Science and Industry Museum

We went to Chicago last weekend for Sutton's birthday present.  She requested to go to the Science and Industry Museum and the American Girl Store to pick out something from us and with some of the birthday money she was given.  It was cold, rainy and snowy, but we still had a good time.  Not a bad time to be in a museum all day when it's yucky outside!  We're checking off all the museums and hope to  visit them all.

We drove up Friday and played in the pool/hot tub in the hotel before going to dinner.

After dinner, we went to the American Girl Store.  Sutton & Kerrigan brought their dolls (Kaya and Bitty Baby).  A nice guy even repaired some of their little 'booboos'.

I didn't get an outside picture of the museum, so I took this one from the website.  It's a very old museum and some of the exhibits have been there since the 30s.  Very cool!  I didn't get pictures of everything, because there was just too much and because my camera battery died.  There was a very sad, but very interesting and neat to see, exhibit of embryos, fetuses and babies at prenatal stages from 28 days to 38 weeks.  

A collection of 24 real human embryos and fetuses.
Originally donated to the Museum in 1939, the collection has been newly interpreted in a darkened gallery to allow for quiet reflection upon Your Beginning.  

Collected in the 1930s by Dr. Helen Button with help from local hospitals, Prenatal Development contains specimens from the difficult times of the Great Depression. To the best of [the museum's] knowledge, all failed to survive because of accidents or natural causes. Dr. Button obtained the parents’ permission to use these specimens as teaching tools.

  It was sad and a little eerie, because they didn't live, but very neat to see every stage in reality.

So many very neat exhibits!  Real planes (even a 727), trains, cars, storms....

We toured a replica of a coal mine from the 30s.  Very interesting and sad how hard these men and boys worked with so much danger, very little pay, black lung, hearing loss from all the noise, being underground 12 hours a day 6 days a week!....

riding and milking a plastic cow :) in the farm tech area.  We didn't spend much time here, because we have all the stuff they had there in our backyard.

An old fire carriage

Model T

One of the first cars (1908 Stoddard Dayton) and the second two are both race cars - the first race car was an Alfa Romeo from 1930 and the second is a Lola Racing Car from 1972.  

A lot changed in 42 years.

In the circus section.  The circus was a big deal back in the day.

Fun Mirrors

This was all of our favorite part.  Also a very sad part, but very informative.  The exhibit gave a taste of what life was like during WWII and we got to tour the only captured German UBoat.  

All the red ships represent Allied ships sunk by UBoats -- over 1100 just in 1942!

Navy recruiting signs from the time.  

It was sobering to feel a little of what it was like to live during those times.  

The German Submarine U-505

Boarded and captured on June 4, 1944 off Cape Blanco, French West Africa, by task group 22.3 of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.  This is the only German submarine ever boarded and captured at sea, and the first foreign man-o-war captured by the U.S. Navy since 1815.  This capture helped the Allies greatly in their war efforts!  Captain Dan Gallery led the capture and made sure it was donated to the museum rather than being used for target practice.  He was from Chicago.  These were some very brave men!

The hard work wasn't over after the capture, either.  The secret had to be kept and they had to get the sub somewhere safe.  A quote from Capt. Gallery "When it was touch and go whether the sub would remain afloat, Commander Earl Trosino spent hours down in the bilges, crawling around in the oily water under the engines, tracing pipelines and closing valves to make the boat watertight.  He risked his life many times by squirming into inaccessible corners under the floor plates where he wouldn't have a chance to escape in case the sub started to sink.  Thanks to Trosino's uncanny instinct for finding the right valves, and his total disregard of his own safety, we succeeded in saving the U-505." 

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the sub, so here is one from the website.  Notice the tiny bunks and that some of those bunks are right next to the torpedos.  And, if you want to read more about this capture, which we found very interesting, you can learn more here.  It was very interesting going thru the sub.  They reenact the capture and all the sounds, lights, etc. of the daily life on the boat.  They'd be on the boat for 90 days at a time with no shower, no laundry, a teeny kitchen and sharing teeny beds and sheets!

The enigma captured with the boat!

There were miniature replicas of ships from hundreds of years ago.

An old train

Huge model train from Chicago to Seattle showing how the railroads operate and how it was/is essential to moving food, people, and freight where they need to go.  

The Space area.  We watched the landing on the moon and so much more

It was a great museum and we could go back and see more.  We were there all day and still didn't see everything!  Very educational and interesting!  The kids all loved it, too!

After the museum, we met some friends that live in Chicago with whom Doug went to college -- Mike, Daisy and Jack -- for dinner.  It was good to see them again (and meet Jack), since the last time we saw them about five years ago.

We spent a few hours the next day, with my 88 year old Great Aunt Penny who lives in Park Ridge.  We took her to lunch and enjoyed seeing her again.  I'm so sad I forgot to get a picture with her, but we'll see her again on another Chicago trip.