History Day - Military & Events

Mr. Drury’s talk is part of the State Library and Museum of Connecticut History’s Third Thursday Brownbag Lunchtime Speaker series and is part of the State Library’s multi-year commemoration of the Great War. This series features a variety of speakers on various aspects of Connecticut history. David Drury has been a journalist for thirty-seven years. He retired as an editor at the Hartford Courant in 2008 and continues to contribute regularly to the newspaper and its website. Drury majored in modern European history at the University of Virginia and continued on with graduate study at the University of North Carolina. A lifelong student of history, he has written on various topics of historic interest for the Courant and ConnecticutHistory.org. This is his first book.

Highlights information gathered by George Godard, and later by Remembering World War I. Points out strength of state library's collection.

CRIS Radio, the IDEAL Group, and the Connecticut State Library (CSL) are working together on a collaborative pilot project to improve access to archival records and historical documents for individuals who are blind or unable to read due to other disabilities. This partnership will integrate CRIS Radio's recordings of historical primary documents archived by the Connecticut State Library’s World War I collections with IDEAL Group’s eReading and Knowledge-Discovery online and Web-based technology, a tool that will significantly improve searching historical primary source documents. This new online technology will be available for free to the participating audiences through the CSL and CRIS Web sites. This pilot is funded by a $64,044 grant awarded by National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate that archival records and historical documents can be made accessible to anyone, including people who are blind or have a range of print disabilities, by utilizing new technology tools coupled with human narration. Audio versions of the selected documents narrated with the appropriate emotion and proper syntax will be available as podcasts. Knowledge mining technology will offer online searching capabilities that enable students and researchers to quickly identify specific documents within archival collections. This new online tool will allow individuals to access the archives with a computer or mobile device, including a smartphone, tablet or e-book. The collaboration will feature the CSL’s World War I collections, including: letters to home; diaries; servicemen's war record questionnaires; state-produced pamphlets and; front page newspaper accounts during the war. The podcasts and knowledge-mining tool will be made available online on the Web sites of CRIS Radio and CSL’s World War I Web site.

Most of the photographs in the Dudley collection are of war-related activities in Hartford during 1917-1919. All are believed to have been donated by William G. Dudley, a commercial photographer located on Main Street, Hartford during the war years. The subjects of the World War I photographs include the induction and embarkation of Connecticut soldiers, prominent Hartford citizens, military reviews, parades, Liberty Loan bond drives, Red Cross activities and armistice celebrations. Material of similar content is found in the Crocker Collection (RG69:002). Photographs attributed to Dudley can be found in the Crocker Group, while some pictures in the Dudley Collection were taken by another Hartford photographer, Frank Chudoba. Crocker, Dudley and Chudoba were all associated with the Hartford Courant. Many of the photographs in the Dudley Collection can be found printed in the Hartford Courant and citations are provided where applicable. In 1977 all of the negatives were placed in acid-free envelopes and 460 of the 573 glass plate negatives were printed. There were also 244 nitrate film negatives of Connecticut soldiers on the Mexican Front in 1916 which were digitized in 2014.

VHP description: "It was the coming-of-age war for the United States, and for the men who served in combat overseas, it provided a sobering lesson in the realities of twentieth-century warfare. Barrages of immense artillery shells snuffed out lives by the thousands, trenches filled with water and rats and worse were home for months on end to weary soldiers, and geographical orientation was often impossible. Though Americans had a sense that the tide had turned with their arrival, the sense of certain victory remained a rumor until the very end."

Site: "This online collection includes the complete seventy-one-week run of The Stars and Stripes World War I edition. The Stars and Stripes was published in France by the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) of the United States Army from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919."

Site: "The recordings fall into two distinct series. The 1918 series was devoted mostly to World War I topics and was apparently distributed only to political organizations and other groups. The notable exception is the recording of General John Pershing (with Ambassador James Gerard speaking on the reverse side), which was sold commercially. All of the recordings from the 1918 series were pressed on ten-inch discs. The 1919-1920 series was devoted mostly to postwar issues and the 1920 presidential election. Recordings in this series were released at a rate of two per month, one Republican and one Democrat. The recordings were pressed on twelve inch discs and sold for two dollars each. With two exceptions, the reverse side of the records in both series consisted of patriotic music, usually a march. These selections are not duplicated here. "

LOC: "This vast online collection of World War I era newspaper clippings is from a single unique source: the 400-volume, 80,000-page set, World War History: Daily Records and Comments as Appeared in American and Foreign Newspapers, 1914-1926. Beginning with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 and extending to the November 11, 1918 armistice and years after, the clippings yield significant information about the political, social, cultural, and economic impact of the war as it is taking place and its aftermath. The clippings cover far beyond the valuable contemporary news reports and contain war-related editorials, features, cartoons, photos, maps, and more. Front pages and full-page features of New York City newspapers are frequently presented, while many newspapers from around the country and some foreign ones are represented through clipped individual articles and cartoons."

WWI and WWII

Be sure to check the second page, linked on the left menu.
Library of Congress (LOC): "Established in 1881, the American Red Cross became a major humanitarian organization during World War I. This guide provides access to material related to the "American Red Cross in WWI" in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers."

Site: "The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material related to World War I, including posters, photographs, manuscripts, newspapers, films, sheet music, and sound recordings. This guide compiles links to World War I resources throughout the Library of Congress website. In addition, this guide provides links to external websites focusing on World War I and a bibliography containing selections for both general and younger readers."
"Furthermore, as part of our commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. involvement in World War I, the Library of Congress has created a World War I portal to its extensive holdings on the subject of the war. This page also includes WWI-related content for teachers, blog postings, and details on lectures, programs, concerts and symposia related to the conflict."

Library of Congress (LOC) research guide: "Two shots in Sarajevo ignited the fires of war and drew Europe toward World War I. This guide provides access to materials related to the "assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand" in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers."

FDLP is reworking their subject guides and URL may change. This URL has been updated.