This collection brings together EDSITEment and Smithsonian resources to support the initial research into a project for National History Day.  While originally created for the 2019 theme, "Triumph and Tragedy in History," resources found in this collection are useful for researching other National History Day themes.  

These resources - including photographs, letters, artwork, lesson plans, and articles - explore the costs and consequences of America’s involvement in World War I and its complex legacies in the decades following. Resources highlight Woodrow Wilson and his foreign policy, the roles of African American soldiers during and after the war, artwork by soldiers and government-sponsored artists depicting the psychological effects of the battlefield, letters written by soldiers to those back home, the physical costs of war and the triumphs of medical innovation, and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 civilians. The second tile of this collection contains questions to help with the analysis of photograph, document, artwork, portrait, and object resources. 

By no means is this collection comprehensive; instead, it provides a launching point for further research.

This collection was created in collaboration with EDSITEment, a website for K-12 educators from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Share your National History Day collections and let us know what you think! Write to us on Twitter: @EDSITEment & @SmithsonianLab, #NHD2019. If you publish a collection on your National History Day topic, be sure to enter #NHD2019 in the description!

Tags: the great war, wwi, ww1, world war one, world war 1, military, perspective, 20th century, 1900s, american expeditionary forces, aef, woodrow wilson, buffalo soldiers, 92nd infantry division, 93rd infantry division, african-american, black, harlem hellfighters, art, horace pippin, claggett wilson, harvey thomas dunn, william james aylward, anna coleman ladd, prosthetic, rms lusitania, postcard, form letter, #NHD