2004-2-29
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm Steve
Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Phoebe Zimmermann. Come along with us this week as we
visit some unusual museums in the United States.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
A nineteen-sixteen Packard funeral bus. The Mercedes that carried
the body of Princess Grace of Monaco in nineteen-eighty-two. A copy
of the sarcophagus container that held the body of King Tutankhamen
of Egypt. These are some of what visitors find at the National
Museum of Funeral History, near Houston, Texas.
Some people like traditional collections of artwork and other
objects in a museum. Millions visit the Smithsonian museums in
Washington, D.C., for example. But other people like smaller museums
that collect one kind of object.
Museum goers can learn about funerals, foods, the lives of
actors, the history of radio ... even teeth.
VOICE TWO:
Most people would not consider a
visit to a dentist their idea of a good time. But the Doctor Samuel
D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry does not drill or pull teeth.
Instead, it just tells about them.
The museum is at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. The
first college to train dentists began there. A man named G.V. Black
helped launch the profession in the eighteen-hundreds. When Doctor
Black treated patients, he had no electric light. Most dental
offices in those early times had big windows instead. Chairs for
patients faced south to help dentists work by sunlight.
Looking at devices once used to remove infected teeth should
pleases visitors. They should be happy that dentists no longer use
them.
VOICE ONE:
One set of false teeth in the museum is of special interest. It
is made of animal bone. America's first president, George
Washington, wore these false teeth. They look as though they might
have hurt.
The museum also has a huge toothbrush in an exhibit called
"Plaque Attackers." Visitors can use the toothbrush on a huge mouth.
The mouth shows how plaque bacteria can damage the teeth. Children
learn how to keep their teeth clean.
VOICE TWO:
Another museum collects devices that help people hear. Some are
old, and some are new. The Kenneth W. Berger Hearing Aid Museum is
at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The museum has more than
three-thousand hearing aids from around the world. Some hearing aids
were designed to look like other objects. These devices were for
people who did not want anyone to know they were wearing a hearing
aid.
Here is how this museum got started. In nineteen-sixty-six, a
professor at Kent State answered some questions for a publication
now called Hearing Journal. Professor Kenneth Berger told the editor
that he would like to show some hearing aids in the Speech and
Hearing Clinic at the school. But the published story said he wanted
a museum of hearing aids.
VOICE ONE:
Soon Professor Berger began to receive old hearing aids. They
arrived from all over the United States and from other countries. A
man in Massachusetts sent more than five-hundred hearing aids.
Professor Berger and his wife kept the growing collection in their
home. Then, enough space opened at the university for his collection
to become a real museum.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Some popular foods in America also have their own museum. One is
the Jell-O Museum in LeRoy, New York.
Some Jell-O products taste like fruit. They come in colors like
red, orange, yellow or green. You add water to make it from powder.
Then you cool the liquid gelatin until it becomes solid. People like
to watch how it shakes when moved. Jell-O was invented in
eighteen-ninety-seven. This museum tells about the history of the
product.
VOICE ONE:
Another museum also tells about a popular food product --
mustard. This museum is in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Mustard is a
spicy substance made from mustard seeds. People have added it to
their food for centuries. It tastes good on some meats and on bread.
The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum has more than three-thousand kinds
of mustard. These come from almost every one of the fifty states and
several other countries. The museum shows how mustard is made.
Visitors can taste three-hundred kinds of mustard. But it is
probably not a good idea to try them all at once.
VOICE TWO:
A museum in Boston, Massachusetts, collects another common
substance, but not one you would want to eat. This place is called
the Museum of Dirt. It has hundreds of small containers of soil,
sand and other dirt. People have given the museum dirt from around
the world.
For example, the museum has dirt from Graceland, the home of
Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee. There is red sand from Nome,
Alaska, containing gold. There is also dirt from Mount Fuji in
Japan.
(MUSIC BRIDGE)
VOICE ONE:
Some museum collections are about the lives of famous people. A
museum in Branson, Missouri, honors Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale
Evans. Roy Rogers was called the "King of the Cowboys." He appeared
in cowboy movies beginning in the nineteen-thirties. He later
appeared on television.
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans entertained people for more than a half
a century. People in movies were not supposed to kiss when these two
first appeared on film. So Roy kissed his horse.
The museum is full of memories of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
There are western hats and clothing. Photographs. Letters and
recordings. A statue of Roy Rogers' horse, Trigger, stands outside
the museum. Inside the museum are mounted versions of Trigger, Dale
Evans' horse Buttermilk and their dog Bullet, a German shepherd.
They were among the most famous animals ever to appear in Hollywood
movies.
VOICE TWO:
Another museum honors the memory
of two other entertainers, Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz.
The Lucy-Desi Museum is in Jamestown, New York. That was her
hometown. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz appeared in one of America's
best-loved television programs, "I Love Lucy." Millions of people
watched the show during the nineteen-fifties. Even today, millions
watch repeats of "I Love Lucy." The museum includes clothing and
other belongings of this famous Hollywood couple.
VOICE ONE:
Still another museum claims the world's largest collection of
objects about the actor James Dean. The James Dean Gallery is in
Fairmount, Indiana, the town where he grew up.
James Dean was a film star in the nineteen-fifties. He appeared
in only three movies: "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and
"Giant." Each time, he played a young man angry at the world.
A man named David Loehr started the museum twelve years ago to
honor the actor. The image and memory of James Dean as a rebel
against society remains strong long after his death. James Dean was
killed in a car crash in nineteen-fifty-five. He was twenty-four
years old.
VOICE TWO:
From movies, we turn to radio. The development of this medium is
the subject of a museum in Bedford, New Hampshire. It is called the
United States National Marconi Museum.
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor and engineer. He sent
the first wireless telegraph message over the Atlantic Ocean in
nineteen-oh-one. The signal reached from Cornwall, England, to Saint
John's, Canada.
VOICE ONE:
Visitors to the Marconi Museum learn about early wireless
equipment. This invention more than proved its value at sea. In
nineteen-oh–nine, it saved many lives from a sinking ship, the
Republic. In nineteen-twelve, the crew of the Titanic appealed for
help after that ship struck an iceberg.
Visitors can discover how radios have changed over the years. One
set from the nineteen-thirties, for example, is tall and wide.
Modern children may be surprised to see no picture screen. But in
the nineteen thirties radios could tell wonderful stories.
They still can.
(THEME)
VOICE TWO:
THIS IS AMERICA was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by
Caty Weaver. This is Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another
report about life in the United States, in Special English, on the
Voice of America.