Center for the Study of War Experience

Up Close and Personal with War Veterans

The primary mission of the Center for the Study of War Experience is to collect and preserve the memories of war veterans in the form of their personal narratives. The collection currently includes a broad range of items detailing the wartime lives of more than 150 American veterans. These artifacts provide a physical, deeply personal link to the past.

Collection Contents

The Center's archive includes both unpublished and published manuscripts, pamphlets, diaries, memoirs, and journals generally written for family members or fellow veterans. An ongoing history project provides hundreds of hours of video-recorded testimonies by veterans and others that bear witness to the experiences of modern war.

The collection also contains items donated by veterans such as personal wartime effects, uniforms, official documents, photograph albums, newspaper and magazine collections, and commemorative items.

Collection Accessibility

All collection items are professionally preserved and catalogued, and are stored in a secure space. The collection is accessible to students, teachers, and the general public for research and study purposes. The archive presents exhibits of its archive items in permanent display cases on the third floor of Main Hall.

Educational Outreach

The Center also provides education outreach programming such as instructional materials, curriculum guides, and speakers' programs for classroom use by middle school and high school teachers.