National Civic Art Society hosts Sculptor Sabin Howard presenting his classical design for the National World War I Memorial November 15 in Washington, D.C.

The National Civic Art Society presents a talk by sculptor Sabin Howard on Friday November 15 at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. EST.

Sabin HowardHoward will present his magnificent classical design for the National World War I Memorial, which recently received final approval from the required government authorities. The Memorial is to be located in Pershing Park in Washington.

Howard's design is a monumental 58-foot-long bronze sculpture titled "A Soldier's Journey." Flowing from left-to-right, the 38-figure composition allegorically tells the story of a soldier who leaves his family for the front, endures the ordeal of battle, and returns home.

The ideals of heroism, family, and caring are juxtaposed with the violence, terror, and aggression of battle. The sculpture simultaneously tells a second story--namely, America's coming of age during the Great War.

Howard's talk will be followed by a reception. Tickets are available via the eventbrite web site.

Founded in 2002, the National Civic Art Society (www.civicart.org) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that educates and empowers civic leaders in the promotion of public art and architecture worthy of our great Republic. The society advances the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism, and their allied arts. Through its programs and initiatives, the society guides government agencies and officials; assists practitioners; and educate students and the general public in the preservation and creation of beautiful, dignified public buildings, monuments, and spaces.

More information on the new National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC is available here.

101-year-old World War I draft registration card found in Ohio returned to family 

via the 5 Eyewitness News ABC television station (Minneapolis, MN) web site.

Hidden for 101 years inside the cover of a Bible was a World War I registration card belonging to Clem Clair Hubbard.

A Toledo, Ohio woman made the discovery after purchasing the Bible at a local sale knowing right away that she needed to return this card to the rightful family.

Librarians at the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library helped track down the family by shifting through obituaries, doing research on the Hubbard family, and teaming up with the history and genealogy department at the library.

The research lead them to Hubbard's who lived in the same town in Ohio.

The public library has chosen to display their own collection of treasures that have been hidden away in the books on their shelves.

However, the librarians are simply glad the piece of the Hubbard's family heirloom has been returned.

An overview of Mallows Bay shows just a portion of the nearly 200 shipwreck hulls there. Photo courtesy Donald Grady Shomette 

The Ghost Fleet: How Skeletons Of WWI Ships Came To Rest In The Potomac 

By Jacob Fenston and Tyrone Turner
WMAU American University Radio (Washington, DC) via the WMAU Atavist web site

If you look at a satellite image of the Potomac River, about 30 miles south of Washington you’ll see a curve in the river, packed with dozens of identical oblong shapes. At low tide, they emerge eerily from the water — a “ghost fleet” of wooden steamships dating back to World War I. It’s called Mallows Bay, and it’s one of the largest collections of shipwrecks in the world.

The story of how these ships ended up in the Potomac is a tale of environmental destruction — and rebirth. The shipwrecks have recently received federal protection, as part of a new national marine sanctuary.

WAMU’s Jacob Fenston and Tyrone Turner visited Mallows Bay, by canoe and kayak, to document the unusual waterscape the shipwrecks have created. Aerial photography by Jerry Jackson.

‘It Just Loomed Out Of The Fog’

Donald Shomette first saw the ghost ships when he was a kid, on a camping trip. He shows me a photo from around that time.

“1958. That’s me. That’s my little brother. That’s my dad.”

In the morning, the river was socked in with fog as the boys and their dad puttered through the water in a small motor boat. Suddenly, rising from the Potomac, we see the wooden bow of a ship.

“It just loomed out of the fog,” recalls Shomette. “It was amazing.”

Altogether, there are about 200 shipwrecks crammed into Mallows Bay. For Shomette, the sight was instantly entrancing.

Read more: The Ghost Fleet: How Skeletons Of WWI Ships Came To Rest In The Potomac

Gremlin Theatre puts us in the WWI foxhole with decision makers 

By Chris Hewitt
via the Star Tribune newspaper (MN) web site

It can’t be easy for a small company to tackle a big, big play, but Gremlin Theatre has assembled a knockout cast, top to bottom, for its “Journey’s End.”

