Veterans History Project Marks Tenth Year with Events and Initiatives
Feb 02 2010
The Veterans History Project (VHP) at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center has planned national and local events, activities and initiatives during 2010 to mark the 10th anniversary of its congressional mandate to collect, preserve and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans.
VHP contributors have recorded and submitted more 68,000 personal recollections to the Library to date, making it the largest oral-history collection in the United States. The project depends on a vast network of volunteers, both individuals and organizations, to record stories and submit original photographs, diaries, letters and other personal documents that tell the history of our nation during wartime from the perspective of the men and women who were there.
Plans for 2010 include:
- Launch of a “toolkit” to help VHP contributors plan local events and develop community-engagement programs
- Initiatives to gather more stories of minority and women veterans
- Events to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II and the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War
- A host of online and in-person programs to mark cultural heritage months.
VHP accomplishments include:
- A National Teach-In on Veterans History that was webcast live to more than 2,000 schools, hosted by VHP and HISTORY™ as part of the Take a Veteran to School Day initiative
- More than 25 web presentations that highlight the stories of the diversity of the veterans who served our nation
- Hundreds of community engagement programs with the U.S. Congress; colleges, universities and schools; the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; civic organizations; faith-based groups; veteran-service organizations; libraries; and other organizations that continue to contribute to VHP
- Opportunities for thousands of students to participate in inter-generational service learning programs
- Two books published in conjunction with National Geographic: “Voices of War: Stories of Service from the Home Front and the Front Lines” and “Forever a Soldier: Unforgettable Stories of Wartime Service,” which feature stories from the VHP collection,
- Interviews with veterans from every congressional district.
The Veterans History Project was created in 2000 by Congress as a national documentation program of the American Folklife Center to record, preserve, and make accessible the first-hand remembrances of American wartime veterans from World War I through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
