Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller

Preserving the Legacy offers a comprehensive and compelling look at the founding and first two decades of The National WWII Museum, now one of the largest and most immersive military museums in the United States. Before its inception, friends and historians Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller and Stephen E. Ambrose recognized the need for an institution dedicated to preserving the oral histories of WWII veterans and the history of World War II more generally. Their efforts resulted in the opening of the D-Day Museum on June 6, 2000. With funding from the federal government, the state of Louisiana, and numerous individuals—including actor Tom Hanks and director Steven Spielberg—the Museum rapidly expanded. Following Ambrose's death in 2002, the U. S. Congress designated the institution as "America's National World War II Museum." Today it consists of seven separate pavilions that span the entirety of the war and boasts several multifaceted educational programs, many of which are held in the Museum's Higgins Hotel and Conference Center. Its twenty-five-year history is one of remarkable success. Preserving the Legacy begins with a foreword by famed journalist and longtime champion of the Museum Tom Brokaw. Nick Mueller then narrates the growth of the Museum, detailing its leadership and the various intellectual challenges involved in accurately portraying the scale of wartime sacrifice and loss. He traces the development, deliberations, and decisions of the many boards and committees that helped transform the embryonic institution into a sprawling museum complex in the heart of New Orleans. Far surpassing the modest intentions of its founders, The National WWII Museum not only provides today's visitors with authentic historical context but also will serve as a valuable educational resource for generations to come.

As the second-most visited museum in the United States, The National WWII Museum attracts hundreds of thousands of patrons every year to its campus in New Orleans. Guests can tour its extensive permanent galleries and embedded multimedia displays, view special or traveling exhibits, dine in one of the two on-site restaurants, and stay at the facility's hotel, The Higgins Hotel & Conference Center. But today's sprawling complex had its start on a more modest scale, opening as The National D-Day Museum on June 6, 2000, the fifty-sixth anniversary of D-Day and the Allied landing at Normandy. Historian Stephen E. Ambrose spearheaded efforts to construct the Museum, in part as a place to gather the many hundreds of oral histories and artifacts he had collected for a book project. Attendance surged after the kickoff, and his friend, fellow historian, and collaborator on the project, Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller, secured U. S. congressional designation in 2004, acknowledging the institution as America's official museum dedicated to the Second World War. This recognition initiated a 245,000-square-foot expansion to realize the Museum's Master Plan, incorporating immersive, story-driven exhibits and architectural features meant to unify the growing campus. Building The National WWII Museum, by Mueller and research historian Kali Martin Schick, tells the story of the Museum's remarkable progress, from its early days as The National D-Day Museum to the unveiling of the Museum's final section, the Liberation Pavilion, in November 2023. As Mueller and Schick take readers on this decades-long journey, they highlight the exhibits, grand openings, and numerous benefactors who helped bring The National WWII Museum to life. This beautiful book—with 175 images and renderings, many never seen before by the public—not only showcases the Museum's development as envisioned in the 2004 Master Plan but also documents its important and ongoing mission of celebrating the American spirit and the teamwork, optimism, courage, and sacrifice of the men and women who won World War II.