Hoover Institution Library and Archives Exhibit Features Contrasting Views of War

STANFORD, Calif.--(Business Wire)--Never Such Innocence: British Images of the First World War, an
exhibit at the Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion, features two
approaches to engaging the British in the First World War (1914-18):
one by the British government in thousands of posters and the other,
nonofficial war art, poetry, and photographs by disillusioned British
soldiers. Members of the class History and the Arts: Modern Britain,
taught by Stanford history professor Peter Stansky, provided the text
and chose the images for the exhibition.

Because Britain did not introduce conscription until 1916, the
country needed volunteers. Urged on by images and texts that promoted
duty, the protection of women and children, manliness, and patriotism,
more than two million men enlisted. Once the volunteers had spent time
in the trenches, however, the war, with its anonymous death by
firepower and clouds of poisonous gas, had become for them a "dance of
death."

A series of etchings in the exhibit by British artist Percy John
Smith titled The Dance of Death, on loan from the Cantor Arts Center,
feature the figure of death responding to the casualties on the
battlefield. Another highlight of the exhibit is a display of the
Wipers Times, a newspaper written mainly by the enlisted men of the
Twenty-fourth Division of the British Army that satirizes their living
conditions and situation. In addition, Special Collections, Stanford
University Libraries, loaned poetry texts for the exhibit. All other
materials are from the collections of the Hoover Institution Library
and Archives.

The exhibit will be open to the public through March 1, 2008, in
the Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion, next to Hoover Tower,
and is free of charge. Pavilion hours are Tuesday through Saturday,
11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For more information, go to
www.hoover.org/hila or contact 650-723-3563.

Images from the exhibit are available on request.

Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Office of Public Affairs
LaNor Maune, Public Affairs Writer, 650-723-0603
Fax: 650-725-8611
Maune@hoover.stanford.edu
Michele Horaney APR, Public Affairs Manager, 650-723-0603
Fax: 650-725-8611
Horaney@hoover.stanford.edu
www.hoover.org

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