Veterans Day was created to commemorate the end of World War I. In honor of this day I wanted to share this incredible source, the Stephen Noyes War Pictures. Noyes was an American aviator in France during WWI. The collection includes both terrain and aerial photographs from his time abroad. This is an excellent tool to teach change over time as you can compare the cities in these photos to those same cities today.

It is also a way to discuss how airplanes changed war. It is not a coincidence that the use of camouflage began during World War I. Consider these discussion questions with students: How does the use of airplanes change a war? How can aerial photographs help or hurt soldiers? What can we learn from these photographs? Why was the use of camouflage important? How as this war different from the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?

This collection also contains a log of missing, killed, and wounded men as well as a “summary of intelligence.”

To see this collection, and others from World War I, please join us for our teacher workshop on November 19th. Click here for details or email me at aparks@hsp.org.