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OVERVIEW TEXT: The Springfield Armory museum's map handout has the National Park Service branding at the top of the front page. That is an inch-high black bar that extends across the full width of the document.
In white text, on top of this black bar, it reads: "Springfield Armory" in a large font size at the left, with a secondary and smaller font, positioned in the middle of the bar, stating in a stack of texts, "National Park Service," "U.S. Department of the Interior," and "Springfield Armory National Historic Site." At the right of the black bar is the iconic National Park Service logo in its brown "textured" form. This arrowhead-shaped logo, with the point down, comes in a variety of styles, but it always has the same basic elements.
Those are at top right, white text, "National Park Service." At left, a tall tree. At bottom, a white outline of a bison stands on a green field ending in a distant tree line, with a white lake outlined at right. A snow-capped mountain towers in the background of the scene.DESCRIBING: A horizontal black-and-white map of the interior of the Springfield Armory museum.
SYNOPSIS: The interior of the Springfield Armory museum is shown in a basic line drawing, with exhibit cases numbered and identified in a key below. The museum entrance is roughly in the center of the rectangle, as an opening the bottom line of the rectangle. Directly across from the entrance, adjacent to the long top line of the rectangle, is the Information Desk, showing that if a person enters the museum and keeps walking forward and straight, there are not obstacles in the way of reaching the Information Desk. In other words, it's a straight line to where National Park Service staff members will be stationed. There is no compass on this map, so the directions and descriptions below are all relational from the mid-point, where the entrance and the Information Desk are located. Instead of compass directions, the descriptions below will reference the top and bottom lines, which are the long sides of this rectangle, and the left and right lines, which are the short sides of this rectangle.
IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: From the mid-point of the map, in the middle of the rectangle, where the entrance opens up to the Information Desk directly ahead at the top, there are two accessible restrooms directly to the right of the entrance, with the men's room encountered first, and the women's room second in order. To the left of the entrance lobby, there is an unmarked and inaccessible room, which is the back of the theater, meaning that the visitor who enters the building will first encounter the restrooms on the right, with a closed wall on the left and a clear path forward that eventually will lead to the Information Desk. After passing the restrooms, on the right, the museum opens to a large open space in front of the Information Desk, where the Information Desk is straight ahead, and exhibit areas are available both to the right and to the left of this open area.
Thematically, with the entrance to the back of the visitor, the exhibits to the right focus on the Springfield Armory as an "Industry," and the exhibits to the left focus on the "Weapons" of the facility, although the "Lyle Gun" exhibit is an exception, as it is to the right of the Information Desk, in the Industry area.
This description first will describe the Industry section of the museum, to the right of the entrance, and then will describe the Weapons part of the museum, to the left.
In the Industry part of the museum, if the visitor turns to the right and faces the far wall to the right, the exhibits start with the "Lyle Gun," Shay's Rebellion, and the Growth of the Armory, along the top edge of the rectangle. A note on the map suggests "Start Here," at Shay's Rebellion. In the middle of this area there is an exhibit on "Machines" and a place for "Special Exhibits."
The numbered exhibits in this part of the room range from 1 to 17, and they start in the uppermost right corner, with 1, and then flow along that short wall down the rectangle to 8/9 in the bottom right corner, then flow back toward the entrance to 13/14, and then back up interior walls, adjacent to the Special Exhibits area, toward the original starting point at Shay's Rebellion.
The exhibits in this part of the space are labeled as:
Case 1 Fire!
Cases 2-4 Era of Handwork
Cases 5-6 Era of Waterpower
Cases 7-9 Era of Steam Power
Cases 10-11 Era of Electrical Power
Cases 12-14 Tests and Experiments
Cases 15-17 Making Guns
At the top of the rectangle, just to the left of the Information Desk, if you are facing it, is the Museum Store, and exhibits 27-38, plus the stray 73, cover the wall at the top of the rectangle, with 27 closest to the Museum Store and 38 on the far left wall of the "Weapons" section of the rectangle.
In the uppermost left corner of the building to the lowermost left corner of the rectangle are exhibits 39-58. Exhibits 59-64 fill the exterior wall at the bottom of the rectangle on this side. But exhibits 43-47 are held on interior walls, just below the Organ of Musekts on the rectangle. Exhibits 50-68 also are on a nearby interior wall, which also includes 72.
