Library of Congress Winston Churchill Exhibit Tour Travel Vacation

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Places To Go, Things to See in DC: Winston Churchill Exhibit Dr. David J. Demko, Gerontologist and Editor
AgeVenture News Service 07-28-04

The Library of Congress will open the first comprehensive exhibition of Churchill material in the United States on February 5 through June 26, 2004. “Churchill and the Great Republic,” explores the life and career of Sir Winston Churchill and emphasizes his lifelong links with the United States. The significance of Churchill's U.S. ties was underscored in 1963, two years before his death when President John F. Kennedy and the Congress conferred Honorary American citizenship upon Churchill, a distinction accorded only once before, to the Marquis de Lafayette. T he exhibition is free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday.

The exhibition includes more than 200 items, ranging from an historic letter written by Churchill’s ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, in 1706, and the 8-year-old Churchill’s 1883 report card (which indicated that he was at times “very naughty”) to handwritten notes passed between Churchill and Averell Harriman as they rode in a noisy bomber to the 1942 Churchill-Stalin conference.

He served as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1914, aggressively using British naval power against his country’s enemies during World War I. Prior to America’s entry into World War II, Churchill was back at his former post at the Admiralty and engaged in an unprecedented correspondence with President Roosevelt; these super-secret messages continued after Churchill became prime minister during the darkest days of the war. Together they worked out the arrangements for American aid to Britain short of full belligerency, and they often met in person to direct the combined effort after the U.S. entered the war in December 1941.

The six sections of “Churchill and the Great Republic” cover Churchill’s life from his youth through his heroism during the Boer War at the turn of the 19th century, his marriage to Clementine Hozier, his service in the trenches of World War I, his leadership of Great Britain and his relations with the United States during World War II, and finally his last years as a private citizen. The greatest space by far is devoted to World War II: the years leading up to the war, the war itself, and its aftermath.

Throughout the exhibition, audio stations allow visitors to hear Churchill delivering some of his most famous speeches and video kiosks feature Churchill’s speeches and the ways in which his words influenced people today.

An expanded online version of “Churchill and the Great Republic,” which allows the user to see complete letters and documents rather than only the one or two pages that can be displayed in the exhibition, will be mounted on the Library’s Web site at www.loc.gov/exhibits
Image Credit: W. Averell Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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