History Museum Visit

Located on the coast of southern California is the city of La Jolla. Now home to almost 40,000 people, this city shares its own historical story from the past one hundred and fifty years through a series of presentations located within three historical structures. These three structures include, The Westeria Cottage, Carriage House and the Current Headquarters. Each structure contributes its portion in putting together the La Jolla’s Historical Society. Currently, the structures are featuring, Home front La Jolla : An American Community during World War 11. The series includes multiple rooms dedicated to different parts in history, along with the different aspects going on during the war. Each room featured many photographs, artifacts and personal stories to exploit the hardship of these times in our history. Many of these items were either donated or loaned by the Veterans Museum in Balboa Park and the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego. While researching for museums, early in February I came across the main website for these historical sites. It caught my eye because I knew that this exhibit would cast a different kind of perspective than other grand museums. There are a ton of histories on World War II, but there are very few on the home front experience. The La Jolla Historical Society presents a perspective from its society, and shares multiple personal oral stories from its own residents who lived through the war or their surviving relatives, which I found fascinating. It is catered specifically to the effects of World War II on La Jollians. The oral stories provided by this exhibit are not only about what these residents remember about World War II, but also an intake of what life was like beyond that. I viewed this as a much different approach, but was very excited to begin my experience because I knew it would be something new.

On April 7th, 2012, I took the opportunity to travel down to La Jolla and visit the museum. The museum