Physical & Online Crowdsourcing Documents the Real First World War

The European project, “First World War in everyday documents” has combined real people and the physical artifacts they’ve inherited with the power of the Web to preserve and communicate on a mass scale. This effort has the potential to bring back into focus a horrendous period of time that, almost 100 years later, is often regarded with a soft focus. Real people lived, killed, died and suffered through the first global conflict in history and now they are regarded as Edwardian ornaments for a sentimentalist view of history that disgraces their sacrifice.

Run by Europeana, the European archive, the project began in March and will end in July. It combines online uploading with real-life roadshows to assemble an enduring, highly-personalized Web archive of the war.