WWI program coming to 3 local libraries

Timberland libraries will host the program, “Washington at War: The Evergreen State in World War I”

On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I — The Great War — to fight alongside European allies. Washington State’s homefront turmoil, however, began before the country entered the war and continued afterward.

Three Twin Harbor Timberland libraries will host the program, “Washington at War: The Evergreen State in World War I” presented by historian Lorraine McConaghy.

• Raymond Timberland Library — Friday, March. 24, at 5:30 p.m.

• South Bend Timberland Library — Saturday, March 25 at 10 a.m.

• Westport Timberland Library — Saturday, Mar. 25 at 2

McConaghy will begin the program with an illustrated introduction to the war’s themes. Following that, guests may participate in a scripted “Readers’ Theater,” designed to portray the turmoil of the years 1914-1919. The script is drawn from first-person sources such as letters, diaries and newspaper stories. It allows modern readers to speak aloud the words of a past generation and gain an sense of how Washingtonians of that era experienced the great social, economic and political changes: industrialization, immigration, women’s rights, radical labor, epidemic disease and worldwide turmoil.

McConaghy is a public historian who’s received the Washington State Historical Society’s Robert Gray Medal, the annual award of the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild, and the Humanities Washington Award.

This talk is presented by Humanities Washington and the Washington State Historical Society in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of America’s involvement in World War I.

For more information, contact visit www.TRL.org.