World War I Scholar Kicks Off Unveiling of New Website
August 12, 2015 — Dr. Christopher Capozzola, author and associate professor of history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be the guest speaker from 7-9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24, in the Library Center auditorium, at the unveiling of a new World War I website, Over There: Missouri & the Great War, missourioverthere.org. The program is free and open to all ages.
Capozzola will discuss how WWI transformed the relationship between individual citizens and the federal government, and will use resources available to everyone now at missourioverthere.org.
Brian Grubbs, project director and manager of the Local History and Genealogy Department of the Springfield-Greene County Libraries, will provide an overview of the new website.
The vast, digital collection documents Missouri’s World War I history through soldiers’ stories, photographs and battle accounts.
The statewide, collaborative effort was possible through Library Services and Technology Act Digital Imaging grants from the Missouri State Library. Since 2012, staff from the Library, the Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, and the Museum of Osteopathic MedicineSM, , Kirksville, partnered to find and digitize all of the documents, artifacts and photographs housed in museums, archives, libraries and private family collections.
More than 14,000 pages of letters, diaries, photographs, military records, and other original materials have been placed online for free public access. Missourioverthere.org also features hundreds of artifacts from the war and civilian support organizations.
The First World War reshaped much of the modern world, and Missourians actively contributed to various aspects of the war effort. Missouri industries fulfilled military contracts to supply mules, munitions and other goods to Allied armies.
According to the Missouri State Archives, more than 156,000 Missourians served in the war. Prominent Missourians who fought in the war include Gens. John J. Pershing and Enoch Crowder, the future President Harry S Truman, and Walt Disney. The last surviving U.S. veteran from World War I, Frank Buckles, was a Missouri native.
For more information call 616-0534.