Benjamin Slye (on cot) and Peter Christian Hansen in Gremlin Theatre’s “Journey’s End.”The 12 (all white, all male) performers are as cohesive a unit as you’ll find in town, which is an immeasurable asset in a play as cloistered as “Journey’s End.” It takes place on one set — director/scene designer Bain Boehlke’s incredibly detailed foxhole, all wooden beams and sandbags — over the course of four days near the end of World War I.

Leavened by a surprising amount of humor, the drama is about the price paid by the people who fight a war and about how oddly similar life in a foxhole is to life outside it. Class distinctions still rule in “Journey’s End” and, although that underground bunker is hardly “Downton Abbey,” the officers still have servants to bring them tea with jam and bread.

Playwright R.C. Sherriff’s central character is a great one, played in the original 1928 production by a young Laurence Olivier. Capt. Stanhope (Gremlin’s artistic director, Peter Christian Hansen) seems to be suffering the effects of shell shock, sleep deprivation and what we’d now call post-traumatic stress disorder. Jovial one minute and hurling insults the next, he’s barely keeping it together enough to lead his men. That they heed him so dutifully is a tribute to Sherriff’s incisive and still modern-sounding writing, as well as a clue to the solid military man he once must have been. It’s a beast of a role, but Hansen makes all the pieces fit, his charm and wit offering hints of the man Stanhope was before war changed him.

Boehlke’s production pulls you into its spell in a number of ways: deep darkness, suggesting a place that is lit only by candles; the lulling sound of gunfire in the distance (courtesy of sound designer C. Andrew Mayer); a recurring musical motif from Samuel Barber’s mournful “Adagio for Strings”; the actors’ use of the space, which becomes more constrained as the play goes on; the forced lightness of the characters, which makes their duties seem even more devastating. It all creates a powerful effect that peaks with a wonderfully human exchange between Benjamin Slye and Alan Sorenson as men who are about to lead others into battle, wavering between discussing strategy and talking about absolutely anything else they can think of. That scene, which could take place in any war, is a sad reminder that this nearly century-old drama will always be relevant.

Read more: Gremlin Theatre puts us in the WWI foxhole with decisionmakers

Veterans Day Weekend Events Honor Those Who Serve Our Country at National WWI Museum and Memorial Friday-Monday, Nov. 8 to 11 

via PRWeb as published in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper (CA) web site

As the commemoration of the centennial of World War I (2014-19) continues, the National WWI Museum and Memorial serves as a fitting place to honor those who have served — and continue to serve — our country. To recognize these men and women, admission to the Museum and Memorial is free for veterans and active duty military personnel, while general admission for the public is half-price, throughout the Veterans Day weekend (Friday to Monday, Nov. 8 to 11, 2019).

To observe Veterans Day, the Museum and Memorial will offer a wide variety of events November 8 to 11 for people of all ages, including the debut of the acclaimed traveling exhibition The Vietnam War: 1945-1975. On its final tour stop, the Museum and Memorial is the only location west of the Mississippi to showcase the exhibition.

The Museum and Memorial will host a free, public Veterans Day Ceremony at 10 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, featuring a keynote address from Dr. Pellom McDaniels III, former Kansas City Chiefs player who now serves as the faculty curator of the African American Collections and assistant professor of African American Studies at Rose Library at Emory University. The event will feature remarks from dignitaries including Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas as well as patriotic musical performances.

Support for Veterans Day is provided by Jackson County Executive and County Legislators, the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund of Kansas City, Mo., and Weather or Not.

Read more: Veterans Day Weekend Events Honor Those Who Serve Our Country at National WWI Museum and Memorial...

The WWI documentary-exhibit entitled "Glory & Gratitude to the United States"at the Lafayette City Hall through October contains copies of dozen of letters written in gratitude to soldiers by Belgian schoolchildren in 1915. 

WWI exhibit visiting Lafayette, LA City Hall until end of October 

via the KATC News ABC 3 television station (Lafayette, LA) web site

From now until the end of October, the WWI documentary-exhibit entitled "Glory & Gratitude to the United States" will be on display at the Lafayette City Hall atrium.

Citizens of Lafayette are invited to view the exhibit until its departure.

