A special photo exhibit focused on regional veterans opens with a public reception from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at the College of Menominee Nation.
The show will remain on view until Dec. 12 in the college’s S. Verna Fowler Academic Library/Menominee Public Library building at N172 State Highway 47-55, Keshena.
An online exhibit also begins Wednesday and continues indefinitely.
The library’s special collections department has developed the exhibit using military veterans’ portraits and photographs submitted by veterans, friends and family members. The exhibit includes a selection of photographs that are on loan to the department; the online archive includes significantly more items.
From August through October, the special collections department invited members of the community to lend photographs of themselves or family members who served in the armed forces. Bryan Stevenson, head of special collections, said the project was motivated by a desire to create a permanent digital collection in CMN to preserve photos, but also to honor and thank local veterans for their service.
Stevenson said many of the photos loaned to the library are family treasures, occupying places of honor in homes and offices. More than 50 photographs of nearly 70 individuals have been submitted for inclusion in the collection, along with photo albums and commemorative plaques. They represent soldiers who served during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, the Iraq War, the Afghan War and the intervening years of peacetime. Some soldiers pictured in the collection are still on active duty.
“I was very impressed by the number of photographs of servicewomen that were submitted for the project,” Stevenson said. “Nearly one-fifth of the soldiers in the images we digitized are women who served or are serving in the military. Quite a few of these women served during the second world war and the Vietnam Era.”
Beginning Nov. 12, the digital photo archive can be accessed through the library’s digital collection at content.mpl.org/cdm/search/collection/cmnlsc.
Anyone interested in submitting additional veterans’ photos for inclusion in the digital collection may do so by contacting Stevenson at 715-799-6226, ext. 3196, or bstevenson@menominee.edu.
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