June 5: How the American Home Front First Saw D-Day

Greg Wilsbacher, Ph.D., a University of South Carolina faculty librarian and curator of the famous Fox Movietone News Collection housed there, will present a muti-media program, How the American Homefront First Saw D-Day on June 5 at 2 p.m. at the Transylvania County Library’s Rogow Community Room, 212 S. Gaston St., Brevard. The program, sponsored by the Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas, is free and open to the public and is meant to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the largest amphibious assault in history.

Wilsbacher received his Ph.D. in English from Indiana University. In addition to curating the Fox Movietone News Collection, he also curates the United States Marine Corps Film Repository at USC. He writes and lectures on newsreel history, digital preservation theory, optical sound technologies and military cinematography. He is currently project lead on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, “Virtual Bench,” that fuses artificial intelligence models with traditional methods of archival film analysis.

“During World War II, Americans avidly followed the fighting around the globe by reading newspapers and listening to the radio, but in those days before television, the way they saw moving images of our soldiers, sailors and airmen in action was by going to the movies and seeing the newsreels that preceded the motion pictures of the day,” said David Morrow, Veterans History Museum of the Carolinas Board president. “Perhaps, they were working in a defense industry. They almost certainly had loved ones fighting overseas for the future of the world. But the American home front audience knew what was at stake and was eager to see the newsreels. Dr. Wilsbacher will tell us what was involved in bringing these now historic newsreels to movie screens across the country.”

We invite you to bring your friends and join us on June 5 at 2 p.m. for a look into the home front experience during WWII–what your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents may have seen and felt.

The non-profit Veterans Museum of the Carolinas welcomes visitors Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Exhibits cover World War I, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, and the war on terrorism. Tours can be customized for groups by calling 828-884-2141. For more information, call 828-884-2141 or visit www.theveteransmuseum.com.