WWI Events & Attractions

Ongoing Exhibits

World War I and the Roosevelts: Franklin and Eleanor, Family and Friends
Original WW I American and European posters by such famous illustrators as James Montgomery Flagg, Joseph Pennell, Frances Lydendecker, and Howard Chandler Christy are accompanied by period photographs of the Roosevelts, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s visit to the battlegrounds and damaged towns of France in the summer of 1918, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s Red Cross work, as well materials about almost the roles of 16 other Roosevelts and four past and future presidents.

Open Mondays-Saturdays, 10am-4pm through February 24, 2018
Roosevelt House, Hunter College
47-49 E 65th Street, New York, NY

New York and New Yorkers in World War I
This changing exhibit highlight different aspects of how New York and New Yorkers participated in the war. The summer 2017 exhibit will focus on American Field Service volunteers in France, including ambulance drivers.

Open through November 2018
War Room, New York State Capitol Building

"A Spirit of Sacrifice: New York State in the First World War"
An exhibition to mark the centennial of New York State’s contribution to the United States commitment to “the war to end all wars”.

Open through June 2018
New York State Museum
Albany, NY

Herkimer County's Involvement in the Great War
The exhibit will focus on Company M, 107th Regiment 27th Division, Red Cross, women and their role in the war effort, liberty bond drive, and the Home Defense Committee.

Open through 2019
Herkimer County Historical Society
Herkimer, NY

From Doughboys to Dylan: Changing Times on the Rensselaer County Home Front
Comparing the experience of World War I to the Vietnam War, the exhibit covers women’s suffrage, the draft, veterans’ issues, social issues, and dealing with mustard gas or Agent Orange. The exhibit also explores how national programs, Junior American Red Cross and American Emergency Services, grew out of WWI programs in Troy and Albany.

Open through the end of the year
Rensselaer County Historical Society
Troy, NY

Fiery Trial and Sacrifice—New York and the First World War
This permanent exhibit focuses on the major units such as the 27th, the 77th and 42nd divisions, and personalities such as Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Henry Johnson, of Albany, the Rev. Francis P. Duffy, and the poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th Infantry.

Permanent Exhibit
New York State Military Museum
Saratoga Springs, NY

Together Until the End: Schenectady in World War I
The exhibit explores the Great War’s effects on Schenectady and the people who lived here. The soldiers who fought, the nurses who cared, and everyone at home whose world was reshaped, completely.

Throughout 2017
Schenectady County Historical Society
Schenectady, NY

CNY Living History Center
The WWI display of the Homeville Museum features a life-size, walk-through trench designed to help visitors visualize and understand the realities of combat and its many hardships.

This permanent exhibit opens May 6
CNY Living History Center
Cortland, NY

“The War to End All Wars: Onondaga County Encounters World War I”
The exhibit features photographs, posters, uniforms, gas masks, helmets & other military accoutrements, war souvenirs, home-front conservation items, letters, diaries, and other archival material and objects.

Exhibit runs through November 11, 2018
Murray-Sales Gallery at the Onondaga Historical Museum
321 Montgomery Street
Syracuse, New York 13202

“Do Your Part! World War I Poster Art,” Showcase
Showcases dozens of federal government patriotic and motivational posters, along with personal items worn by U.S. Army servicemen.

Exhibit runs July 12 – January 2018
New York State Military Museum
61 Lake Avenue
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

“Over Here, Over There. Long Island in the Great War”
A multi-media exhibit on the experience of Long Islanders during the First World War, covering the home front, local industries, agriculture, social issues, and the record of Long islanders on the Western Front.

Open Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 4:30 p.m., through January 2018
Suffolk County Historical Society
300 West Main Street
Riverhead, New York 11901

“Weapons and War Bonds: Delaware County in World War I”
Exhibit highlights Delaware County’s involvement in the war – both at home and abroad. Items on display will include WWI uniforms, gas masks, posters, diaries and letters, and trench art. Free admission.

Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., open through July 23.
Delaware County Historical Association
46549 State Hwy. 10
Delhi, NY 13753

"For Home and Country"
Commemorating the sacrifice of 968 lives from Western New York, the exhibit features home front advertising, uniforms, and weaponry. A faux-bunker installation will honor the soldiers of the decisive Meuse-Argonne Offensive and a memorial wall gives remembrance to each man and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Open Tuesday through Saturday through April 2019
Buffalo History Museum
One Museum Court
Buffalo, New York 14216


July Events

Overview of World War I - Discussion

July 8, 2017 - 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Time and the Valleys Museum
Grahamsville, NY

Songs of the Soldier
July 9, 2017 - 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Time and the Valleys Museum
Grahamsville, NY

Lunch Bite: World War I Gallery Tour
July 11, 2017 - 12:00 p.m.
New York State Museum
Albany, NY

42nd Infantry Division Band Concert
July 31, 2017 - 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Location to be announced
Albany, NY


August Events

Lunch Bite: World War I Gallery Tour

August 15, 2017 - 12:00 p.m.
New York State Museum
Albany, NY


September Events

Doughboy Day at Fort Jay in Governors Island

September 17, 2017 - 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Governor's Island National Monument
New York, NY


October Events

World War I Through the Lens: Photographs of the Western Front, 1914-1918

The Stony Book University Libraries Special Collections

October 2 - December 28, 2017
Central Reading Room, First Floor, Melville Library
Stony Brook, NY

Battlefield Art of World War I

October 5, 2017 - 7:00 p.m.
The Smithtown Library
Smithtown, NY

Long Island Naval History in Wartime, with an emphasis on World War I

October 19, 2017
Melville Library
Stony Brook, NY

New York State in World War I
With Aaron Noble, Curator/Historian, the New York State Museum

October 21, 2017 - 2:00 p.m.
Schenectady Historical Society
Schenectady, NY

World War I and Schenectady’s Jewish Community
With Harvey Strum, professor of history and political science at the Sage Colleges

October 26, 2017 - 7:00 p.m.
Schenectady Historical Society
Schenectady, NY


November Events

Art of World War I

November 7, 2017 - 7:00 p.m.
The Smithtown Library
Smithtown, NY

WWI Public Film Screening and Discussion

November 8, 2017 - 2:30 p.m. - 3:30
New York City College of Technology
New York, NY

World War I Gallery Tour
November 11, 2017 - 12:00 p.m.
New York State Mueseum
Albany, NY

Flanders Remembers: Music and Words from WWI
November 17, 2017 - 7:00 p.m.
The Morgan Library & Museum
New York, NY


December Events

World War I Cenetennial Gallery Tour, Book Sale & Signing

December 9, 2017 - 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
New York State Museum
Albany, NY


Attractions

Brooklyn Navy Yard and Naval Commandant's House (Brooklyn)
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92 houses special exhibits and hosts guided tours about the Yard’s past, present and future. Leading up to and during World War One, the Yard was an important naval shipyard and base that employed 18,000 men and women. These workers constructed everything from major battleships to 49 wooden submarine chasers used to protect the coastline from marauding German U-boats. Guided tours of the Yard include a visit to a working dry dock that's been used since before the Civil War, the ornately-decorated 1899 Paymaster building, the former payroll department that is now a whiskey distillery, and Building 128, a massive machine shop that was used to deconstruct captured German submarines for research after the war.

Cradle of Aviation Museum (Garden City)
During World War One, Long Island became the home of some of the largest and most important military flying fields in America. Eight exhibit galleries contain 75 air and spacecraft -- one of most diverse aerospace collections in the world. The museum’s World War I gallery includes a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny," a Thomas Morse S4C Scout fighter plane, and a Breese Penguin non-flying trainer designed to student pilots the feel of airplane controls at near-flying speeds, without the danger of actual flight.

National Purple Heart Hall of Honor (New Windsor)
Exhibits chronicle the changing nature of warfare and combatants through images, artifacts and personal narratives of individual Purple Heart recipients, including a visual timeline of America’s 20th-21st century conflicts from World War I through today, complimented by an interactive display.

New York State Military Museum(Saratoga Springs)
Located in the historic armory, housing over 10,000 artifacts relating to the state’s military forces, history and veterans, including significant holdings around New York’s 27th Division in World War I and World War II and notable state military regiments such as the 369th (Harlem Hell fighters) New York Infantry.

New York State Museum (Albany)
From April 2017 – June 2018, “A Spirit of Sacrifice: New York State in the First World War”
is a new centennial exhibition using iconic artifacts from museums, libraries and historical societies across the state to tell the story of how New York State supplied more men, money and material to the American war effort in WWI -- and suffered more casualties -- than any other. The exhibit also includes a life-size recreation of a trench, ringed with barbed wire, used on the Western Front, from which soldiers fired artillery at the enemy across the mine-filled no man’s land.

