Digital Spotlight: Echoes of the Great War

ECHOES OF THE GREAT WAR: AMERICAN EXPERIENCES OF WORLD WAR I from the Library of Congress tells stories from the Veteran’s History Project.

Contents: A companion to a larger “Experiencing War” project, this website contains three sections: Arguing Over War and Over Here, Over There, and A World Overturned. Each part includes an introduction, then connects users to specific narratives from the large digital collection. Primary source materials include audio interviews, photos, diaries, letters, and other materials.

Classroom Connections: Teachers will find this project useful in connecting the experiences of individuals to the larger war effort. Ask students to explore a narrative and compare their story with others.

Featured Digital Objects:
Hillie John Franz
http://memory.loc.gov/…/vhp-st…/loc.natlib.afc2001001.12617/
Gustav Hermann Kissel
http://memory.loc.gov/…/vhp-st…/loc.natlib.afc2001001.37555/
Roland H. Neel, Sr.
http://memory.loc.gov/…/vhp-st…/loc.natlib.afc2001001.01875/

To visit the collection, go to http://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/,

Website Review Europeana 1914-1918

EUROPEANA 1914-1918 is a huge website sharing both the official histories as well as the untold stories of World War I.

Co-funded by the European Union, the website brings together three major European projects focusing on different materials including documents from the public, national collections, and film archives.

Users can browse materials by type, subject, or front. Within each section, participants can explore sources from Europe as well as New Zealand, United States, Australia, and Canada. In addition, related items are presented that might be of interest. The interface is easy-to-use and presents high-quality digital representations that can be embedded, shared, or downloaded. Copyright information is provided for those who would like to share the resource. Users are encouraged to re-use the materials in projects.

The TYPES section provides access to letters, diaries, photographs, films, documents, and postcards. Of particular interest are the thousands of videos included in the collection.

The SUBJECTS section explores remembrance, propaganda, prisoners of war, trench life, aerial warfare, navel warfare, and women. Youth will be particularly interested in the wide range of propaganda posters, cartoons, and other materials.

The FRONT section features the Italian front, home front, Eastern front, and Western front. Break your high school history class into four groups. Each team can dive into the resources related to one of the four fronts.

The ADD YOUR STORY section is collecting Great War era stories from website visitors.

Brimming with easy-to-access primary source documents, this website provides excellent resources to address Common Core standards related to primary source documents. With commemorations being planned around the world during the next few years, this digital collection is likely to grow.

Many other excellent websites are emerging that focus on the World War I era from 1914 through 1918. Be sure to check out the International Encyclopedia of the First World War at http://www.1914-1918-online.net/.

The World War One area of the British Library contains over 500 historical sources and more than 50 original articles and lessons for teachers to use in their classrooms. To learn more about this source, go to http://bl.uk/world-war-one.

To visit the EUROPEANA 1914-1918 website, go to http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en.