American Women Rebuilding France

A photo exhibition featuring Anne Morgan and the 350 American women volunteers who helped rebuild France in the wake of WWI will open at the KANEKO-UNO Library, from March 1-31, 2019. The exhibition entitled, American Women Rebuilding France, 1917-1924, features thirty-one WWI-era photographs and silent film footage that illustrate the extraordinary work undertaken to help the civilian population in Picardy, in northeastern France.

The dynamic leader of this historic effort was Anne Morgan, daughter of financier John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan, who dedicated her life to humanitarian causes. She and her volunteers helped feed the hungry population, brought back livestock, planted crops, rebuilt homes, and provided needed services for the children of the region.

This traveling exhibition, American Women Rebuilding France, 1917-1924, originated at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City in 2010 and was then displayed at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. It has been shown at more than 14 previous locations, including galleries, historical societies, universities, several venues of the Alliance Française and elsewhere across the U.S. The photographs come from the Anne Morgan Archives at the Franco-American Museum, Château de Blérancourt, with the support of American Friends of Blérancourt and the Florence Gould Foundation.

American Friends of Blérancourt (AFB) is an American philanthropic group based in New York. It was created in 1985 to support and promote the Franco-American Museum, Château de Blérancourt in Picardy. Anne Morgan founded the museum in 1931 out of the destruction of World War I, celebrating the triumph of French-American friendship and solidarity. It is the only museum worldwide dedicated to French-American relations. The museum’s collections include historical documents and ephemera and artwork by great artists, either French painters who chose American subjects or Americans who were trained or inspired by France. After extensive renovation and expansion, the Franco-American Museum will reopen in 2017, one hundred years after the U.S. entry into WWI. Learn more.

Exhibit Sponsors: Alliance Francaise d’Omaha, American Friends of Blérancourt, La Renaissance Française (USA), the Frances Gould Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Réunion des Musées nationaux, UNO’s Goldstein Center for Human Rights, and the KANEKO-UNO Library.

UNO Exhibit Sponsors: Departments of Foreign Languages and Literature, History, Political Science, and Women’s and Gender Studies; School of Communication; Grace Abbot School of Social Work; UNO Women and Public Policy Week; and the Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy.