We will have World War I-themed Living-History Reenactors, special exhibits, and ceremonies, all telling the story of the New York area, and the U.S. armed services, during World War I.

One very special public exhibit that we will have in New York is our new sculptural maquette, designed and created by sculptor Sabin Howard, a scale-model representation of the new National World War I Memorial that is being created in Washington, DC. Click here to read more about where the maquette will be appearing in Fleet Week New York 2019 this month.

The Hawai’i World War I Centennial Task Force will be hosting a  World War I academic symposium to mark the end of the WWI Centennial Commemoration Period, to be held in downtown Honolulu at the Aloha Tower. This academic symposium is co-hosted by Hawaii Pacific University, the Arizona Memorial Visitors’ Center, and the Hawaii WWI Centennial Task Force. The Task Force has issued a Call of Presentations for the Symposium. The symposium will run from 0800-1630 26 and 27 June, and a half day on Friday 28 June, which is the final day of the WWI Centennial Commemoration Period. Click here to read more about the Symposium, and find how how to submit your proposal to be a speaker at this World War I event in Hawaii.

Linda Duyer, a Historian from Salisbury, MD with a concentration in Delmarva (Delaware/Maryland/Virginia) African American History, spoke about a local soldier, Sargent William A. Butler, on Thursday, April 18, 2019 during the announcement of the World War I Valor Medals Review Act, a new bipartisan legislation that will ensure that minority Veterans who served during WWI get the recognition they deserve. The Valor Medals Review is sponsored by the United States World War I Centennial Commission. Duyer followed up with an articulate opinion piece on the delmarvanow web site. Click here to read her thoughtful exposition on why the review is important, and how the story of one Maryland soldier got her involved from the beginning of the effort.

Toivo Motter (left) is a historian & Education expert, who works as Director of Education at the Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, in Akron, Ohio. He and his colleagues were very interested in telling the story of World War I’s dramatic impact on their region. Toil, himself, has experience working with public television, so he proposed making a film. They loved the idea, pooled resources, called in favors, and collaborated their efforts — with great success. Their pinnacle triumph is a full-length television documentary film, LOST VOICES OF THE GREAT WAR, which aired locally and on PBS. Click here to read more about this project, and how, even though the film was made to tell a regional story, the producers found that the experiences of the folks from their community reflected those of others around the state, and throughout the entire nation.

The ties between the U.S. and Canada were never stronger than during World War I. Not only did our nations help each other with wartime food and supplies, but over 35,000 Americans served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force from 1914-1918. Some 3,500 of those men and women lost their loves in the war. Recently we learned that a very special group of Canadians follow our Centennial Commission’s activities. The Royal Canadian Legion is a non-profit veterans service organization that supports Veterans and their families, remembers the men and women who served our country, and strengthens communities. The Legion has a chapter based in the San Francisco Bay area, U.S. Branch 25, who have been very active in Great War remembrance activities — they share our weekly Dispatch stories with their members, and they even participated in our Bells of Peace on Nov 11th, 2018. We had a chance to talk to U.S. Branch 25 member Michael Barbour about the Post and its members, and about his own connection to World War I.

As World War I raged, men and women from all walks of life in Framingham, Massachusetts served their country and community at home and abroad in ways that revealed the courage and character of small town America. The lives – and sometimes deaths – of seven diverse residents provide personal snapshots of the war’s impact on Framingham in “An American Town in World War I,” a thoughtful and moving exhibit at the Framingham History Center. “I definitely hope the exhibit makes visitors think about those men and women who served in different ways,” said curator Stacen Goldman, who organized the exhibit. “I hope people reflect critically on the war and what it meant to those people.” Click here to read more about the exhibit, and the folks from Framingham who served their nation in World War I.

Jane Addams had won Americans’ hearts in the early 20th Century by founding Hull House, a pioneering social action center in Chicago, by being a force on behalf of woman suffrage, by speaking out against imperialism, and by advocating for workers. But once the United States  had entered World War I,  Addam’s pacifism made her a pariah, a role for which nothing in decades of public service and public approbation had readied her. Click here to read more about how Jane Addams achieved personal peace amid public ire by hewing to what she called her “vision of the truth” and the “obligation to affirm it.”

When America threw its weight behind the Allies in World War I, optimistic politicians and the writers of the day predicted that, soon, tens of thousands of top-tier planes would pour from American factories to the front lines, blackening the skies over the “Huns.” In reality, American aviation was too far behind the combatants to catch up, and so American pilots like eventual ace Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker (left) took to the air with French castoff aircraft that gave them diarrhea and nausea, obscured their vision, and would lose their wings during combat. But other than that, the aircraft were great!  Click here to read more about how American aviators overcame these technical and biological challenges, and proved themselves faster learners and braver than their allies had expected, leading to a grudging respect from the other pilots.

