The United States World War One Centennial Commission is now promoting the following activity for the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending The Great War.  The program  is entitled Bells of Peace:  A National World War I Remembrance.  We will let the following statement from the Commission explain:

 

On the May State Outreach Call we discussed Bells of Peace: A World War I Remembrance. This is a nationwide initiative sponsored by the US World War I Centennial Commission encouraging bells-tolling among stakeholders and partners and in local communities nationwide on November 11 at 11 am local time in honor of those who served in World War I.

To support this effort, the national Commission has issued a proclamation calling upon all Americans to participate in this nationwide bell-tolling. The proclamation is available now at  https://goo.gl/sZfUQB. The national Commission additionally encourages all state Commissions and Governors to endorse this proclamation or to issue their own proclamations in support of Bells of Peace.

To further promote Bells of Peace, the national Commission furthermore requests state partners to:

  • reach out to organizations like county and local governments, community organizations, police and fire departments, libraries, and other public institutions
  • Issue press releases and social media posts

The national Commission has developed or is developing several tools to support Bells of Peace including:

  • A proclamation (as mentioned above). Available at https://goo.gl/sZfUQB.
  • A FAQ (including information on how to actually conduct the bell-tolling). Available at https://goo.gl/sZfUQB.
  • Ceremony Ideas to Accompany the Bell Tollings. Available at https://goo.gl/sZfUQB.
  • ww1cc.org/bells (under construction)
  • #Tollthebells
  • Social media materials and copy (forthcoming)

We are currently constructing the landing page on our Web site which will be:  ww1cc.org/bells. We will place information including the proclamation, FAQ, resources for planning a ceremony, ability to register for updates, ability to register a bell tolling event, and ability to load photos of local events.  We are also developing a downloadable application for use on mobile devices, which will include recorded bell tolling (for those who don’t have actual bells.)

We have written separately to state governors about this program, and ideally we would like for each state to issue its own proclamation. North Dakota has already issued such a proclamation and you can see it at http://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/north-dakota-ww1-centennial-proclamation.html 

If you have input or feedback about this program, please contact Program Coordinator Betsy Anderson at betsy.anderson@worldwar1centennial.org.

Read more about Bells of Peace at ww1cc.org/bells (currently under construction).

Minutes and a recording of this call is available at from the call at https://goo.gl/sZfUQB.

 

Quite a bit of the information is located at the link given here.  We encourage you to find ways to support this program, and may have additional information later.  Thank you!

 

 

Blair Tarr is the Museum Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society. He oversees the three-dimensional collections of the Society, but has special interests in the Civil War, Wichita-made Valentine diners, and Leavenworth's Abernathy Furniture. In the last few years he has also done a lot of cramming on The Great War. He is a past president of the Kansas Museums Association and the Civil War Round Tables of both Kansas City and Eastern Kansas. He is currently a board member of the Heritage League of Greater Kansas City.