A City Goes to War: Victoria’s War Story on the Web

We were thrilled when we discovered a new online project about Victoria’s war effort. A City Goes to War is a University of Victoria online project managed by PhD history student Jim Kempling, who is also a retired infantry colonel.

Says Kempling, “In most of our cities across the country people really have no idea what it was like in their own home town during the First World War. Victoria was the hometown of Sir Arthur Currie who led the Canadian Corps, yet if you asked most people on the street they would have no idea that he was a high school teacher or real estate agent in Victoria before World War I. That’s what we’re trying to recapture for people.”

A City Goes to War includes two thousand primary source documents, photos, letters, newspaper articles and a searchable database of over six thousand service records of people from Victoria who served in the Great War. A timeline tracks happenings in Victoria, British Columbia and Canada leading up to and through the war years. There is also a teaching package for high schools that challengesstudents to create their own “Fakebook” page and explore the lives of people in Victoria during the war years. This digital model is available to other universities and cities wanting to tell local stories to commemorate the hundredth anniversary.

Visit www.acitygoestowar.ca.

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