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Monday, September 29, 2014

Museums and Public History in Action

In my last post, I talked about how museums have been changing over the past century. This time, I want to show you one of my all-time favorite museums.

While we are unable to actually visit it (since flying everyone who reads this blog to Washington, D.C. is, unfortunately, outside of my budget at this point in time), we can get a pretty good look at what they offer through their website.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

The International Spy Museum

The Spy Museum - one of the coolest museums of all time
Disclaimer: This is a class assignment - I was not asked to promote the Spy Museum in any way, shape, or form. I just genuinely like the museum.

I have been to the Spy Museum twice, and I can tell you from personal experience - the museum is as cool as the website makes it out to be.

Visitors enter the museum through a windowless elevator, and are then shown a brief informational video about the world of espionage. They are then asked to choose a cover identity and maintain it for the duration of the museum - there are special interactive checkpoints where this becomes important. 

Visitors then enter the main body of the museum - a veritable wonderland of gadgets, weaponry, and memorabilia from the height of spy culture - the twentieth century. Gadgets are explained and analyzed, and techniques are demonstrated. Visitors are also given the chance to demonstrate their own spy skills, from climbing through ventilation shafts in a stealthy manner to cracking codes. 

Only a small selection of the espionage memorabilia on display
Visitors flow from the gadgets and techniques of espionage to its history, learning about its earliest years. Displays cover everything from Elizabethan master spy John Dee to the American Civil War. Special displays are set aside for the Soviet Union's KGB, World War II, and the Cold War.

A simulated spy bunker in the Cold War exhibit
The Cold War exhibit is currently not on display. Instead, it has been replaced with a temporary exhibit called Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains. The exhibit pays homage to the James Bond novels and film franchise, tracing the reality of the villains who haunt Bond's stories in the events happening in the world. While slightly more commercial than the other exhibits in the Spy Museum, it still does a great job of showing how espionage and the forces it fights are portrayed in the media.

The museum closes by ushering visitors into a small, final exhibit focusing on espionage in the twenty-first century. Here, the future of spycraft is discussed, emphasizing the possibilities of disturbances in electronic communication and how they could be used by modern spies.

As any good museum does, it then leads visitors into the gift shop (which, at the Spy Museum, is awesome - I have purchased several wonderful gifts for friends here, and personally own a t-shirt and moustache earrings). 

The museum also offers additional packages, if you are interested in continuing your visit beyond normal visiting hours. There are Interactive Spy Experiences, such as Operation Spy, that allow visitors to experience (in a less dangerous way) the life of a spy. 

If, like me, you cannot stay away, the Spy Museum has several social media accounts, which are updated on a daily basis. The Twitter and Facebook accounts both post "Today in Spy History," which is always a really interesting tidbit of history that I typically have never heard about before. 

The museum's website is key in finding all of this information before visitors arrive. One of the things that sells the Spy Museum before a visitor even arrives on the premises is the website's attention to detail - a small module on the sidebar asking for hand scan in order to access (when your mouse is held over it long enough, you can read the information beneath); a harsh black, white, and red color scheme changed only by the addition of photographs; or some quick, tiny bites of text that compel the reader to come to the museum and find out more. There is also access to the museum store, information about the extended packages, and connections to the museum's social media accounts. I greatly enjoy the site for its organization and its aesthetic - and that barely scratches the surface. 

Overall, I think this museum is one of the best that I have been to (and believe me, I have been to more museums than I can remember). I always feel welcome here, whether digitally or in person - and no matter how many times I walk in through the front doors, I am always invigorated and excited by the energy that it exudes.

And, every time I leave, I always feel compelled to remember their trademark phrase: 

DENY EVERYTHING.


The International Spy Museum is open seven days a week from 10 AM to 6 PM. It is located at 800 F Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20004.

You can follow them on Twitter at @IntlSpyMuseum, or on Facebook at International Spy Museum.

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