In April 5th’s edition of the World War I Centennial News Podcast, Episode 117, host Theo Mayer aired a brief sound bite from the Yale Daily News introducing Helen Hagan (left), the first female, African American graduate of Yale’s music school, and someone whose extraordinary story is intertwined with World War I. Then, writer Elizabeth Foxwell joined Theo on the show to elaborate on the life of this talented and extraordinary person. Click here to read a transcript of the entire program.

In April 19th’s edition of the World War I Centennial News Podcast, Episode 119, author James Carl Nelson joined the host Theo Mayer to discuss a theater of combat that America participated in, but most Americans have forgotten: Russia, just before and after the armistice. The men of the 339th Regiment braved bitter cold and fought the Bolsheviks before returning home in July of 1919. Known as the Polar Bears, the 339th’s saga is a pretty incredible and not widely told World War I story. Click here for a complete transcript of this program and learn the hard, cold facts of America’s most northern combat zone in World War I.

The WW1 Centennial News Podcast is about WW1 THEN: 100 years ago this week, and it’s about WW1 NOW: News and updates about the centennial and the commemoration.  Available on our web site, iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, TuneIn, Stitcher Radio on Demand.  Spotify  listen on Youtube. New – Comment and ask questions via twitter @TheWW1podcast

Episode #120
Highlights: Valor Medal Review Legislation

Host – Theo Mayer

April 1919 Popular Science Magazine – Host | @ 01:55

Reactions to Versailles Peace Treaty – Mike Shuster | @ 12:05

A Century in the Making: Memorial Update – Joe Weishaar | @ 17:05

WWI Valor Medal Review Legislation – Dr. Tim Westcott / Zach Austin | @ 25:45

Legless, Wingless Animals Serving in WWI – Leah Tams | @ 36:00

Dispatch Newsletter Highlight – Host | @ 41:55
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All the Way Home

By Jane Clarke

The Irish experience of the First World War has been largely overlooked and even denied until relatively recently; now we know that 210,000 Irish soldiers fought and up to 40,000 died.

When the Mary Evans Picture Library in London invited poet, Jane Clarke, the winner of the 2016 Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry, to write a sequence of poems in response to an Irish First World War family archive, she accepted the challenge: how to find fresh ways of writing about the First World War.

This week at WWrite, read the post, “All the Way Home,” Clarke’s account of imagining the forgotten experience of Ireland in WWI!

This week we celebrate International Jazz Day and also remember the 100th-year anniversary of the death of James Reese Europe (more commonly known as “Jim Europe”). Jim Europe was the first black American officer to enter the trenches of the First World War, the first to lead troops in combat in the war, and the first black American to be given a public funeral in New York City. And yet James Reese Europe is virtually unknown today, both for his contributions to music and for his service in the First World War. Read more about this WWI hero and his musical account of a patrol in No Man’s Land.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Monday’s Doughboy MIA this week is Corporal Tom F. Gardner. Born at Fayettville, Georgia and raised in Stockbridge, Georgia, Tom Frank Gardner enlisted in the Regular US Army on 11 September 1916 at Columbus Barracks, Ohio. He served on the Mexican Border with Company A, 35^th Infantry Regiment. Promoted to Private First Class just before being transferred, he was sent to Company A, 18^th Infantry on 28 May 1918 and with them went overseas. In France the 18^th Infantry became organic to the newly formed 1^st Division. All that summer and fall he served the regiment well and on 22 January 1918 was promoted to Corporal. On 18 July 1918, during the fighting around Chateau Thierry to stop the German drive on Paris, Corporal Gardner was killed in action. His name is among the 1,060 on the Tablets to the Missing at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at Belleau Wood. No other details of his case are known at this time.

Want to help us shed some light on PFC Gardner’s case? Consider making a donation to Doughboy MIA and help us make a full accounting of the 4,423 American service personnel still listed as missing in action from WW1. Make your tax deductible donation now, with our thanks.

WWI Centennial Commemorative Lapel Pin

 Proudly Wearing the WWI 100 Years lapel pin is a fantastic way to let folks serving in the military, along with veterans, know that we still honor those who served our country one hundred years ago.  This satin nickel lapel pin is a simple, yet meaningful, way to display your pride and remember those who sacrificed throughout our nation’s great history. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this item goes towards funding the building of the national World War One Memorial in Washington, D.C.

This and many other items are available as Official Merchandise of the United States World War One Centennial.

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