The exhibit contains copies of dozen of letters written in gratitude to soldiers by Belgian schoolchildren in 1915. According to LCG, the letters were recently rediscovered in the family home of the attic of Alexander Heingartner who was the United States Consul General in the Belgian City of Liège during World War I.

Heingartner's great granddaughter, Dr. Nancy Heingartner, found the letters and sent to the Belgian Embassy in Washington, DC where they were organized into a touring exhibit for WWI.

The letters have been shown throughout the country over the last two years.

Lafayette is the first Louisiana town on the tour, according to LCG.

During World War I, civilians in occupied Belgium benefited from one of the first global philanthropic enterprises ever created. The Commission For Relief in Belgium, a mostly US organization, collected and sent shipments of food and warm clothing to Belgium under the leadership of an American official named Herbert Hoover who later became US Secretary of Commerce and was elected President of the United States in March of 1929.

Sabaton celebrate 20 years with a tonally inconsistent but informative power-metal take on WWI 

By Ed Blair
via the Chicago Reader (IL) web site

Sabaton are celebrating their 20th year of existence in style. The Swedish power-metal band kicked off 2019 with the launch of their own YouTube channel, which focuses on the history that fuels their songwriting, and in July they released their ninth album, the World War I-inspired The Great War.

Sabaton are no stranger to exploring such landmark events through their music; previous records have focused on World War II (2010’s Coat of Arms), the rise and fall of the Swedish empire (2012’s Carolus Rex), and noteworthy final stands throughout military history (2016’s The Last Stand).

However, translating the horrors of WWI (which in recent decades hasn’t often received the same type of propagandist spins as WWII) into the triumphant riffs and soaring solos that typically define power metal is a tricky task, and Sabaton don’t always quite nail it. “The Attack of the Dead Men” recounts the victorious but doomed charge of Russian troops gassed by Germans in 1915 while defending Osowiec Fortress, but the band’s sanitized version of the story skimps on the gory details (the cocktail of gas used by the Germans essentially liquefied the flesh of the Russian troops), focusing on heroism rather than on desperation, futility, and tragedy.

Still, Sabaton know their way around a riff and a rousing chorus: “A Ghost in the Trenches,” their ode to famed Canadian sniper and First Nations activist Francis Pegahmagabow, gallops with joyously acrobatic guitar work and drops in a surprise key change to great effect. The band clearly love military history, and to their credit, they often highlight obscure aspects of the campaigns they cover. 

Read more: Sabaton celebrate 20 years with a tonally inconsistent but informative power-metal take on WWI

Ahead of Veterans Day, National Museum of African American History and Culture To Host Book Discussion on African Americans’ Central Role in WWI 

via Globe Newswire  

To celebrate veterans and commemorate the centennial of WWI, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will host a book talk on the museum’s latest publication, We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity, on Thursday, November 7, 7p.m., at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, DC.

The book talk will feature Kinshasha Holman-Conwill, deputy director, NMAAHC, and editor of We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity; Greg Carr, associate professor of Africana studies and chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University; and Krewasky A. Salter, Col., USA, Ret., guest curator, executive director of the First Division Museum.

The public program focuses on the museum’s latest book: We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity. The richly illustrated book commemorates African Americans’ roles in World War I, highlighting how the wartime experience reshaped their lives and their communities after they returned home. Greg Carr, chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, will moderate a discussion with Krewasky Salter, guest curator and author of the essay, “The 369th Regiment,” for an evening book discussion on the WWI experience told through the lens of the African American veterans, military families, women, anti-war advocates and public intellectuals. 

Edited by the museum’s Deputy Director Kinshasha Holman-Conwill, We Return Fighting reminds readers of the central role of African American soldiers in the war that first made their country a world power. It also reveals the way the conflict shaped African American identity and lent fuel to their longstanding efforts to demand full civil rights and to stake their place in the country’s cultural and political landscape. Through essays and photographs, We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity traces the efforts of black soldiers and how they returned to the U.S. with a strengthened determination to win their civil rights. 

WWI quilt made in 1918 connects Eastern Shore of Virginia to England 

By Carol Vaughn
via the Salisbury Daily Times newspaper (VA) on the delmarvanow.com web site

A quilt made during World War I for an American Red Cross chapter on Virginia's Eastern Shore was found recently, tucked away in storage in a British museum.

