The Marengo County History & Archives Museum will host “Remembering the Great War: Alabama and World War One,” a traveling exhibit by the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

The public is invited to view the exhibit beginning Friday, Feb. 23 through March 31.  There will be an opening presentation on Friday, Feb. 23, at 6 p.m., at the museum.  The keynote speaker will be Ruth Truss from the University of Montevallo.  Truss’ presentation is the “Alabamians of the 167 Fights in France.” The exhibit commemorates the centennial anniversary of the state’s involvement in the war and tells the story of the war from the perspectives of Alabamians whose lives were shaped by the conflict.

The exhibit will tell the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators, and the American troops who came to be known as doughboys. The U.S. entered World War I in April 1917 on the side of the Allies. An estimated 95,000 Alabamians served in uniform.

The “Remembering the Great War” speaker series is supported in part by the Alabama Humanities Foundation. The Alabama Humanities Foundation is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities

The speaker series and exhibit is sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University.

“Remembering the Great War” was created by the ADAH, Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University and with assistance from industrial design students in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction and Associate Professor Shu-Wen Tzeng.

(This article originally appeared in the Wednesday, February 21 issue of the Demopolis Times.)