Cronkite: Eyewitness to a Century

University of Texas at Austin

Riggs Ward Design partnered with The LBJ Presidential Library and the Briscoe Center for American History (University of Texas at Austin) to design Cronkite: Eyewitness to a Century, an exhibit that brings Cronkite's personal and professional experiences to life, featuring never-before-seen items of one of the nation's preeminent journalists.

The exhibit features artifacts sensitively chosen from the collections of both the Cronkite family and the University of Texas at Austin. Included are letters, journals, newspapers, broadcast scripts, and some of his prized souvenirs from stories that he covered. Also on display are several of the many awards Cronkite won over the years, including multiple Emmys and a moon rock from NASA, as well as some tools of his trade, including a traveling typewriter, his correspondent uniform from World War II, and a stopwatch used to time rehearsals of scripts. Visitors can experience Cronkite's unmistakable voice and screen presence via the incorporation of footage of some of his most memorable broadcasts.

The exhibit is gaining national attention and praise, including that of Cronkite's longtime colleague, Bob Schieffer, who advised his viewers on Face the Nation to visit the Johnson Library after seeing the exhibit himself. "It's a fascinating experience, one of the best of the presidential libraries," he said, "and the Cronkite exhibit makes it even better."