{"id":919,"date":"2017-09-01T11:49:24","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/?p=919"},"modified":"2017-09-01T13:24:39","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T17:24:39","slug":"books-and-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/?p=919","title":{"rendered":"Books and war"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been immersed in World War One pamphlets that arrived here at the Maine Historical Society (my day job) about 100 years ago. We finally decided to catalog them, so this is my summer project. Amidst the pamphlets are letters from the American Library Association\u2019s War Service Committee to librarians, asking for men to go into librarianship, as well as asking for book donations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nAccording to Wikipedia, The Library War Service was established by the American Library Association in 1917 to provide library services to American soldiers training in camps and serving overseas in World War I. Between 1917 and 1920, the ALA raised $5 million from public donations, erected 36 camp libraries, distributed 7 to 10 million books and magazines, and provided library collections to more than 500 locations, including military hospitals.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I find this all so fascinating, about how books and libraries were necessary during war time. So when I found the book \u201cWhen books went to war: the stories that helped us win World War II\u201d by Molly Guptill Manning at the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association, I checked it out. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside this book, I found wonderful tales of how books indeed were used in fighting the war, mostly in providing a book for every soldier, to help improve morale as they fought a war in the most dismal and horrendous of situations. Some of the book movement was a backlash to the book burning going on in Germany, in an effort to control what people were reading. But there is also interesting information about publishing of paperbacks for soldiers, that were lightweight to carry as they traveled into war torn areas. Anyone who believes in the power of bibliotherapy will find this a thrilling read.<\/p>\n

On a different but related note, there are, of course, wonderful novels that take place during war-time. Two of note that relate to World War One are \u201cThe summer before the war\u201d by Helen Simonson, and \u201cA star for Mrs. Blake\u201d by April Smith.\"\"<\/a> I\u2019m reading \u201cThe summer before the war\u201d right now \u2013 as the Belgian refugees are taken in by villagers in Rye, I think about the many pamphlets I\u2019ve catalogued about the German invasion of Belgium, when over 200,000 refugees fled to Britain. This novel helps to bring that fact to life. \u201cA star for Mrs. Blake\u201d is about Cora Blake, of Maine, who makes a pilgrimage to France in the 1930s, with other Gold Star Mothers who lost their sons during World War I.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As we commemorate the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of America\u2019s involvement in World War I let\u2019s take the opportunity to recognize the role of books in wartime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been immersed in World War One pamphlets that arrived here at the Maine Historical Society (my day job) about 100 years ago. We finally decided to catalog them, so this is my summer project. Amidst the pamphlets are letters from the American Library Association\u2019s War Service Committee to librarians, asking for men to go … Continue reading Books and war<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[403,215,177,402,372,401],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-american-library-association","tag-books-2","tag-war","tag-war-library-service","tag-world-war-i","tag-world-war-one"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liclblog.townoflongisland.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}