Ramsey County History – Summer 2017: “Can America Be Bombed? The St. Paul Science Museum’s Answer”

Can America Be Bombed? The St. Paul Science Museum’s Answer
Author: Brian McMahon

In the spring of 1941, the St. Paul Science Museum (predecessor to today’s Science Museum of Minnesota) opened an exhibit provocatively titled “Can America Be Bombed?” The museum’s president, Charles Lesley Ames, was alarmed by the military aggression of Adolf Hitler and wanted to educate the public about the potential danger that the Axis nations posed for the United States. The director of the museum, Dr. Lewis Powell, oversaw the development of this innovative exhibit, which included specially constructed globes that used new mapping technologies and a patented mount for supporting a globe so that it could be moved about a plurality of axes. The exhibit was then publicly displayed not only in the Twin Cities but also in select cities around the nation, including Washington, DC. Although the oceans still separated the United States from Europe and Asia, this exhibit demonstrated that America’s physical isolation from possible aerial attack was about to end.
PDF of McMahon article