Brown Bag on the "Yankee Division" in the Great War

Join us for a Brown Bag Lunch
on Thursday February 13th, 2014
State Library of Massachusetts
Room 442, State House
12 until 1:30 PM

With the 100th Anniversary of the Great War approaching, interest is building in learning more about the critical role that the American Expeditionary Force played in bringing that tragic conflict to a conclusion.  New England’s own Yankee Division was the first to organize, the first to reach France and the first to engage with the enemy. Bring your lunch and come hear Dan Leclerc, Educator and Historian present his multimedia program about the organizational creativity of the commanders and the courage and tenacity of our own “doughboys.”   Dan has visited Belgium and France four times and has visited many of the sites where the Yankee Division faced tough German opposition. One particularly heroic engagement was the “Battle of Apremont-La-Foret” after which the first ever regimental “Croix-de-Guerre” was awarded to the Yankee Division’s 104th Regiment. A very impressive mural memorializes that triumph in the Massachusetts State House. We will visit that site as part of this program with an explanation of particulars of that battle.

This talk coincides with the posting of the library’s new exhibit: Courage in the Commonwealth: Massachusetts in World War I which is on display outside the 3rd floor entrance to the library. The exhibit runs through May 31st.

To register, please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FGFPWR3
You may also register by calling the Reference Department at 617-727-2590 or by e-mailing to Reference.Department@state.ma.us

Future Brown Bags which are planned for 2014

• March 18th –  Mary Ellen Grogan and colleagues from the Massachusetts Genealogy Council will do a second presentation on Genealogy.
• April 17th –  Beth Carroll-Horrocks, Head of Special Collections, State Library of Massachusetts, “Treasures of the State Library”
• May 22nd –  Nancy Lusignan Schultz, author of “Fire and Roses: the Burning of Charlestown Convent, 1934”
• Stephen Puleo, author of “The Caning: The Assault that Drove America to the Civil War,” date to be determined