![\"C7-3_Q_940_9197_Un3o_USWW1_No145_0001](\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2014\/11\/c7-3_q_940_9197_un3o_usww1_no145_0001-copy.jpg?w=500\")
<\/a>On Veterans Day of the Centennial of World War I, it is tempting to view events of such historical significance as this conflict at the global or national level.\u00a0 However, that conflict had an impact on our state, our community and our university.\u00a0 During WWI, the ground school for the School of Military Aeronautics was located here at the University of Illinois.\u00a0 Chanute Air Field was located in Rantoul because of its proximity to the ground school and the East Central Railroad.\u00a0 If you want to learn more, you may want to pay a visit to the Chanute Air Museum<\/a> in Rantoul. Busey Residence Hall was used to quarter the students (cadets) of that school. \u00a0\u00a0To this day, a commemorative plaque may be found inside one of the entrance halls to that dormitory.\u00a0 Kenney Gym\u2014previously known as the Gym Annex\u2014was used as a laboratory for constructing wooden biplanes.\u00a0 The Armory<\/a>\u2014which is home to Army, Navy & Marine Corps, and Air Force ROTCs was dedicated on November 1, 1914.\u00a0 The United States Army, the longest tenant of the Armory, maintain a nice link to the history of the Department of Military Science or Army ROTC<\/a>.\u00a0 Memorial trees planted just outside the Armory were dedicated to U of I soldiers who died during WWI.\u00a0 A few medallions may still be found near some of the trees.\u00a0 And, of course, Memorial Stadium<\/a> was built as a memorial dedicated to the 189 U of I students and alumni who died in WWI.\u00a0 Their names have been engraved on the colonnades of that arena and may also be found on the University of Illinois Alumni Association\u2019s Veterans Memorial Project<\/em> website which includes a list of Gold Star Illini who died in WWI<\/a> as well as the names of Illini who have died in conflicts since then.\u00a0 The U of I\u2019s Department of Chemistry was also very prominent in doing research for the War Department, as documented in the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry<\/a><\/em> (“Noyes laboratory, an ACS National Chemical Landmark: 100 Years of Chemistry at the University of Illinois,” vol. 29, 1, p. 46).\u00a0 There is a U.S. Army Reserve Chemical unit located in Urbana which may have been lured here because of the research being conducted at the University.\u00a0 The 33rd division\u2014comprised of mostly of National Guard units from Illinois\u2014has a connection with the university from this time period and an even longer connection with Champaign-Urbana.\u00a0 The Illinois State Library has put together a collection of digitized documents related to Illinois\u2019 participation\/response to World War I including one entitled \u201cResponse of the University of Illinois to the Call of War<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Many of these historical connections can be researched locally at the University Archives<\/a> and at the Champaign County Historical Archives<\/a>.\u00a0 Champaign-Urbana and campus resound with the echoes of our rich military history.<\/p>\n Kevin T. McLaughlin For Veterans Day 2014, we have invited our colleague Kevin T. McLaughlin to reflect on the impact of the Great War on our local community. \u2013 Tony Hynes, Dennis Sears, Caroline Szylowicz, curators of the exhibition First Global Conflict: Contemporary Views of the Great War, 1914-1919. (On exhibit until December 19 in the Rare Book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1903"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4767,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions\/4767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMSW, Class of \u201818
\nMSLIS, Class of \u201804
\nLAS\/Anthropology, Class of \u201888
\nSenior Library Specialist\/Serials
\nGovernment Documents Cataloging & Processing Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"