of history!”

She replied, “Oh, I have” and kept tossing them because she wanted her privacy. After Margaret died in 2008, her family gave the museum 183 of Bess’ letters.

“That was the first time we were able to see the other side of the relationship,” Pikarsky said.

These letters were on temporary display before the renovations but now are incorporated throughout the museum.

“The part that I enjoy the most is that we let Truman speak for himself,” Pikarsky said. “We also are able to incorporate his family and his personal relationships, which really gives you more insight.”

Bringing Truman to the present

The museum benefits from interest in Truman’s life today. It received donations for its renovation from 29,000 people from all 50 states, ranging from $5 to $3 million.

“We really wanted to do this project to bring Truman into the 21st century,” Pikarsky said. “You cannot open a newspaper today without seeing a headline whose roots date back to the Truman administration.”

The museum’s new section on civil rights highlights the strides made during the Truman administration. Truman was by no means anti-racist, as he used racial slurs and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a troublemaker. But some of his actions showed that he cared about fairness and equality, such as desegregating the military and being the first president to formally address the NAACP.

“One of the biggest influences in this area was the blinding of Isaac Woodard, an Army sergeant who was pulled off a bus and beaten and blinded,” said Kelly Anders, the museum’s deputy director. “And when President Truman heard about this, he was outraged.”

Pikarsky believes Truman’s actions paved the way for President Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

“His role in civil rights is probably even more extraordinary because he was a man of his time,” Anders said. “He was more focused on fairness and what he thought was the right thing to do, as opposed to holding people back.”

Even in today’s polarized environment, people from across the political spectrum tend to speak highly of Truman. President Donald Trump quoted Truman at the U.N. General Assembly in 2017, and Bill and Hillary Clinton toured the library while he was president, in 1994.

Truman, Pikarsky said, “was the first one who invited a president into having a formal transition. He was the first to speak to the NAACP, and even the first to have an integrated inauguration that was televised. There were so many things that pointed back to Truman.”

If you go

The Truman Library and Museum, 500 W. U.S. 24, will reopen to the public on Friday, July 2. Hours: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m Wednesdays to Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Timed-entry tickets are required: $12, with some discounts available, free for children 12 and under. Masks required for unvaccinated visitors. See trumanlibrary.gov.