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome
Living museum of antique aviation with one of the largest collections of early aeroplanes in the world, as well as automobiles, motorcycles, early engines and memorabilia spanning the period from 1900-1939. Weekend air shows features Saturdays with pioneer, World War I and Lindbergh era aircraft, and Sundays with a World War I dogfight and barnstorming aircraft.

Staatsburgh State Historic Site
At this fine example of the great estates built by America's financial and industrial leaders, “World War I and the End of the Gilded Age” is a special tour led by a costumed interpreter chronicling how the Mills family’s extravagant way of life withered away in the cataclysm of the Great War.

United State Military Academy at West Point
Includes the West Point Museum, the oldest, largest public collection of military artifacts in the western hemisphere, shown in exhibits like American Wars, History of the U.S. Army and History of Warfare and Word War I items like a tank and staff car, communications equipment, and the artillery piece that fired the first U.S. shot in the war.

CNY Living History Center (Cortland)
The WWI display of the Homeville Museum, of the CNY Living History Center complex, features a life-size, walk-through trench designed to help visitors visualize and understand the realities of combat and its many hardships; the trench is outfitted with life-like mannequins, barbed wire, and sandbags, as well as recreated artillery flashes with sounds. Visitors will also be able to engage with audio recordings of letters sent home by soldiers who endured living in the trenches. The exhibit is rounded out by an extensive collection of artifacts, memorabilia, uniforms, helmets, and weaponry.

Lake View Cemetery (Jamestown)
Historic cemetery that includes Soldier’s Circle, an area that is the resting place of nearly 1,000 veterans and contains a World War One memorial at its center. Guided and self-guided tours of the cemetery are available.

Polish American Museum (Port Washington)
Collection includes a Polish Legion World War I Blue Army Uniform and 1920 War display.

Schenectady County Historical Society
“Together Until the End: Schenectady in World War I” is an exhibition commemorating the Great War’s effect on Schenectady and its people, and will be accompanied by programs and films throughout the year.

Rensselaer County Historical Society
57 Second Street
Troy, NY 12180
Phone: 518-272-7232

“From Doughboys to Dylan: Changing Times on the Rensselaer County Home Front”
The historical society is comparing the experience of World War I to the Vietnam War. Women’s suffrage, the draft, veterans’ issues, social issues and dealing with mustard gas or Agent Orange are topics that appear during and after each of these conflicts.

The exhibit explains that the Junior American Red Cross grew out of Troy and expanded nationally. In Albany, the American Red Star Animal Relief Program got its start and continues to this day as Animal Emergency Services.

Running through 2017

Schenectady County Historical Society
32 Washington Ave.
Schenectady, NY
(518) 374-0263

“Together Until the End: Schenectady in World War I”
Devastating, morbid, and totally unprecedented, World War I changed our world entirely and redefined modernity. Now, 100 years later, we’re exploring the Great War’s effect on Schenectady and the people who lived here. The soldiers who fought, the nurses who cared, and everyone at home whose world was reshaped, completely.

Join us throughout 2017 for programs, films, and an exhibition exploring Schenectady in the first world war.

Running through 2017

New York State Military Museum
61 Lake Ave.
Saratoga Springs, NY
(518) 581-5100

“Fiery Trial and Sacrifice—New York and the First World War”
This permanent exhibit focuses on the major units such as the 27th, the 77th and 42nd divisions, and personalities such as Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Henry Johnson, of Albany, the Rev. Francis P. Duffy, and the poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th Infantry


Veterans Cemeteries in New York

Submit a Cemetery

Albany Rural Cemetery Soldiers' Lot
Cemetery Avenue
Albany, NY 12204

Bath National Cemetery
San Juan Avenue
Bath, NY 14810

Calverton National Cemetery
210 Princeton Boulevard
Calverton, NY 11933

Cypress Hills National Cemetery
625 Jamaica Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11208

Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery
200 Duell Road
Schuylerville, NY 12871

Long Island National Cemetery
2040 Wellwood Avenue
Farmingdale, NY 11735

Orange County Veterans Memorial Cemetery
111 Craigville Road
Goshen, NY 10924

Sampson Veterans Memorial Cemetery
6632 NY-96A
Romulus, NY 14541

Woodlawn National Cemetery
1825 Davis Street
Elmira, NY 14901