Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
In this free online lecture Dr Douglas Lantry reflects on the National Museum of the U.S. Force’s first 100 years.
Talk Outline
What lessons do the past 100 years offer in the museology of air power, and what does the future hold? From an American perspective, this talk will recount the development since 1923 of the National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF), which today is the world’s largest military aviation museum.
The lecture will juxtapose core museum functions—collecting, preserving, displaying, interpreting, and studying—with our institutional obligation to be simultaneously a museum, a memorial, an attraction, and a government organization.
Since its founding in 1923, museum methodologies and the military intent for this institution have changed a great deal. Tracing change through war, peace, lean years, and growth periods shows a particular museological path that defines the present-day NMUSAF.
The conflicts and cultural change of the Cold War and more recent conflicts have guided our development in resonance with our service’s history, resulting in greater recent focus on humanitarian operations and emergent technologies, and on greater rank, race, and gender equity in storytelling.
For the future, the shifting interplay of varying and multiple needs and emphases points to new possibilities in air and space power museology as we adopt the U.S. Space Force as a new service and experiment with new forms of exhibits and new ways to engage the public.
The experience of 100 years gives the USAF’s national museum a unique perspective as we celebrate our centenary and offers fruitful contexts for dialog among international museum professionals, historians, and visitors interested in the material history of air and space power.
About Douglas Lantry
Dr. Doug Lantry has been a curator at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, USA, since 2000, and serves as the museum’s historian.
His curatorial focus areas include space and missiles, strategic nuclear deterrence, the First World War, the Korean War, and the Southeast Asia War.
He received his Ph.D. in the History of Technology with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware as a fellow in the UD-Hagley Program in the History of American Industrialization.
He also is a retired U.S. Air Force Reserve historian, serving at Headquarters U.S. Air Force and U.S. Strategic Command, and with deployments in support of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.
This lecture was first broadcast on the RAF Museum's Crowdcast Channel in 2023
In this free online lecture Dr Douglas Lantry reflects on the National Museum of the U.S. Force’s first 100 years.
Talk Outline
What lessons do the past 100 years offer in the museology of air power, and what does the future hold? From an American perspective, this talk will recount the development since 1923 of the National Museum of the United States Air Force (NMUSAF), which today is the world’s largest military aviation museum.
The lecture will juxtapose core museum functions—collecting, preserving, displaying, interpreting, and studying—with our institutional obligation to be simultaneously a museum, a memorial, an attraction, and a government organization.
Since its founding in 1923, museum methodologies and the military intent for this institution have changed a great deal. Tracing change through war, peace, lean years, and growth periods shows a particular museological path that defines the present-day NMUSAF.
The conflicts and cultural change of the Cold War and more recent conflicts have guided our development in resonance with our service’s history, resulting in greater recent focus on humanitarian operations and emergent technologies, and on greater rank, race, and gender equity in storytelling.
For the future, the shifting interplay of varying and multiple needs and emphases points to new possibilities in air and space power museology as we adopt the U.S. Space Force as a new service and experiment with new forms of exhibits and new ways to engage the public.
The experience of 100 years gives the USAF’s national museum a unique perspective as we celebrate our centenary and offers fruitful contexts for dialog among international museum professionals, historians, and visitors interested in the material history of air and space power.
About Douglas Lantry
Dr. Doug Lantry has been a curator at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, USA, since 2000, and serves as the museum’s historian.
His curatorial focus areas include space and missiles, strategic nuclear deterrence, the First World War, the Korean War, and the Southeast Asia War.
He received his Ph.D. in the History of Technology with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware as a fellow in the UD-Hagley Program in the History of American Industrialization.
He also is a retired U.S. Air Force Reserve historian, serving at Headquarters U.S. Air Force and U.S. Strategic Command, and with deployments in support of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.
This lecture was first broadcast on the RAF Museum's Crowdcast Channel in 2023
