(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm SteveEmber.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Phoebe Zimmermann. Come along with us this week as wevisit some unusual museums in the United States.

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

A nineteen-sixteen Packard funeral bus. The Mercedes that carriedthe body of Princess Grace of Monaco in nineteen-eighty-two. A copyof the sarcophagus container that held the body of King Tutankhamenof Egypt. These are some of what visitors find at the NationalMuseum of Funeral History, near Houston, Texas.

Some people like traditional collections of artwork and otherobjects in a museum. Millions visit the Smithsonian museums inWashington, D.C., for example. But other people like smaller museumsthat collect one kind of object.

Museum goers can learn about funerals, foods, the lives ofactors, the history of radio ... even teeth.

VOICE TWO:

Most people would not consider avisit to a dentist their idea of a good time. But the Doctor SamuelD. Harris National Museum of Dentistry does not drill or pull teeth.Instead, it just tells about them.

The museum is at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Thefirst college to train dentists began there. A man named G.V. Blackhelped launch the profession in the eighteen-hundreds. When DoctorBlack treated patients, he had no electric light. Most dentaloffices in those early times had big windows instead. Chairs forpatients faced south to help dentists work by sunlight.

Looking at devices once used to remove infected teeth shouldpleases visitors. They should be happy that dentists no longer usethem.

VOICE ONE:

One set of false teeth in the museum is of special interest. Itis made of animal bone. America's first president, GeorgeWashington, wore these false teeth. They look as though they mighthave hurt.

The museum also has a huge toothbrush in an exhibit called"Plaque Attackers." Visitors can use the toothbrush on a huge mouth.The mouth shows how plaque bacteria can damage the teeth. Childrenlearn how to keep their teeth clean.

VOICE TWO:

Another museum collects devices that help people hear. Some areold, and some are new. The Kenneth W. Berger Hearing Aid Museum isat Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The museum has more thanthree-thousand hearing aids from around the world. Some hearing aidswere designed to look like other objects. These devices were forpeople who did not want anyone to know they were wearing a hearingaid.

Here is how this museum got started. In nineteen-sixty-six, aprofessor at Kent State answered some questions for a publicationnow called Hearing Journal. Professor Kenneth Berger told the editorthat he would like to show some hearing aids in the Speech andHearing Clinic at the school. But the published story said he wanteda museum of hearing aids.

VOICE ONE:

Soon Professor Berger began to receive old hearing aids. Theyarrived from all over the United States and from other countries. Aman in Massachusetts sent more than five-hundred hearing aids.Professor Berger and his wife kept the growing collection in theirhome. Then, enough space opened at the university for his collectionto become a real museum.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Some popular foods in America also have their own museum. One isthe Jell-O Museum in LeRoy, New York.

Some Jell-O products taste like fruit. They come in colors likered, orange, yellow or green. You add water to make it from powder.Then you cool the liquid gelatin until it becomes solid. People liketo watch how it shakes when moved. Jell-O was invented ineighteen-ninety-seven. This museum tells about the history of theproduct.

VOICE ONE:

Another museum also tells about a popular food product --mustard. This museum is in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Mustard is aspicy substance made from mustard seeds. People have added it totheir food for centuries. It tastes good on some meats and on bread.

The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum has more than three-thousand kindsof mustard. These come from almost every one of the fifty states andseveral other countries. The museum shows how mustard is made.Visitors can taste three-hundred kinds of mustard. But it isprobably not a good idea to try them all at once.

VOICE TWO:

A museum in Boston, Massachusetts, collects another commonsubstance, but not one you would want to eat. This place is calledthe Museum of Dirt. It has hundreds of small containers of soil,sand and other dirt. People have given the museum dirt from aroundthe world.

For example, the museum has dirt from Graceland, the home ofElvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee. There is red sand from Nome,Alaska, containing gold. There is also dirt from Mount Fuji inJapan.

(MUSIC BRIDGE)

VOICE ONE:

Some museum collections are about the lives of famous people. Amuseum in Branson, Missouri, honors Roy Rogers and his wife, DaleEvans. Roy Rogers was called the "King of the Cowboys." He appearedin cowboy movies beginning in the nineteen-thirties. He laterappeared on television.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans entertained people for more than a halfa century. People in movies were not supposed to kiss when these twofirst appeared on film. So Roy kissed his horse.

The museum is full of memories of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.There are western hats and clothing. Photographs. Letters andrecordings. A statue of Roy Rogers' horse, Trigger, stands outsidethe museum. Inside the museum are mounted versions of Trigger, DaleEvans' horse Buttermilk and their dog Bullet, a German shepherd.They were among the most famous animals ever to appear in Hollywoodmovies.

VOICE TWO:

Another museum honors the memoryof two other entertainers, Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz.The Lucy-Desi Museum is in Jamestown, New York. That was herhometown. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz appeared in one of America'sbest-loved television programs, "I Love Lucy." Millions of peoplewatched the show during the nineteen-fifties. Even today, millionswatch repeats of "I Love Lucy." The museum includes clothing andother belongings of this famous Hollywood couple.

VOICE ONE:

Still another museum claims the world's largest collection ofobjects about the actor James Dean. The James Dean Gallery is inFairmount, Indiana, the town where he grew up.

James Dean was a film star in the nineteen-fifties. He appearedin only three movies: "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and"Giant." Each time, he played a young man angry at the world.

A man named David Loehr started the museum twelve years ago tohonor the actor. The image and memory of James Dean as a rebelagainst society remains strong long after his death. James Dean waskilled in a car crash in nineteen-fifty-five. He was twenty-fouryears old.

VOICE TWO:

From movies, we turn to radio. The development of this medium isthe subject of a museum in Bedford, New Hampshire. It is called theUnited States National Marconi Museum.

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor and engineer. He sentthe first wireless telegraph message over the Atlantic Ocean innineteen-oh-one. The signal reached from Cornwall, England, to SaintJohn's, Canada.

VOICE ONE:

Visitors to the Marconi Museum learn about early wirelessequipment. This invention more than proved its value at sea. Innineteen-oh–nine, it saved many lives from a sinking ship, theRepublic. In nineteen-twelve, the crew of the Titanic appealed forhelp after that ship struck an iceberg.

Visitors can discover how radios have changed over the years. Oneset from the nineteen-thirties, for example, is tall and wide.Modern children may be surprised to see no picture screen. But inthe nineteen thirties radios could tell wonderful stories.

They still can.

(THEME)

VOICE TWO:

THIS IS AMERICA was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced byCaty Weaver. This is Phoebe Zimmermann.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherreport about life in the United States, in Special English, on theVoice of America.