Museum diorama getting too old?

[major bill]

I did get the opportunity to see the Gettysburg Cyclorama. It was impressive. My society borrowed the visitor center one night after it was closed to the general public. We brought in a Civil War band and was allowed to visit the displays as well as viewing the Cyclorama.

 

[major bill]

Back at the Museum waiting for a school group. Here is what the kid like best, the casualties.

The flag by the Confederate dead has possibly faded?

 

[Cavalier]

Just an opinion but I have seen many dioramas that were much worse then that one. It may have some issues but, all things considered not to bad as older dioramas go.

As a kid of course, I would have loved it.

John

 

[Kurtlg]

Back at the Museum waiting for a school group. Here is what the kid like best, the casualties.
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The flag by the Confederate dead has possibly faded?

Maybe just remove the faded flag if you can't replace it

 

[7thWisconsin]

Is that dead Federal over the fence rail a Marx GI with a paintjob? I once read a very thoughtful article about how poignant and important it was that Marx included casualties. Even playing soldiers had consequences.

 

[Kurtlg]

Is that dead Federal over the fence rail a Marx GI with a paintjob? I once read a very thoughtful article about how poignant and important it was that Marx included casualties. Even playing soldiers had consequences.

I don't remember casualties with my Marx playsets but that was 60 years ago. Most of these look like they just had their bases cut off. I'll look up some images to refresh my memory. I do recall a cavalry trooper falling from his horse.

 

[7thWisconsin]

I don't remember casualties with my Marx playsets but that was 60 years ago. Most of these look like they just had their bases cut off. I'll look up some images to refresh my memory. I do recall a cavalry trooper falling from his horse.

My set must have been a bloodbath! There were 9 figures in some sort of distress: 2 falling forward and dropping their muskets (one in each color plastic), 2 sprawled on the ground holding their heads (same), 2 sitting up heavily bandaged (one of each) and 2 lying on the stretcher all busted up (also one of each). The 9th one was an officer/cavalryman falling forward bent backward. That may be the same as the falling horseman figure, but on a single base.

 

[Kurtlg]

My set must have been a bloodbath! There were 9 figures in some sort of distress: 2 falling forward and dropping their muskets (one in each color plastic), 2 sprawled on the ground holding their heads (same), 2 sitting up heavily bandaged (one of each) and 2 lying on the stretcher all busted up (also one of each). The 9th one was an officer/cavalryman falling forward bent backward. That may be the same as the falling horseman figure, but on a single base.

I remember the stretcher bearer. You may have gotten the deluxe set with more figures. I think Sears sold 2 or 3 versions. I think I got the smaller but I also got a WW2 Pacific set . That was small but I liked that one too.

 

[MAJOR DUNDEE]

They do still exist I think, under differents packaging or names , but "Marx"(...) still sells some sets, and even US made ones (they purchase a not so bad WW2 Japanese infantry).
I recognize on this diorama some Revell/Accurate figures, some from Timpo, and a few ugly Bmc's (?), the rest are unknow to me.

 

[R. Porter]

Is that dead Federal over the fence rail a Marx GI with a paintjob? I once read a very thoughtful article about how poignant and important it was that Marx included casualties. Even playing soldiers had consequences.

That is a GI that is being carried (fireman style?) over the shoulder of a guy wearing a helmet. It was decades before I realized that. I thought the wounded guy was lying over a fence or wall and the carrying guy was a paratrooper winding up his parachute lines so the chute wouldn't get blown away by the wind. There was the slight problem that he wasn't wearing a parachute harness and pack, but I figured that he had taken it off. You can release the harness by rotating the dial on the center buckle and punching it. That releases all four straps at once. When I learned the truth I had to go look for my old soldiers to see if they fit together. I would never have known if I hadn't gotten a giant book on American toy soldiers. Later I got one on foreign toy soldiers too.

 

[R. Porter]

Absolutely !

If not for dioramas, I'm not sure I would have been interested in any history.
(and I'm not just referring to the American Civil War).

As a child, a local museum had a diorama about De Soto's "discovery" of the Mississippi River during the 1500's.
The exhibit had rather large figures of Spanish troops in plate armor and chainmail.

Was it 100 % accurate ?
Of course not.

Did the diorama spark our imagination ?
Indeed.

Such exhibits inspired many of us kids to check out the true facts as we
became older.

Everyone liked the wax museum in DC when we took our class trip in 5th grade. Especially the scene at the Alamo.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Everyone liked the wax museum in DC when we took our class trip in 5th grade. Especially the scene at the Alamo.

