World War II Display in Bracken Library

World War II Display in University Libraries

The exhibit, Shared Sacrifice: Scholars, Soldiers, and World War II, will be on display from October 15, 2007 through January 4, 2008 outside the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections and the Geospatial Resources & Map Collection on the second floor of Bracken Library.

This exhibit will focus on Ball State University’s contributions to the war effort, soldiers from Muncie, and life on the home front, as well as additional resources found in the Archives and the Geospatial Resources and Map Collection. Ball State’s contribution will be documented through photographs from the Army Specialized Training Program. The activities of Muncie’s soldiers will be shown through photographs, letters, and other ephemera from former Dean Victor Lawhead’s papers and Joseph Fisher’s scrapbook, as well as books featuring the recollections of local soldiers. The home front section of the exhibit will contain ration books, Red Cross materials, newspapers, and government publications. An additional feature of this exhibit will be World War II resources such as items from the Nazi Collection and the 376th Bombardment Group Archive, as well as other printed materials and wartime maps.

Maps and photographs featured in atlases about World War II are featured in a special display on the windows of the GRMC. Authentic wartime news maps created for the Armed Forces are also included, along with Army Map Service maps of France, wartime newspaper maps from the Chicago Tribune, and a nautical chart of Nantucket Island that was used by the Nazis during the war.

An online exhibit will also be available later in the month at www.bsu.edu/library/collections/archives/exhibits.