11-11-11

In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Allies and the German Empire signed the armistice, which marked the end of the First World War.  

In observance of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, Montana Historical Society is holding a symposium in Helena on November 9-10. Montana & the Great War: Looking Back 100 Years will include tours of MHS’s acclaimed WWI exhibit and the Original Governor’s Mansion, highlights of MHS’s archives collections relating to the war, and speakers Ken Robison, Rich Aarstad, Mary Murphy, and Todd Harwell. Educators can earn up to eight OPI Renewal Unit--and attendees can come to as many or as few sessions as interest them or for which they have time--so if you live within an easy drive of Helena, even if you can't miss school, consider coming down for the Saturday sessions. You can see the full schedule here.

This symposium is just the last in a series of initiatives to commemorate the centennial of the U.S. involvement in World War I. So if you are too far to make it to the symposium, never fear. We've got you covered. I hope you've already spent some time exploring Montana and the Great War, the website that we created to provide resources for teaching about this complicated period in history. Among the highlights of that site are 

• the ArcGIS story maps, which include 70 anecdotes from across Montana that reflect the various ways the war changed the lives of Montanans both at home and while serving overseas--as well as ways the war's impact continued into the 1920s,

• the teaching resources, which include two lesson plans (one for grades 5-8 and the other for grades 9-12) and a Montana and the Great War Scavenger Hunt, and

• the digitized primary and secondary sources, including articles from Montana The Magazine of Western History, military enlistment cards, and correspondence from the Montana Council of Defense Records. 

I've talked about most of these resources before, but the Council of Defense correspondence is new so I'm going to elaborate a little on this remarkable resource. As you likely know, the Montana Council of Defense was established during World War I to coordinate county war efforts. The Council first concerned itself with agricultural production and boosting enthusiasm for the war. The war propaganda campaign however gradually led to the suppression of all dissent. County councils investigated "disloyalty," leading to the arrest and imprisonment of seventy-nine Montanans.
Several high school teachers have used portions of these records with their students as they researched the affects of World War I on their local communities. We published some of their students' work here. Now research in these records is easier than every--not least because they are key-word searchable. Try it and see: Visit the collections page, and then type your town or county seat's name into the search box at the top of the page. (Or the name of your county--if it was established before 1917.)

I'd love to add a few more county projects to our World War I website by May 2020. Check out the lesson plan we created to guide teachers interested in taking their class on this learning expedition and email me for additional resources (I may even be able to get you copies of letters that residents of your county wrote to Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin about the war and their other concerns. Like most of the items in our archives, these have not yet been digitized.)

And if you are less enamored with World War I than I am, check out my other favorite Veterans Day Resource, designed for grades 8-12.