This guide highlights items and collections related to World War II, including oral histories, photographs, posters, and other print material.
To use this guide, please follow the links to browse and research collections. For some collections we have provided links to examples to help you get started.
America At War
The America at War digital collection includes a significant number of artifacts contributed by members of the Teaching American History in Louisiana (TAHIL) partnership. For the purposes of this guide, the link is to a search within this collection for “World War II.”
Baton Rouge Room Collection
This digital collection is a sample of the types of materials housed in the East Baton Rouge Public Library’s Baton Rouge Room Collection. These materials represent current and historical actions of local governments, businesses, residents, and institutions of the City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish. For the purposes of this guide, the link is to a search within this collection for “World War II,” which results in photographs of WWII soldiers, among other items.
Camp Ruston Collection
This collection includes photographs, drawings, menus, and other documents from Camp Ruston, one of the largest prisoner of war camps in the United States during World War II. The first 300 men, from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's elite Afrika Korps, arrived in August 1943. In 1944, the captured officers and crew of a German U-Boat were sent to the camp.
Louisianians in the Military Oral History Project
This oral history includes 13 interviews documenting Louisiana's military tradition, primarily focusing on World War II.
Louisiana Historic Photograph Collection
The State Library of Louisiana Historical Photographs Collection features black and white and some color photographs from the early 1900s to present. There are large collections of Department of Transportation, Tourism, Conservation, and Environmental Quality images. For the purposes of this guide, the link is to a search within this collection for “World War II.”
Louisiana soldiers in Louisiana during World War II
Photographs of Louisiana soldiers in Louisiana during World War II visiting libraries and the State Museum. Also includes Federal Writers Project articles on food scarcity, for example, World War II affects the prices and quantity of imported foods from Europe to Louisiana in 1940.
Louisiana Works Progress Administration Collection
The WPA collection at the State Library of Louisiana covers the state and includes traditional songs, beliefs, customs, sayings, stories, recipes, legends, jokes, and accounts of local history. For the purposes of this guide, the link is to a search within this collection for “World War II.”
Historic Photographs of Southwest Louisiana
Photographs documenting McNeese, Lake Charles, and the Imperial Calcasieu region from the early 1890s to the present. For the purposes of this guide, the link is to a search within this collection for items tagged “World War, 1939-1945” and includes newspaper clippings about the war.