At some point, many of my Marx GIs went missing, but I still have a few. The 2-man team with the guy in the helmet carrying the other (the one in the diorama) is, ironically, one of those remaining. It´s actually a pretty well-designed group. The wounded man stays on his shoulder, and they stand up on the base without propping them up with something else. You can also slip the M1919 or the bazooka over his shoulder if you want to make him carry something else instead.
I remember that DC wax museum fondly! The Alamo... the St Valentine´s Day Massacre... MacArthur returning to the Philippines. Great scenes! The 4 Chaplains tableau really affected me. The dark room with the sound effects and the boat swaying. I think it was a little nudge on my own trip to being an Army Chaplain. When I talk about those 4 even to this day, that scene stays in my mind.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Rochester Institute of Technology
RIT Digital Institutional Repository
Theses
4-2020

New Technology for Old Models: Can Dioramas Resonate with a Modern Audience?
Carmen Ibis Lopez

This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the RIT Libraries. For more information, please contact
[email protected].

Abstract
This thesis uses visitor studies from the Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC) to investigate whether dioramas are still a useful, resonant tool for visitor engagement and if they do fulfill this purpose, how do they do so. The case study is the newly revamped diorama Rochester in 1838: Young Lion of the West at the RMSC. This diorama, a 70-year-old model, has been mixed with modern Virtual Reality (VR) technology to create an experience that will provide the visitor with a new perspective on an old model. As context, this thesis uses the history of the diorama to show the evolution of exhibition in museums. It also discusses the literature about how VR technology engages contemporary audiences. In addition to visitor observation and surveys, this thesis also includes insights from an interview of an artist and the restorer of the RMSC's diorama. By comparing the artist's intentions to visitors' responses and lastly the museums expectations, this thesis will develop conclusions about the potential for the ongoing relevance of dioramas in museums. The visitor studies conducted for this thesis will also yield useful information to the RMSC for the development of a new VR vignette for the Rochester in 1838: Young Lion of the West diorama.

https://repository.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11572&context=theses

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[4thMichigan]

How many folks remember these awesome maps from Bruce Catton's American Heritage Pictorial History of the Civil War?? I got this book as a young teen and I'll say these maps did as much as anything to create a 40+ year passion for studying the CW. Many others have commented on how these maps changed their life, lol.

To me, these particular maps are just printed dioramas if you will. They draw younger folks in to where they can visualize the actual event. They can understand this much more than printed lines or printed text. So much more detail (even if not 100% accurate) than can be shown or told otherwise in a matter of minutes.

View attachment 500951

I'll have to admit that those books made a major impression on me as a young man. I can't begin to tell you how many "late charges" that I had to pay the library because of my resistance to giving them their book back.

 

[Pat Answer]

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Interestingly enough, the fight at the Parsonage (Wayne's Pennsylvanians vs British 2nd Grenadier Battalion) diorama was still there when last we went and seemed to still draw young folks…

Cool - or I should say Huzzah! - it's off to the side but still here.

 

[Marco 1975]

I build models too and there is nothing better then a good diorama. But it's also the most difficuld thing to do because every detail, paint-job must be right. A diorama can be as good as possible, one wrong detail gives a bad feeling. To " professionals ", childs visiting a museum don't care about that, just enjoy it. So do I, maybe because I never finished a " perfect " model or diorama, but I like them

 

[7thWisconsin]

I have to admit, when I view a diorama, I look for clever little details like how a common figure can be modded into something unique. I am interested especially in how to convert a standing figure into a somewhat convincing casualty figure. I never throw away left over bits from models because you never know when something from the junk box might be useable. I also have a big box of BMC Civil War guys and cowboys and indians for modding. Swap a head here, a hand with a pistol there, an arm with a musket and you can end up with something totally unique.

 

[Rhett Butler]

Pamplin Park visitors centre has (or had, as it is now very limited in it's opening hours if at all) dioramas in 10mm scale. The scale was 1 model = 1 man and so you got an idea of what a regiment really looked like and the problems of command and control both in battle and in action. A properly constructed diorama is worth a thousand words of narrative. The particular diorama that always aborbed me at Pamplin was a Union Regiment halted on a road while engineers were trying to retrieve an artillery caisson plus limber which had gone off the road and a wooden bridge and into a river. Nothing epic, no gore, no glorious charges just a visual treat of a military blunder ( I am guessing the artillery officer would have some explaining to do).
I have visited a number of battlefields and usually there have been dioramas . Mainly in larger scales 40mm or 54mm. The quality varies but they all create interest in history and that is what counts.

 

[Quantrill's Missouri]

I took my grandsons, aged 8 and 10, to Gettysburg last summer. They had a great time and really fixated on the Culp's Hill diorama in the visitors center. So much so that they ended up with some toy soldiers to take home. They are still playing with them along with shouts of 'bayonets!' and 'General, I have no division'.
So maybe spruce up your diorama a little bit and put some toy soldiers in the gift shop?

The grandsons are epic! Playing like that in 2024 is really something to behold. "General, I have no division" by boys that young should be an all time quote on this site!

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Here is what the kid like best, the casualties.

Giving field trips at my job I've seem that children can be strangely morbid sometimes.