Labels for those exhibits include:
Cases 18-20 Springfield Armory & Harpers Ferry
Case 21 National Match Weapons
Cases 22-23 Birth of a Museum
Case 24 Mishaps
Cases 25-26 Personalized Weapons
Cases 27-28 Swords and Handguns
Cases 29-30 Evolution of Firearms
Cases 31-35 Production during the Civil War
Cases 36-39 Contract Arms
Cases 40-42 Confederate Weapons
Cases 43-46 Evolution of the Breechloader
Cases 47-48 Magazine Loaded Weapons
Cases 49-54 The 1903 “Springfield” Rifle
Cases 55-56 Foreign Weapons – World War I
Cases 57-59 Foreign Weapons – World War II
Cases 60-64 Development of the M1 Rifle
Cases 65-68 Search for Lightweight Weapons
Case 71 Pistols
Case 72 Plains Rifles
Case 73 The American Long Rifle
RELATED TEXT: The Springfield Armory Museum is divided into two areas. “INDUSTRY” presents the stories of pioneering manufacturing, inventors, and workers. “WEAPONS” presents the stories of United States military weapons development and Springfield Armory’s important contribution.
Displayed are examples of our Nation’s largest collection of experimental and standard U.S. military small arms. See developmental M1 “Garand” Rifles starting with the patent model and the “Organ of Muskets,” containing 645 original Civil War-era Springfield M1861 rifle Muskets, and made famous by Longfellow’s 1844 poem, “The Arsenal at Springfield.” The Museum is self-guided and starts at the Information Desk near the entrance to the main floor.
DESCRIBING: A circular Springfield Armory logo, in light gray, is placed behind the text on this map handout, providing a background texture for the map key.
DESCRIPTION: The words "Springfield Armory" dominate the top portion of this logo's ring shape. "Since 1794" is inscribed at the bottom. At the center, two crossed cannons form an X beneath a round cannonball, all set off by stylized flames rising from the top.
OVERVIEW TEXT: The back side of this map handout has information about an innovative 2014 exhibit at Springfield Armory's museum that was called "Steampunk Springfield Armory: Re-Imagining the Nation's Weaponry," March 23-September 22, 2014, which includes three complementary images of a historic handgun. The first is a photograph of the handgun as displayed. The second is a close-up photograph of that gun's trigger area. The third image is a hand-drawn and black-and-white illustration of the gun with its parts labeled.
RELATED TEXT: Blend history, technology and art and you end up with the wildly interesting exhibits of Steampunk. The exhibition features re-imagined weapons, drawings, and “humachines” paired with authentic weapons from the Armory’s historic weapons collection. Organized by Steampunk visionary, Bruce Rosenbaum.
DESCRIBING: A horizontal color photograph of a long-barrelled handgun, presented at a tilted angle, with the right corner of the image higher on the page than the left.
DESCRIPTION: A metallic handgun is mounted on a plank of wood. The gun consists of various metal rods and mechanical parts, evoking the look of a precision tool or a prototype. Its arrangement suggests a deliberate blend of engineering and craftsmanship. The gun points to the viewer's left, with its long, chrome-colored cylindrical rod projecting from a cluster of mechanical components resembling gears, levers, and circular elements, mounted together in an industrial style. The gun is fastened to the wood with a thin black support pole holding up the barrell and with the handle attached at its base. The background of the image is empty, showing just a pale gray.
DESCRIBING: A horizontal color photograph, showing the trigger area of a handgun.
DESCRIPTION: A shiny, metallic, and mechanical collection of levers, screws, and other types of metal parts emphasize the machinery of a handgun, around its trigger area. This gun points to the viewer's left. A short, metal cylinder, which is the chamber of the revolver, and the trigger below it, are primary cues about this machine's purpose. The right side of the contraption features a flat, curving metal piece with two circular holes, near the back edge, but because of the framing of the photograph, it's not clear why they are there. In the lower center, a dark, curved element with a bolt, which is the handle, extends downward. The overall effect is a focus on the shapes and textures of the parts, rather than the purpose and shape of a gun. The background is empty and white.
DESCRIBING: A horizontal black-and-white illustration of a handgun assembled primarily from household objects, such as sewing machine parts.
DESCRIPTION: The illustration shows a long-barrelled handgun, created by affixing various ordinary objects and machinery components together. The base of the sculpture is a thick wooden plank. Items such as a wood plane handle, sewing machine parts, and an electrical conduit coupling are combined to form the firearm. The parts are labeled by handwritten notes, such as "Wood Plane Handle," followed by "358 Magnum Chamber," then "Electrical Conduit Coupling." About midway, another label points to a section called "Sewing Machine Shuttles." The assemblage grows bulkier and more intricate around the trigger, with gears and rounded metal parts labeled "Sewing Machine Parts," presenting a handgun’s rotary portion and trigger mechanism. The central barrel is supported by a bracket above the plank. The background is plain and light, with the labels written in capital letters and arrows pointing to corresponding parts. In the lower margin, "HANDGUN" is written in blocky script at left, and "Michael Ulman 2013" appears at right.
For more information, you can contact the Springfield Armory National Historic Site via email at: spar_interpretation@nps.gov, via phone at: 413-734-8551, or via the park website at: www.nps.gov/spar.