This quilt, made in Accomack during World War I to be sent to a European hospital, was discovered in a British museum in 2012. (Photo: David March image)The quilt was made to be sent to a wartime hospital in Europe.

The Pungoteague Quilt was designed and stitched by Mrs. S.K. Martin of Harborton in 1918.

It bears the names of nearly 700 people who made donations — many of whom still have descendants living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

The man who found the quilt in Great Britain created a website about it — and he wants to know more about the people whose names are on it.

The quilt was intended to be sent to a hospital in France during the war. It is not known how it ended up in the Imperial War Museum in England.

The quilt, about 64-by-88 inches and made of cotton and calico, is made up of rows and columns of red crosses, surrounded by names, and sometimes addresses, in cursive script written with a marker pen. There are 694 names inscribed on the quilt, including President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson's, prominently displayed in a block near the center.

One of the blocks bears this inscription:

"This quilt was made by Mrs. S.K. Martin of Harborton, Accomac County, Virginia and presented to the Pungoteague Branch of the Eastern Shore Chapter of American Red Cross, with the sincere wish that our Virginia boys and any others may find inscribed thereon the names of many friends deeply interested in their welfare."

Webster Martin, 85, of Harborton is the great-grandson of the quilt's maker. The Martin family has been in Virginia virtually since the colony's founding.

"She was Ella Susan Smith from Sluytkill Neck," across the creek from Harborton, Martin said of his ancestor, of whom he has many memories from his youth.

Mrs. Martin's quilting frame — likely the one she used for the Pungoteague Quilt, among others — is still in the family, having been stored in the attic of an outbuilding at Rose Lawn, the family home in Harborton.

Read more: WWI quilt made in 1918 connects Eastern Shore of Virginia to England

Bronze Statue Honoring First Black Fighter Pilot Unveiled in Georgia

By Tanasia Kenney
via the Atlanta Black Star web siteDirector of Public Affairs, United States World War One Centennial Commission

Eugene Bullard isn’t a household name, but his inspiring story of bravery, valor, and perseverance is surely worth telling.

A bronze statue honoring the Columbus, Georgia, native was finally unveiled on Wednesday before a cheering crowd of descendants, U.S. service members, French officials and other guests, The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

Eugene Bullard fled the Jim Crow South as a child, joined a band a gypsies and then stowed away on a German ship to Europe. (Photos: WMAZ 13 / video screen shot and Wiki Commons)Bullard, the child of a former slave who fled the Jim Crow South after witnessing the near lynching of his father, would go on to fight for the French Foreign Legion in World War I. He managed to have a little fun along the way, boxing professionally and drumming for a jazz band in Paris. He even rubbed elbows with the likes of trumpeter Louis Armstrong.

His journey as a stowaway across the pond to Europe was just the start of his incredible legacy. A war hero, Bullard received France’s Croix de Guerre for his valor at the Battle of Verdun and later joined its national air service in 1916 to become the first Black fighter pilot.

Now the state that he fled more than 100 years ago is honoring him on his birthday with a gleaming bronze statue.

“I’m just so glad to live to see his state — the state that he ran from — recognize his greatness, and call its native son home,” said Ms. Harriett Bullard, one of Bullard’s descendants.

Harriet Was among the 20 descendants who attended the unveiling ceremony Wednesday at the Museum of Aviation in Robins Air Force Base near Warner Robins, Georgia, per the AJC. Officials with Georgia’s WWI Centennial Commission pulled away a blue cloth to reveal the 6-foot-3-inch bronze memorial honoring the man fittingly dubbed “The Black Swallow of Death.”

According to  BlackPast.org, “Bullard quickly became known for flying into dangerous situations often with a pet monkey. He amassed a distinguished record, flying twenty combat missions [and] downing at least one German plane.”

Vietnam War vet and Centennial Commission member Rick Elder called Bullard a “true hero.”

“For him to be standing out there — now we’re finally getting to the point that we have honored him in a proper way.”

Read more: Bronze Statue Honoring First Black Fighter Pilot Unveiled in Georgia