Madison Library » history

WWII history program March 25

madisonlibrary — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:23:47 +0000

“Ernie Pyle and the Story of a Lost Photograph,” a World War II history presentation by Mark Foynes, executive director of the Wright Museum in Wolfeboro on Thursday, March 25 at 7 pm in the Chick Room at the Madison Library

Ernie Pyle, a roving reporter and war correspondent wrote of the average enlisted man in a folksy style that personalized the war for millions of Americans.

When Pyle was killed by Japanese fire in 1945, the U.S. government ordered the immediate destruction of a photograph of Pyle’s body, fearing that the image would shatter American morale on the home front. The Wright Museum’s collection includes one of the very few surviving prints of this rare photograph.

This presentation chronicles and celebrates Pyle’s career and writings, discusses the details of Pyle’s final hours, and examines the persistence of his place in our historical memory.

All are welcome to this free program.

Program Tuesday

madisonlibrary — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:52:19 +0000

Join the Friends of Madison Library on Tuesday, November 10th at 7 pm for a NH Humanities Council program, “Our National Thanksgiving,” presented by performers Steve and Sharon Wood. Reenacting Sarah Josepha Hale’s decades-long quest to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, the Woods, in period costume, take on the roles of President Lincoln and pioneer woman publisher Hale to tell this story from the 19th century that has affected the way we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday to this day.

The program will take place in the library’s Chick Room. The Friends of Madison Library will serve homemade cookies and cider for refreshments after the program.

scrapbook day

madisonlibrary — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:32:00 +0000

Two scrapbook programs today, one a success, the other a bust (the person who arranged to do the evening program scrapbook workshop was not able to come.)

The library has two Madison PTA scrapbooks stored in its vault. These are among the items that will be surveyed next month by a preservation specialist, thanks to a Moose Plate grant. (Thanks to all of you with Moose plates!) These scrapbooks have some great bits of local history, but the children in the classroom photos were not identified, and that is something we can do now to preserve the information in these books for future generations. This morning, I took the two Madison PTA scrapbooks–one from 1958, the other from 1964–to Ruth Chick’s home where she and Rita Shackford, Ruth Shackford, Pat Shackford, and Shirley Colcord, who were involved with the Madison PTA at the time, had a wonderful time identifying all but two of the children in the class photos. Janice Arnold, who is in one of the classroom pictures in the later book, came by the library in the afternoon to see the scrapbooks and was able to name those two children, completing this project in one day.