The Virginia Museum of History & Culture’s exhibition, The Commonwealth and the Great War, presented the dramatic role of Virginia and its citizens in World War I. It did so by telling the stories of individual Virginians who carried the state’s proud military tradition to the battlefront and who labored at home to produce vital war supplies and tend “Victory Gardens.” One hundred thousand men from the Old Dominion served; 3,700 died. Many more were injured. Black Virginians made up 39 percent of the state’s draftees in 1918, and hundreds of Virginia nurses and doctors followed soldiers to Europe. The articles in this set offer brief descriptions of the major themes in the exhibition. 

These articles were featured in the Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Vol. 126, No. 1 in connection with the The Commonwealth and the Great War exhibition.