“Preserving the Legacy: Creating the National WWII Museum”

The decade-plus quest by Stephen E. Ambrose and Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller to navigate the National D-Day Museum, an inaugural incarnation, toward its opening 25 years ago next week was a story of tireless networking, courting of political support both locally and nationally, and fundraising, the retelling of which “gets boring to people,” Mueller said, but “it’s part of the story of how the museum was built.” 

Preserving the Legacy: Creating the National WWII Museum is a new book by Mueller, now the museum’s president and CEO emeritus.

Its longtime working title, Mueller jokes, was An Unlikely Story.  

I interviewed Mueller for a June 1 story in the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate (read it here). Our full conversation is a new episode of the Museumgoer Podcast (listen here). To preview the museum’s 25th anniversary events, Keith Spera of nola.com interviewed Stephen Watson, current president and CEO (read it here). Susan Larson interviewed Mueller for WWNO’s “The Reading Life” (listen here).

Photos accompanying the podcast conversation, focusing primarily on the Liberation Pavilion, are below. Above images courtesy of Louisiana State University Press. 

Thanks to Nick, and to you for reading and maybe listening. 

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