State Library Hosts World War I Symposium Marking the Centennial of the War's

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Contact: Martin Ackley, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs (517) 241-4395
Agency: Education


June 26, 2014
LANSING Four decades of European conflict ushered in the brink of World War I, and
the tipping point lay in the decisions of generals and statesmen during a crisis caused
by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
The couples assassination by Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb and Yugoslav nationalist,
followed diplomatic clashes between France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary
and Russia, and resulted in World War Is start on July 28, 1914. Before it ended, the
war claimed 16 million military and civilian lives and 20 million wounded, including 5,000
dead and 15,000 injured soldiers from Michigan.
Now, 100 years later, the Library of Michigan (LM) is commemorating this centennial
anniversary of huge historical significance and global consequences with a day-long
symposium, The War That Changed the World, on Aug. 1, 2014.
So many people sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy today, said State
Superintendent Mike Flanagan. The fact that the symposium is being held on the
100
th
anniversary of the wars start makes this an especially poignant event.
Kicking off the event, a panel of experts from the Arab American National Museum in
Dearborn examines the war in the Ottoman Empire and its affect in Michigan. Helen
Zoe Veit, author of a new book, Modern Food, Moral Food, a finalist for the 2014 James
Beard Foundation Book Award, gives the closing talk.
Throughout the day, patrons may attend sessions on topics such as aviation, troops,
transportation and the war industry in Michigan.
Martin Walsh from the University of Michigan and Erin Smith, chief of the Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder Clinic Team at Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Hospital,
will talk about shell shock, as it was called during the war. Also, a special guest from the
Michigan Historical Museum discusses the care and identification of uniforms.
Meanwhile, on display in the Library of Michigans Rare Book Room will be Joe Saccos
The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme, a 24-foot-
longpanorama. Sacco's work illustrates, in minutely-detailed black-and-white drawings,
events just before and during a summer day when the British army suffered more than
57,000 casualties its greatest single-day loss.
The war was so large and complex, everyone will walk away having learned something
and then maybe go on and expand their own research, said State Librarian Randy
Riley.
To register for the event online, visit www.michigan.gov/libraryofmichigan.
Registration the day of the event is from 8:209:20 a.m. with light refreshments.
Admission is $20.00 per person $10.00 for veterans with identification. A box lunch is
included. Parking at the Michigan Library & Historical Center, located at 702 W.
Kalamazoo St. in Lansing, is $1 an hour or $8:00 a day.
For more information, contact Edwina Murphy, Library of Michigans Michigan Collection
Curator, at (517) 373-1300.