Rosie the Riveter Trust seeks grants to support the visitor experience - especially for the curious young guests who visit. With support from the Fund for People in Parks in 2020, we installed an audio feature to the parks collection of life cast figures that are scattered in various poses throughout the visitor education center. This project breathes life into each of the figures by allowing visitors to hear their stories.
The visitor education center is full of information, most of which the information is shared through text, images, and film. This material may not be interesting or accessible to young children and parents wishing to engage them. The voices of the life cast figures, of kids, their parents, and others, describing life during the home front, provide a tangible connection for visitors and allow them to see themselves in this history. Parents and their kids can explore connections between how things were then and how things are today. What has changed? What remains the same? The scripts and audio recordings present a somewhat playful and casual point of view that is unlike other exhibits in the Visitor Education Center.