Museum of American Exceptionalism
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Arsenal of Democracy

America out-built and out-supplied the world. A bomber an hour, a ship in four days, a city fed from the air.

1942–1948 · 7 exhibits
  1. Liberty ship slides down the ways at the Kaiser shipyard, Vancouver, Washington
    1942Open nowThe Four-Day Liberty ShipThe SS Robert E. Peary went from keel-laying to launch in four days and fifteen hours.4½days, keel to launch
  2. B-24E Liberator assembly lines at Ford's Willow Run plant, 1942
    1944Open nowWillow RunFord’s bomber plant outside Detroit, turning out a four-engine heavy bomber every hour at its peak.1B-24 per hour
  3. 1944Opening soonPenicillin for D-DayA mold that barely grew in a British lab became a mass-produced American drug in time for the Normandy landings.2.3Mdoses by D-Day
  4. Jack Aeby's color photograph of the Trinity fireball rising over the Jornada del Muerto, 16 July 1945.
    1945Open nowTrinity130,000 Americans built secret cities, the first reactor and the weapon that ended the Second World War.3years, start to finish
  5. Air Force C-47s in the unloading line at Tempelhof. In the first weeks of the airlift these small twin-engine transports carried everything from engine crates to milk bottles.
    1948Open nowThe Berlin AirliftStalin cut off West Berlin by land. American and British crews flew in its food and coal for almost eleven months until he gave up.2.3Mtons flown in
  6. 1948Opening soonThe Marshall PlanAmerica rebuilt the nations it had just fought for, and the ones it had fought against.$13Bto rebuild Europe
  7. 1958Opening soonNautilus Under the PoleThe world’s first nuclear submarine sailed beneath the Arctic ice cap and across the top of the world.90°Nunder the ice