Events That Ponder a Grim Anniversary (WWI)

[Frank W. Baker]

(From The New York Times; additional links added by Frank Baker) Cultural institutions across the United States, which entered the war in April 1917, are also observing the centennial. From Aug. 4 through Sept. 21, the Museum of Modern Art is showing “The Great War: A Cinematic Legacy,” with works that explore war, espionage and the home front before and after the war. The program begins with a newly restored print of“Hearts of the World,” D. W. Griffith’s 1918 silent film about the treatment of the French after the German invasion, and also includes “The False Faces,” a 1919 drama of U-boats in which Lon Chaney plays a German spy, and Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Secret Agent” (1936), a spy thriller set in Switzerland.

In Boston, the Massachusetts Historical Society is presenting “Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: Massachusetts Wom... which includes photographs, letters and diaries related to Margaret Hall and Eleanor Saltonstall, who were among hundreds of Massachusetts women who traveled to France as Red Cross volunteers. The exhibition runs until Jan. 24, 2015. The Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., is presenting “Your Country Calls!” a collection of 50 posters “created to shape and influence national identity, justify involvement, build unity across international borders and mobilize citizens into action for a collective effort to win the war.”