Beyond the Display Case: Civil War Virtual Museum

"D" Guard Bowie Knife and Scabbard

Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Museum Collection

A team of professionals at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, led by Librarian Jeff Patrick, formed a partnership with the Springfield-Greene County Library District and Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foundation to create a virtual museum and photo album.

The team identified over 800 objects from the park's museum collection; photographed, digitized, and conducted background research on each object. The team utilized the Hulston Civil War Research Library to conduct background research on these objects to identify historical personalities, compile unit histories and formulate historical narratives. This research was then used by the partner to develop a historical narrative. The partner then made the artifacts publicly available in an on-line format by creating a unique website and online resource entitled, "The Community & Conflict Virtual Museum and Photograph Album."

The project is now complete and consists of a digitized collection of over 800 Civil War-era artifacts including letters, maps, diaries, weapons, flags, uniforms and photographs. The site contains materials gathered from the collections of Wilson's Creek National Battlefield that document military and civilian activities in the Trans-Mississippi Region during the period of 1854-1865, including the role of soldiers, sailors, Native-Americans, African-Americans, women and guerrillas. The sites include exploratory essays on diverse topics, written by noted Civil War scholars William Piston, William Shea and Diane Mutti-Burke. The site features high-caliber scans of documents, photographs and artifacts, "zoom" and 360-degree panning features. These efforts allowed the NPS to produce professional images of significant artifacts in the museum collection, utilize the Hulston Civil War Research Library to conduct background research, and integrate disparate sources of information in a variety of formats into a publicly accessible body of knowledge about the Civil War west of the Mississippi. The team consisted of Jeff Patrick (Librarian), Deborah Wood (Curator), Alan Chilton (Museum Technician), and Connie Langum (Historian).

Website from a published article follows:

http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-magazine/summer-2011/beyond-the-display-case.html

Websites produced follow:

http://ozarkscivilwar.org/photographs/

http://www.civilwarvirtualmuseum.org/