The Greatest Generation - Park City Museum Exhibit

Our Lives, Our Stories: America’s Greatest Generation, a new exhibition opening nationwide on November 20, 2010 at the Park City Museum, explores the life arc of the World War II generation—as told in their own words.  Born in the 1910s and 1920s, these people were decisively shaped by the Depression and World War II. They went on to make the “baby boom” and shape the economic boom of the postwar era. Today – well into the 21^st century – we are all living with their legacy. But who are these people upon whom the title of “greatest” has been bestowed?

Our Lives, Our Stories draws on memories and oral histories gathered by the Minnesota Historical Society to help us understand who these people really were. The exhibition begins with the babies of the 1910s and 1920s, and then explores the human impact of events that marked major turning points in their lives, including the Depression, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, World War II, the rising awareness of Civil Rights, and the growth of media-driven consumer culture during the post-war boom. While this generation’s identity is clearly linked to World War II, the focus of Our Lives, Our Stories seeks to restore a wholeness to our understanding of them by allowing them to tell their stories along the larger arc of their lives.  In the process, their diversity of memories reveals them as the complex mix of real people who truly helped to shape the world that we live in today. 

The exhibit runs through March 16, 2011 at the Park City Museum, located at 528 Main Street in Park City, Utah. Open Monday through Saturday from 10:00am until 7:00pm and Sunday from noon until 6:00pm, admission is $10 for adults, $8 for students, seniors, and military, and $5 for K-12. Call 435-649-7457 or visit the Park City Museum for additional information.