Category: exhibitions

In thinking about some of the Wolfsonian library materials that might be of interest to the Florida International University students taking my America & Movies history class on wartime propaganda this semester, I first thought of the numerous children’s propaganda books in our collection. Many of these children’s books were donated to the library by Pamela K. Harer.

Cartoon characters, of course, were enlisted in the fight against the Axis during the war years, and some of our most cherished and popular cartoon heroes were featured in animated films and printed pamphlets, sheet music covers, and children’s books. A couple of popular Sunday newspaper comic strip characters appeared as well in a wartime alphabet book published for young children. In addition to teaching youngsters their ABCs, Blondie and Dagwood, instructed these children (and parental readers) in proper patriotic behavior.

GIFT OF FRANCIS XAVIER LUCA & CLARA PALACIO-DE LUCA

While younger audiences may not know…

This Friday morning, thirty-four Brownsville Middle School students came to the Wolfsonian with their social studies teacher for tours of our galleries and a library presentation. As the students were studying civil rights, we had laid out a wide variety of materials of the subject in advance of their arrival. When queried about what they knew about the civil rights movement in this country, most of the students quite naturally talked about the struggle in the 1960s and mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King. My own presentation and display of materials was intended to introduce them to the earlier struggles and much longer history of civil rights agitation in America set against the background of the First and Second World Wars.

Although we might have begun earlier, our own discussions of civil rights began with the First World War and the campaign to recruit African Americans as soldiers. Woodrow Wilson’s administration…