Final report: Exploring the World War II home front with an NCPH working group

21 November 2024 – Suzanne Fischer and Leslie Przybylek

Cherry trees along the Tidal Basin, Washington D.C. The Japanese Lantern was placed in the park in 1954. Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

What do cherry blossoms and nuclear reactors have in common? They were among the many topics discussed by the National Council on Public History (NCPH) World War II Home Front Working Group, a three-year collaboration between NCPH and the National Park Service (NPS) that brought together practitioners and scholars working on World War II home front history to make connections and learn from each other. Part of a larger multi-year collaboration between NCPH and the National Park Service focused on the World War II home front, this working group was initially conceived by now-retired NPS historian John Sprinkle to connect NPS staffers working on home front interpretation in different parks across the system with one another and with practitioners and scholars from other institutions across the country. Suzanne Fischer, a museum consultant based in Michigan, and Allena Berry, then an educator in Nashville, were hired as co-facilitators in 2021;  Leslie Przybylek, senior curator at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh and a repeat working group participant, was hired in 2023 when Dr. Berry stepped down.

In 2021, NPS staff from Pearl Harbor National Memorial, Rosie the Riveter National Historic Site, and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park convened with selected public history professionals from other organizations, such as the Museum of History and Holocaust Education in Georgia, to explore shared challenges and potential solutions for interpreting complicated site-specific World War II histories and primary source collections while navigating the expectations of contemporary audiences. The second year welcomed returning participants, and new faces from other NPS sites, such as the National Mall and Memorial Parks (home of cherry blossom interpretation), and emerging public history professionals from academic programs such as American University. The third year changed focus to look at questions and opportunities surrounding the new NPS WWII Home Front Heritage Cities initiative. Participants included those at confirmed Heritage Cities (and connected NPS locations) as well as representatives from locations aspiring to join the program. The first year was fully virtual while the second and third years culminated with in-person sessions at the NCPH annual  meetings in Atlanta, Georgia (2023) and Salt Lake City, Utah (2024).

New Opportunities and Ongoing Challenges

While membership in the group fluctuated, as did conversational strategies, several common themes emerged that highlighted the complexity and relevance of broadening concepts of World War II “home front” interpretation. Our discussions raised larger questions about pathways moving forward, including the following issues: 

• What are the impacts and obligations of history at an interpretive transition point?

As the WWII generation passes on, narratives of lived experience can no longer be relied upon as the primary focal point for NPS sites to interpret these stories. While there is a clear and personal loss in this passing, the reality also carries opportunities and obligations, and the path forward is not clear. When we started this working group, we framed it as “as WWII passes out of living memory.” We quickly learned that was not entirely accurate; while participants in wartime activities may have passed, the stories and issues of the war and what we might call the Long Home Front are still vital and relevant. (In some communities, families and veterans’ groups have done much on their own to carry these stories into the next generation.) Yet, strategies for visitor engagement will have to change. Shifting away from interpretation grounded in the narrative of lived experiences can create space for less-discussed, even hidden narratives by groups who had felt unwelcome bringing their first-person stories to previous commemorations. The new NPS WWII theme studies highlight Native American, disability, LGBTQ, and Latino histories unique to the wartime experience. How to strike the right balance between the cherished narratives and these emerging stories and how to help visitors engage with unfamiliar perspectives are challenges that could use more field-wide dialogue.

• Collaboration could help engage audiences with expanding narratives in a difficult environment.

There is a disconnect between the wealth of NPS resources being developed behind-the-scenes, and general levels of engagement by audiences with information that goes beyond beloved stories that fit the “good war” narrative. While many visitors are more open to new and complicated narratives than it might seem on the surface, the current polarized climate makes change difficult to negotiate. Greater collaboration between different sectors of the field might offer new opportunities to address this in creative ways—history professionals at independent sites often have more flexibility to engage with such topics than NPS staff, given governmental regulations and political pressures. Likewise, some stories may gain broader relevance if interpreted by NPS staff at a national level, linking the site-specific narratives of local communities and their contributions. How do we tie these pieces together more effectively with greater access for the public? New technologies could help facilitate collaboration, but such work takes interpretive and technical expertise. In general, working group participants agreed that the two kinds of institutions offered complementary opportunities for research and interpretation, but divergent realities of bureaucratic structure, mission, and coordination made working together difficult.

A woman war worker at Westinghouse during World War II. Westinghouse was responsible for creating the original “We Can Do It” propaganda poster. Photo credit: Westinghouse Electric Corporation Photographs, Senator John Heinz History Center

• Accessing and sharing resources could be the key.

As noted, the expectation for more diverse and complicated home front narratives offers great opportunities. That many untold WWII home front stories remain to be shared with visitors was underlined by several lesser-known narratives revealed among the professionals in our group during the three years of the project. There is a growing body of resources to support wider interpretations—including new research, reports, theme studies, and curriculum units developed elsewhere as part of this larger NPS project. But for the full potential of this work to be realized, broader and more effective ways will be needed to make it accessible to a wide range of practitioners beyond agency-centric networks. While some NPS sites already engage with a rich cohort of local organizations, other crucial WWII home front sites are located far from any relevant NPS outlet. What can be done to ensure that collaboration is possible in such instances? The new NPS WWII Home Front Heritage Cities initiative offers a promising chance to build a network of resource-sharing and program collaboration, helping practitioners transcend local boundaries and tie narratives to larger national themes. But the program is very new and doing so will take time and require commitments of access to intellectual resources and support from all sides. 

On the whole working group participants agreed: enabling collaboration between organizations within and beyond the NPS network is not easy. But doing so will be crucial to enabling new narratives and themes to become a lasting part of the national conversation on WWII home front history.

~ Leslie A. Przybylek is Senior Curator at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She can be reached at [email protected].

~ Suzanne Fischer is Principal of Exhibit Coach, a Michigan-based consultancy dedicated to helping organizations make “amazing, engaging, inclusive exhibits.” She can be reached at [email protected]