Chat With Us

Exhibits at the Boston College Libraries

History Department, Stokes Hall

The History Department in Stokes Hall features exhibits collaborated with the Boston College Libraries for the course HS600 Making History Public. The exhibits change each semester.
Return to the History Department, Stokes Hall Past Exhibits

Propaganda & the Great War
a Making History Public exhibit

September - December, 2016

Italian progaganda poster from WWII

This exhibit is the product of a History Department seminar that was developed in collaboration with the University’s Burns Library. The course encouraged students to consider how governments used a variety of media including posters as propaganda when recruiting for the Great War. Undergraduates examined multiple sources including personal memoirs and diaries from the Burns Library Special Collection and World War I posters from the Boston Athenaeum to examine how the war was 'sold' or marketed to recruits and the general public. In the exhibit students contrast this propaganda with the stark reality that awaited soldiers once they became combatants in 'the war to end all wars'.

This exhibit is the product of a History Department seminar that was developed in collaboration with the University’s Burns Library. The course encouraged students to consider how governments used a variety of media including posters as propaganda when recruiting for the Great War. Undergraduates examined multiple sources including personal memoirs and diaries from the Burns Library Special Collection and World War I posters from the Boston Athenaeum to examine how the war was 'sold' or marketed to recruits and the general public. In the exhibit students contrast this propaganda with the stark reality that awaited soldiers once they became combatants in 'the war to end all wars'.

Italian progaganda poster from WWII