History of War and Peace Collection
January 2, 2009 12:03 PM   Subscribe

Peace and War in the 20th Century is an ambitious, in progress, massive assemblage of posters, photographs, propaganda, ephemera, letters, diaries, paintings, sketches, stories, letters, music and related items, from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The collection is international in scope. Some of the nodes lack content, and the navigation is a little confusing, so the jump I list some of my favourite case studies from their site.

Note: Many of the images are reasonable resolution if you right click and open in a new tab rather than only view in the pop-forward window. Also scroll down for thumbnails of additional material. The advanced search option is very useful as it includes a detailed site map.

Representing War: Posters, Art and Music. Many of the posters are unusual and new to me, such as 'Save Waste Bones - They Make Glue for Aircraft', 'Boys, Come Along, You're Wanted', and this beautiful poster of the Earth and Doves.
Concentration Camp correspondence
Sir Norman Angell: a lifelong proponent of peace (many images of his pamphlets and posters)
The Spanish Civil War: Foreign Intervention, American Reaction. Includes evocative pamphlets, leaflets, and posters.
Waging War
London prepares for World War II: a great selection of instructional and civil defence materials such as posters and memos.
Britain prepares for World War I: some diary pages of Adrian Duff.
William Frank Kenwood, Canadian Pilot and Prisoner of War
, including newspaper clippings, a letter from the Red Cross, telegrams, etc.
Vera Brittain's diaries and pamphlets
Canadian Women's Roles in World War I: anything new in war work?
Mapping and Photographing World War I: interesting instructional materials, etc.
The Nuclear Disarmament Movement, which includes a great collection of very striking posters and leaflets.
Evolving Technology in World War I, which includes numerous artistic visions of machine guns, tanks, etc.
War Resisters, including pamphlets.
World War 1 in the Middle East
I like this typed report of a raid.
I also like this leaflet against War Toys.

As I noted, there is a huge amount of great stuff at this site, interspersed with some dead ends as one would expect from a work in progress.
posted by Rumple (4 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
Rumple is the singularity.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:28 PM on January 2, 2009


I am indeed: infinitely dense, yet strangely attractive to heavenly bodies.
posted by Rumple at 12:35 PM on January 2, 2009


Do you have a date on that War toys poster? It would make sense if it was printed just after WWI. The military in every country involved looked really bad at the end of that one and youth were swearing oath's that they'd never go to war. Then a lot of those pacifists did.
posted by Pseudology at 12:41 PM on January 2, 2009


It has a jet fighter in it so much more recent. I'm pretty sure that is from the resistance to Vietnam case study.
posted by Rumple at 12:48 PM on January 2, 2009


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