By Norma Dittman
Murray County News staff writer
Anita Gaul will present a program on her book “The Women of Southwest Minnesota and the Great War” at Fulda City Hall on Wednesday, October 3rd, 6:30 p.m.
Gaul will be dressed in a costume from the World War I era during the presentation. “I enjoy doing the programs dressed as a character from that time period, incorporating fashion history into history,” she commented.
Gaul said that the book had its beginnings in 2012 when she was watching Downton Abby with her husband. “At Murray County Museum, we did an exhibit commemorating the outbreak of World War I. We opened in 2014 about the same time of year that the war began.”
The exhibit available at Murray County Museum for one year.
Then came the evening that the Gaul’s were watching Downton Abby together. “My husband said, ‘Anita, you should do something with all of the research that you put into the history of the World War I exhibit.’ I got to thinking, ‘What if I sort of expanded the scope, but narrowed the scope, working to turn it into a publication?”
Gaul worked with Jan Louwagie, Coordinator at Southwest Minnesota Regional Research Center, Marshall, MN, and the Society for Local and Regional History, Southwest Minnesota State University, in expanding the focus of her research beyond Murray County and looking at the whole region while also narrowing the research to what women were doing during World War I.
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