Description
"Mobilizing for and Commemorating the Great War in Virginia, 1915-2015" analyzes Virginia's role at home and abroad during World War I and examines the following century of mourning, memorializing, and finally, forgetting, the Virginians who served and died in it. Virginia's contributions in providing training camps, ports of disembarkation, animal training, and raw material production leading up to and during the war, has been unrecognized in most books about America's war efforts. Tens of thousands of Virginia's men were drafted during WWI and over 3,600 lost their lives from combat, disease, and training accidents. Although the last Virginian veterans of the war only passed away within the last two decades, the memory of their names and sacrifices had already faded away. As a social history dealing with military conflict, this work provides three unusual perspectives. First, it uses the material culture associated with war memorials as a window into WWI history. Second, the incorporation of oral histories from WWI veterans' living relatives, some of whom retain photographs, letters, diaries, and stories about their family member's role. Third, an approach to "military history" that includes the industrial and agricultural build-up to America's war apparatus, the home-front efforts, the Virginian training camps, the status of black soldiers, the experiences of women in the armed forces and the Red Cross, the training of horses and mules, and countless other daily tasks that supported the United States' role in World War I. Academic Year 2016-2017
