carolina at greensboro. >> we are in the hodges reading room at the university of north carolina at greensboro. and we will be looking at a collection that is pretty distinct. inr 450 world war i pamphlet our holdings. think really stands out with this collection is that it really runs the gamut of combatant countries. representation of pamphlets. a large collection from the united states. we also have templates from the austro-hungarian empire. and from russia as well. i would like to show a number of examples of the collection

itself and i thought we would do it chronologically. of of the first appearances pamphlets that happens very shortly after the outbreak of the war. and you start to see pamphlets being produced by combatant countries talking about the war and what they're are really talking about at that time is fixing blame on who cause the war. countries, many of them recognized that they needed to influence their own public opinion and give people behind the support of the war to sustain the war effort. and a very lengthy and bloody war it self. a couple of these pamphlets at the beginning was a discussion about germany at self. they allies really play off the theme of german blame and there's a lot of discussion

about what drove germany to the war. about thists talk inherent german militarism. there are examples of both british and american pamphlets that talk about culture. makes aser wilhelm speech about germany going to war, he talks about the need to protect the fatherland. and he is sort of talking about the german way of life. british translators pick up on that and how german culture is somehow inherently militaristic. the pamphlets talk about this push for germany to dominate central europe. the need to push into the middle east.

and to be very competitive in terms of colonies overseas. that debate starts early. and what i find absolutely fascinating is the french propaganda and british propaganda in which they talked about cables and walked the reader through the events that led to the assassination of the heir apparent to the outbreak of war. days, theseof 12 are cables that talk about the war experience. some of these others do the same thing. askedve historians being to write documents. what i think is fascinating is we have a counter response.

talkgerman pamphlets that about the events that led up to the war. you have an austro-hungarian book that talks about leading up to the war. redbook, itungarian is actually on the country of serbia. they blame serbia for the cause of the war and throw in russia who was allied with serbia. russiamans tend to blame as well as the british pushing to forcing germany into what they think is a defensive war. blame the generally germans because germany invaded and occupied northern france.

this is being all sent to the american public. the u.s. was deeply divided about the war. you had in former civilian groups that supported great britain and opted on that side. you also had a very significant german-american population that were sympathetic to germany and felt that germany might have been forced into it. it goes to a fundamental issue of how these industrial countries that previously had interlocking military alliance , theyinternational crises worked these issues out before. there were times when things flared up. they usually worked it out through international mediation and negotiation. they could not figure out why they could not solve this issue.

fundamentally, they try to respond to the general populace. they could not figure out why the countries were going to war. the u.s. was a neutral country and wanted to do business with all the parties. so they allowed this literature to come in. each ofe very aware of the embassies in the united dates trying to influence public opinion as well. the administration was very concerned about being pushed one way or the other. also, there was a sensitivity that they were trying to influence domestic public opinion and that becomes a political issue as well.

you now have europe in war for two years and the question is, what is the united states going to do. it is very clear they are trading heavily with great written and france and less so with germany. and there's the question of germany at self now and occupying country. parts of belgium and luxembourg as well as parts of france. one of the things for britain, belgium, and france is a discussion about atrocities. was, in its willingness to break an international treaty. the neutrality of elgin. there was a rogue army that was breaking international conventions.

prior to world war i, you had a number of international treaty conventions to talk about war. and proper conventions of fighting a modern war. this group of pamphlets here really does talk about those types of attacks on the civilian population. not just on the military. is talking about how this population is coming about. atrocities, or through the iron bars, which talks about the occupation of belgium. they talk about things like rape, slave labor. using civilians to build munitions for them. some of them draw upon what they claim is documents from the occupying areas.

looking at this whole mix of documents, the atrocity theme is picked up again and the germans themselves come up with their own documents from a counter narrative that says we have belgian documents we have about thethat talk fact that it was really the belgian government fabricating these atrocity stories. they are aware. try to create a counter narrative. the u.s. is also publishing propaganda about this atrocity thing. it has not gone away. the u.s. is using it in their own x nation of why they are going to war. a number of plantlets -- talk about why they

are establishing a blockade. there are counter responses by americans talking about the need for freedom of the seas. the international right to trade. see our're starting to talking about u-boats and german crimes sinking neutral shipping at that time. this gives you a sense of what is being said dealing with trade and in american politics. this is a really fascinating collection. these are being created by the united states. pamphlets are from different countries involved in the war. with the declaration of war,

president wilson establishes a committee, the committee for public information. , the supportert of president wilson who was a newspaper man. he was a reformer. a strong backer of wilson. and he is appointed to this .osition the committee wraps up to really drive a message about war itself. the u.s. realizes that they need to get the american public behind this war. they are immediately concerned about conscription. civilians will support a conscription to mobilize them.

and to fight in a foreign war. concerned anduite quite interested about the fromence of propaganda combatant countries that we are now at war with. and pacifist groups that might have an anti-moore message. the chair of the committee for public education. they have formal censorship rules. issuing these to the press and the newspapers. pressure for people to self censor messages. what we have is the number of documents being published by the committee on public information.

it is a fascinating story and they start to publish their own newspaper about the war effort. publishingto start this war information series about world war i and they published over 100 pamphlets for american academics. this is a council that gains control over film. they have their own film group and they have their own photography division. they deal with foreign nationals. and neverssive effort referred to as propaganda. message, youe understood why the message was going to war. this was another issue that americans really had to deal with.

there will be issues about taxation. how will we sustain a war and pay for that war. and how do you get infusions of cash now? a number of liberty loan campaigns. here they are sort of raising money for the war effort. they have a lot of propaganda posters. pamphlets events and talking about what we're doing with the money, how are we financing the war, and had you go about saving money so you can participate in the liberty loan campaign. it wasn't just that you are mobilizing mende light, it was another lesson the u.s. had a learn very quick the.

they had recruiting posters and others. but we have mass media now. have 10 newspapers going a day. you also have film. newsreels. you have the telegraph. the information. people are a little more connected. that is why this type of propaganda is so huge. there was a real this taste after the war of an idea of the manipulated for propaganda and there is definitely a pushback by congress. was upset being manipulated that may have influenced postwar politics. >> we finish the city's tour with a look at r.f. micro

devices. a company that crated a microchip sped up the development of mobile phones. we talk with the company's founder that wrote the book, fire in the valley. building the world leading high-tech company from scratch in tumultuous times. >> we are here with jerry bledsoe, co-author of fire in the belly. and jerry neil, co-author and founder of the company microdevices. ask,l start with you and why did you decide to write this book? i was hard pressed to make that decision. i was getting calls from jerry's assistant on a fairly regular basis and i said, i don't do this type of thing.