Student soldiers living in Gilman Hall. Professors recruited to do research in chemical warfare. Wartime propaganda posters visible all over Baltimore. If you were a part of the Johns Hopkins community during the First World War, all these things and more were a part of your daily existence.
World War I (1914-1918) had a deep impact on Johns Hopkins University and its surrounding community. Students and faculty enlisted as soldiers, intelligence officers, and medical personnel. The university’s female patrons, faculty, and students traveled abroad to participate in nursing and war relief. Before, during, and after America’s entry into the conflict, World War I challenged Hopkins intellectuals’ ideas about the international world order, the problem of war, and the role of the university and hospital in wartime.
In September 2016, we begin a multi-campus exploration of World War I’s effect on the early 20th century Johns Hopkins community. Here in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, the Hopkins and the Great War exhibit explores the wartime experience on the Homewood campus. Visit the exhibit galleries on Q-Level and M-Level to learn more about how the war left an indelible imprint on the lives of students, faculty, and staff. On the East Baltimore campus, the Welch Medical Library and the Anne M. Pinkard School of Nursing building feature exhibits on the contributions of Hopkins medical and nursing faculty, staff, and alumni. Hopkins and the Great War is on exhibit until January 2017.
Join us for an exhibit opening talk and reception Wednesday, September 14 at 4:30 PM in room 4040 of the Brody Learning Commons. Dr. Alice Kelly, a Women in the Humanities Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, will discuss the graphic and controversial memoir of Hopkins nurse Ellen La Motte titled The Backwash of War, and its place in the broader context of First World War literature and the wartime avant-garde.
Visit the Hopkins Retrospective website for more information on Hopkins and the Great War events, exhibition dates and locations, and other updates.