A Message from Mike Garabedian (Dean, Library and Instructional Support at Rio Hondo College):

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of Río Hondo College Library, with gratitude and reverence, today we remember the armistice that concluded World War I—’the war to end all wars’—was signed 102 years ago, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Among allied nations Nov. 11 became a day of remembrance for the estimated ten million soldiers and nine million civilians who died in the conflict and was known as Armistice Day until World War II, when its name was changed to Remembrance Day in Britain and to Veterans Day in the U.S. (a holiday RHC will observe this Friday).

Though their singularly horrific and tragic experiences in World War I resulted in soldiers on both sides producing a slew of wartime art and literature, perhaps no work is as closely associated with those who fell in the conflict as John McRae’s 1915 poem ‘In Flanders Fields.’ A tribute to the war dead that is poignant in its own right, allow me to suggest the poem is especially moving in a choral version arranged by Stephen Chatman, and performed at a sister institution in 2015 by the Glendale Community College Concert singers. You can view this two-minute performance here.

For those interested, Río Hondo College Library has an abundance of online resources that take up the history of the First World War. Here are just a few:

Encyclopedia Article

“World War I.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences Volume 9 / edited by William A. Darity, Jr. Gale [Virtual Reference Library], 2008, pp. 145–147.

Electronic Books

Remembering World War I in America / Kimberly J. Lamay-Licursi. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018

World War I: A Short History / Tammy Proctor. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2018.

World War I: Primary Documents on Events from 1914 to 1919 / Ross Collins. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.

Documentary Videos

Apocalypse: World War I / created by Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle. Films Media Group, 2014.

World War I: Clash of Empires / ABC News. Films Media Group, 1999.

RHC librarians are available to help remotely Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to noon and 2 to 6 p.m., and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., via the Library Zoom Room, chat service, or text: (562) 418-5253.