If you are in the Kansas City area, the National World War I Museum and Memorial has or will open several exhibits.

Posters as Munitions, 1917
Open February 21, 2017 – February 18, 2018

Soon after the outset of World War I, the poster, previously the successful medium of commercial advertising was recognized as a means of spreading national propaganda with unlimited possibilities. Its value as an educational or stimulating influence was more and more appreciated. The poster could impress an idea quickly, vividly and lastingly. Posters as Munitions, 1917 showcases the depth and breadth of the collection through a series of works on exhibition for the first time at the Museum. Posters from France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the United States and more are featured, providing a sense of the global nature of this form of communication.

Vive l’Amérique: French Children Welcome Their American Ally
Open March 21 – Oct. 15, 2017

When the U.S. entered WWI in April 1917, a school teacher in the Montmartre district of Paris asked his students to write essays and express in drawings how this would affect their lives. A century later, Le Vieux Montmartre Historical Society loans 30 of these drawings and two essays on this subject to be on exhibit the first time anywhere in the world. Exhibition open March 21 – Oct. 15, 2017.

Time Magazine has an article about this exhibit: http://time.com/4655010/french-children-wwi-drawings/

Upcoming:

Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace: The Doughboys 1917-1918
Open March 31 – Aug. 20, 2017

Michael St Maur Sheil’s portraits of WWI battlefields are featured in an outdoor photographic exhibition which tells of the healed scars of the First World War through our only remaining living witness: the fields of battle themselves. Once places of devastating violence, we now see landscapes of great beauty, testament to peace and remembrance. Open March 31 – Aug. 20, 2017

Also coming on April 7:  Revolutions! 1917.

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.