There is a reason Veterans Day is always observed on the eleventh day of November. Originally known as Armistice Day, this holiday started as a day to commemorate the end of World War One. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, all of the countries involved in World War One agreed to an armistice, resulting in the cessation of military operations. The next year saw the observance of the first Armistice Day, which took place on November 11, 1919. In 1954, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day, but it is still observed on the eleventh day of November.
This Veterans Day, historian Heather Perry will give a public presentation titled “World War One and Its Impact in North Carolina.” Dr. Perry is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and she focuses much of her research on the history of World War One. In her first book, Recycling the Disabled: Army, Medicine, and Modernity in WWI Germany, she examined the impact of World War One in Germany. In her more recent research, however, she has been examining the impact of the war here in North Carolina. Her upcoming presentation is based on this recent research. Here is the official description of her presentation:
In 1917, when the United States intervened in the Great War, North Carolinians across the Tarheel State rushed to contribute “their bit” to America’s domestic mobilization. Heather Perry, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of History, will explore that home-front mobilization, and the rippling impacts it left behind in the next Ginkgo Residential lecture series, presented by the Capitalism Studies Program. From military training and school gardens to the nation’s only internment station for German “enemy aliens,” this talk examines how the First World War helped transition North Carolina from the “Old North State” into the “New South.”
The presentation will take place on Monday, November 11, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. at the Independent Picture House (4237 Raleigh Street). This presentation is open to the public at no charge, but registration is required: Register; Learn More about the Series
During her upcoming presentation, Dr. Perry will discuss the central role that Charlotte played in North Carolina’s involvement in World War One. Our city was much smaller in those days, but even then Storied Charlotte was on its way to becoming a city that played on a national stage.