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The Debt of WWII Resistance Writers to WWI Veterans Part 3: French Journalist Traces Her Breton Family Through Both World Wars
WWrite Interviews Stéphanie Trouillard
French journalist and regular WWrite blog contributor Stéphanie Trouillard has undertaken a formidable task: chronicling innovative histories of WWI and WWII... at the same time. For five years and counting, she has used social media to tell the stories of WWI for the French media. She has also just published her successful first book, My Uncle from the Shadows, a memoir of her great-uncle who died in the WWII French Resistance. In this week's post, she sits down to talk with WWrite about the ways her research and writing on both wars have intertwined to tell a tale of her own family's experience of loss and survival in 1914-1918 and in 1939-1944. This is the third in the blog series entitled, “The Debt of WWII French Resistance Writers to WWI Veterans.”
Book cover of "My Uncle From the Shadows." Image credit: Stéphanie Trouillard
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The Story of Freddie Stowers, the First African American Recipient of the WWI Medal of Honor
By Courtney L. Tollison Hartness, Ph.D.
While researching African Americans who served in the WWI American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) from her community, oral historian and Furman history professor Courtney L. Tollison Hartness discovered the compelling story of one soldier whose influential and enduring legacy would have been inconceivable to him. September 28, 2018, marked the centennial of his death. His name was Freddie Stowers, and he was the first African American Recipient of the WWI Medal of Honor. Yet, he didn't receive the award until 73 years after he perished during the Battle of Meuse-Argonne.
Donors and family members unveil the statue of Freddie Stowers on the campus of Anderson University. Photo Courtesy: Paul Brown, The Greenville News
The centennial commemoration of the end of World War I was a long-anticipated global event. Around the world, throughout the years and months leading up to November 11, 2018, the centennial of major offensives and battles was observed in meaningful and elaborate ceremonies.
However, it must also be said that these centennial years also represent the 100-year anniversaries of the deaths of millions of people.
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A New Look at Anne Frank, Her Father, and WWI Through Literature and History
The Diary of Anne Frank has always been known as a story of the Holocaust and of WWII. But it is also, in part, a story about WWI. This week at WWrite, New York Times bestselling writer of City of Women, David Gillham, discusses a little-known yet important event his newly released book, Annelies, a novel that imagines a scenario in which Anne Frank survives the Holocaust: the Nazi officer who arrested the Frank family decided to be dignified with them because he discovered that Otto Frank, Anne's father, had served in WWI. As a historical complement to Gillham, Dutch historian Peter de Bourgraaf, who worked for the Anne Frank Foundation in Amsterdam, talks about his research on the shortcomings of the Versailles Treaty, shortcomings be believes were the cause of WWII. Read this dual literary-historical new perspective of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, one of the world's most important accounts of the Holocaust.
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First I Said No
Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years. By Mary L. Doyle and Sherry A Kuiper. Design by Benjamin D. Rogers
Fort George G. Meade held the first two-hour planning meeting for our WWI Centennial celebrations in August 2015. After the meeting, I headed toward the door with a long list of events, projects, and further planning to do. Camp Meade had been one of the first of 16 cantonments established at the start of the U.S. involvement of the war. The plans we made to acknowledge that history were going to keep me busy for the next couple of years and I couldn’t wait to get started.
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Five WWI Army African American Bands That Changed Music Forever
James Lamb
WWI Military Band. Image courtesy of James Lamb
As a life-long military musician, I’ve always enjoyed most the concerts where we performed that quintessentially American style of music – big band Jazz. I’ve had the personal pleasure of performing for literally millions of people across the globe. It’s this one style of music that, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you can’t help but tap your toes, clap your hands, and move to the music. It’s happy, spontaneous and full of energy. It’s just so American. So where did this music come from? And when did our military bands become ambassadors of American goodwill performing this music?
The often-told story is that Jazz migrated up from New Orleans when the US entered WWI and after the Navy shut down the fabled Storyville district. This happened in November of 1917 forcing the icons we know so well from the Crescent City to emigrate north to Chicago, then to New York where fans immediately embraced this new music. But Jazz was already emerging across the US. Ragtime had been the rage for 30 years. By 1914 the syncopated rhythms of Ragtime were combined with the Blues and played with the energy to keep up with the new dances. This was happening in New York, Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Some called this “Hot Ragtime”, others “Jazz”. In fact, the use of the word “Jazz” to describe this new music began in 1915 in San Francisco and Chicago, not New Orleans.
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The Enemy, Allied Memorials, Native Americans, Colonial Soldiers, New WWI Art, Music, Poetry, and Fiction, and Scholarship and Teaching: Part 5 of Not One, But Two Years of WWrite in Review! January 2017 - January 2019.
"ComingWorldRememberMe" Ypres art installation by Koen Vanmechelen. 600,000 miniature clay sculptures represent a figure mourning WWI bearing the name of a dead soldier. Image credit: DW
The last installment of the WWrite 2-Year Review! Since January 2017, WWrite has published a diversity of voices and stories from past and present. This week, part 5 takes a look at the following categories: The Enemy; Allied Memorials; Native Americans; Colonial Soldiers; New WWI Art, Music, Poetry, and Fiction; Scholarship and Teaching. Read the fascinating ways international writers, scholars, and artists have commemorated the centennial at WWrite this week!
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