Institute on World War II and the Human Experience

Founded in 1997 by the late Dr. William Oldson, the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience strives to preserve the photographs, letters, and artifacts of service members and their families. Since our founding, we have continued to enable thousands of veterans to preserve their legacies of service. Our collections of primary resources now total almost 7,000, largely in the form of personal papers. They are contained in nearly 800 cubic feet of paper documents, 75 cubic feet of photographs, 382 linear feet of books, more than 600 maps, paintings, and magazines, and 300 cubic feet of artifacts. These collections came to Tallahassee from 49 states and Washington, D.C., as well as dozens of collections from around the world . One of the Institute’s largest collections, donated by Tom Brokaw, contains the thousands of letters, photographs, manuscripts, and books he collected while writing The Greatest Generation and subsequent works. Our first major collections came from Paul Dougherty, a photographer with the 9th Air Force and 3rd Army, and George R. Langford, who served in the 20th Armored Division under General George Patton in France. Each year, the Institute sponsors events that seek to bring new perspectives and cutting edge scholarship to the Florida State community. Our lecture program brings leading scholars to campus for speaking engagements. The Institute strives not only to serve the needs of scholars, but also to make our facilities a living history laboratory for students at Florida State University. Through digital humanities projects, the Institute serves as a distinctive resource for students learning how to “do” history in the twenty-first century. The Institute’s collections strengths include the American home front, the role of women, the European, Pacific, and China-Burma-India Theaters of Operations, the American Merchant Marine, Viennese Jewish community, and the American occupation of Germany and Japan.