Dora Russell (1894-1986) was much more than the second of Bertrand Russell’s series of four wives. A liberated young woman, with advanced views on women’s rights and an unconventional approach to sexuality, throughout her long life she worked tirelessly for the cause of greater human understanding and peace.

When war was declared on 4 August 1914, Vera Brittain, like most of her contemporaries, was swept up in the excitement which accompanied the announcement of hositilities. However, her voluminous papers reveal her transformation into a brave and unwavering voice for peace, even during the Second World War, when so many other public intellectuals concluded war to be the only recourse against the threat of Hitler’s Germany.

Music is an emotional medium, which preserves more than mere circumstance. The music in this case study gives us a window into how ordinary Canadians experienced the First World War.

McMaster University’s extensive Air Raid Precaution collection contains detailed information about the centre of the City of London’s preparations for the Second World War. A detailed survey of all residences and businesses was conducted, and air raid facilities were established long before the bombs began to fall.

Self-taught Toronto artist Eric Aldwinckle went overseas in March 1943 as an official War Artist, commissioned by the RCAF to portray the war in the air. Aldwinckle's correspondence with Toronto composer Harry Somers reveals the inner workings of the minds of two friends on a quest for truth, beauty, and ideals against the dreary backdrop of war.

As one of Canada’s largest manufacturing and transportation centres, Hamilton, Ontario, a major Great Lakes port close to the U.S. border, played a crucial role during the two world wars. During the 1914-18 conflict, as well as training troops for land, sea, and air, Hamilton was lauded for industrial productivity and the extraordinary achievement of its citizens in raising funds.

The First World War has sometimes been referred to as “the first modern war” – an acknowledgement of the significant number of technological developments which were used in battles for the first time during this conflict.

“When you get back to England, say hello to the Queen for me. I used to work for her father.” This was William Frank Kenwood’s standard salutation in his later years whenever he would encounter anyone from the British Isles. It was one of the few references he would make about his time as an R.A.F. airman or to the two and half years he spent as a German prisoner of war.

A young man who had not yet found his artistic path, never gets that chance. Julian Gould’s great artistic ability was evident from his teenage years. He volunteered for service in the First World War and was killed before he had the chance to establish himself.

Established in Toronto in 1935, the Canadian Youth Congress “expressed the thought of awakened and intelligent youth” in favour of peace. The movement, claiming some four hundred thousand members at its height, faced almost insuperable odds as first the Spanish Civil War and then the Second World War broke out.

Well into his eighties, Bertrand Russell lost none of his dedication to the cause of peace. Presiding first over the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and then the Committee of 100 (C100), he marched, mobilized and even sat down in London’s streets of power to protest the adoption of nuclear weapons.

Constance Malleson, in a series of letters to her former lover and lifelong friend Bertrand Russell, provides a vivid account of life during World War II. She writes first from her home in the English countryside, later from Finland, and then, following her escape from attack by the Soviet Union, from Sweden. Her letters provide valuable insights into the hardships of war, as seen from the civilian perspective.

Eric Grove was only nineteen years old when he joined the Royal Air Force and at the age of twenty-one he was flying Lancaster bombers across Germany. One year later, at just twenty-two, he became a prisoner of war.

The Christmas Truce of December 1914 has become the stuff of legend. In a savage war which dragged on for four long years and in which perhaps eight million people died, it seems almost inconceivable that groups of soldiers in the trenches, the declared enemies of one another, could have exchanged songs and cigarettes, even for a brief interlude. Gerald Blake was there.

Gerry Bell, a native Hamiltonian, is regarded as Canada’s first black airman. He served in England during World War II and continued to be closely connected with aviation until his death.

The letters of British pilot John Lisle, who spent two years as a German prisoner of war (1943-45), as well as revealing the tedium and sense of isolation of the prisoner’s life, provide insights into the ways the prisoners tried to live as “normally” as they could.

Marion S. Simpson of Hamilton, Ontario was one of many women who played an important role on the home front, knitting socks for the soldiers during the First World War. The socks were invaluable on both a psychological and practical level: gifts of socks from home both raised morale and helped keep the men in the trenches warm and dry.

The letters of the McDaniel brothers, RCAF ground crewmen stationed in northern England during the Second World War, are filled with the war-time experiences, momentous and mundane, of two young men, offering a glimpse into the often overlooked lives of ground unit personnel.

The charismatic clergyman Dick Sheppard’s 1934 public call for all who shared his pacifist sentiments to sign a pledge to renounce war led to the development of an influential political movement. The movement faced its first serious challenge with the growing threat of Hitler’s Germany.

In a bitter conflict that foreshadowed the worst excesses of World War II, Europe found itself divided. The Spanish Civil War also divided the United States although most popular sentiment, as this archival collection suggests, was on the side of the doomed Republican cause.