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Libraries to host GI Bill exhibit
On June 22, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as “the GI Bill of Rights.” During the past 60 years, what is now known as the GI Bill has provided approximately 21 million veterans and service members with $77 billion in benefits for education and training.
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| Photo
courtesy of Special Collections Research Center |
| In this 1948 photo, NC State students walk in front of Quonset huts, which were set up in the Court of North Carolina to relieve overcrowded classrooms following a dramatic increase in enrollment after World War II. Many of those students were able to attend college because of the GI Bill, the subject of a new NCSU Libraries’ exhibit entitled “Transforming Society: The GI Bill Experience at NC State.” |
At NC State, the GI Bill led to a dramatic increase in enrollment after World War II. With classrooms overcrowded, the university set up Quonset huts in the Court of North Carolina. By the late 1940s, veterans accounted for about 80 percent of NC State’s student body, far higher than the national average of 50 percent. Like classrooms, dorm rooms became crowded as the number of students assigned to each room at NC State was increased from two to three, and then to four.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the GI Bill and to honor the veterans who have attended NC State, the NCSU Libraries has prepared an exhibit called “Transforming Society: The GI Bill Experience at NC State.” Combining historical materials with testimonies of current NC State students, the exhibit documents the local impact of one of the most successful public policies ever adopted in the United States.
The exhibit will run from Oct. 14 through Dec. 22 in the D.H. Hill Library’s main circulation lobby and mezzanine. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
Drawing mainly on the NCSU Libraries’ own rich collections of photographs, campus publications, student essays, letters, and other University Archives and manuscript materials, the exhibit documents how the GI Bill contributed to the growth of NC State and shaped the lives of individual students.
In addition to selecting materials from the Special Collections Research Center, librarian Anna Dahlstein and NC State education professor Robert Serow interviewed NC State graduates and students who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and a number of other arenas before completing their education. Their stories are featured in the exhibit and have become a part of the University Archives in the form of oral history recordings. Alumni also loaned the Libraries artifacts, documents and photographs that help tell the story of the GI Bill – a story that is still unfolding today.
The NCSU Libraries has arranged special events in conjunction with the exhibit. For more information, visit www.lib.ncsu.edu/exhibits/gibill/.
Posted October 6, 2004
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