The Museumgoer podcast

In his new book "Preserving the Legacy: Creating theNational WWII Museum," Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, cofounder of the museum with historian Stephen E. Ambrose and now its president and CEO emeritus, recounts in great detail how the road to today’s massive museum campus waspocked with craters.

The decade-plus quest by Ambrose and Mueller to navigate the National D-Day Museum, an inaugural incarnation, toward its opening 25 years ago was a story of tireless networking, courting of political support both locally and nationally, and fundraising, the retelling of which “getsboring to people,” Mueller said, but “it’s part of the story of how the museum was built.”

The book’s longtime working title, Mueller jokes, was "An Unlikely Story. "

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

A visit with Ross Patterson, curator of the exhibit "On American Shores," on view at the National WWII Museum through January 11, 2026.

Images accompanying the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

Staged at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the exhibit is on view through September 21, 2025. Our guides are co-curators Uyen Dinh and Selina McKane.

Images that accompany the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

A conversation with Amanda M. Maples, Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. "New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations" is on view through August 10, 2025.

The exhibit, which will tour several American and African locations once its NOMA run concludes, is a model of cross-continental collaboration. Organized by NOMA and the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar, Senegal, its planning team was led by Maples with co-curators Jordan A. Fenton (Miami University, Ohio), Lisa Homann (UNC Charlotte), artist Hervé Youmbi and core collaborator Aimé Kantoussan (Musée des Civilisations Noires). 

Images from the exhibit are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the new Historic New Orleans Collection exhibit "Making It Home: From Vietnam to New Orleans," on view through October 5, tells the half-century history of the local Vietnamese community.

Interview subjects are Mark Cave, senior historian and the exhibit's curator, and Candy Ellison, who designed the exhibit's interactive elements.

Images to accompany the conversation can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

The traveling exhibition is on view at the free Newcomb Art Museum on the Tulane University campus through June 20, 2025. This episode features interviews with curator Laurie Ann Farrell and Maurita Poole, executive director of the Newcomb Art Museum.

Images accompanying the conversation can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

An in-gallery interview with artist and educator Keith Duncan and Bradley Sumrall, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art's curator of the collection. The topic is the new exhibition "Battle of the Bands," capturing, in paint and fabric, heroically stylized performers from 15 Historically Black College and University marching bands.

Images accompanying the podcast are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

A visit to the New Orleans Jazz Museum with David Kunian, music curator. The first exhibit covers Louis Armstrong's youth in and later visits to his hometown. The second exhibit offers an overview of Louisiana's blues styles and purveyors.

Images to accompany the conversation are on the blog at themuseumgoer.com

A podcast visit to the National WWII Museum exhibit "Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in World War II" with Cory Graff, museum curator and restoration manager.

Images accompanying the podcast can be found on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.

A conversation with Joyce A. Miller, Louisiana State Museum historian and the curator of "Billy Cannon: They Called Him Legend," now on view at the Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge.

Accompanying images on the blog at themuseumgoer.com.