In April 1917, the United States became a participant in the First World War. This month Odum Library offers displays and exhibits of books and government documents related to World War I.
Be on the lookout for a front circulation desk display of materials about World War I, ranging from history to fiction to poetry to art to juvenile literature to films. In the Reference area, the government documents display case features an exhibit of government documents related to World War I.
For more information and artifacts about what was known as the Great War, see this online campaign atlas hosted by the history department of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The U.S. Department of Defense commemorates the U.S. entry into the war with the article World War I: Building the Military.
The Library of Congress offers extensive online materials about World War I, including military diaries and papers, maps, sound recordings, sheet music, posters, photographs, and newspaper archives. For instance, you can hear the voices of Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John J. Pershing through preserved recordings. More than 1400 posters published between 1914 and 1920 are available through the World War I Poster Collection. Major American artists documented the war through their paintings, many of which are accessible online through the exhibit World War I: American Artists View the Great War.
Other artifacts related to the Great War are available through the National Archives and the Smithsonian, including this collection of laces made in Belgium during the war. For a first hand account of the war through the eyes of a soldier, you can view the letters of Second Lieutenant Charles Wesley Chapman, Jr., both in print in the library displays and online.
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