National Council on Public History

Building off the updated theme study, this project will identify significant sites for potential National Historic Landmark (NHL) nominations under the included themes and share recent scholarship with wider audiences. This project will engage youth as research assistants and increase awareness of World War II home front history and NPS Historic Preservation efforts among scholars, property owners, and the public. Information will be shared with the public, stakeholders, and NPS staff through digital content and presentations. This task agreement will include the planning and execution of four webinars to share new scholarship on the topic of the history of the American World War II home front and its legacies. Additional activities of this project include:

• Development of one full NHL nomination
• Creation of three letters of inquiry to provide advice on viability and further research of potential NHL nominations
• Production of three web articles sharing information about the NHL site selected for nomination with a non-specialist public audience on the nps.gov World War II site

Matt Basso, Principal Investigator
Susan Ferentinos, Principal Investigator

Check back for updates as project work continues through 2026!

January 2026 webinar series on the World War II Home Front

• “Two Hearts, One Flag," Jim Belcher | January 22, 2026
  Join Jim Belcher, Jr. as he shares the World War II survival stories and life lessons of James Belcher, RMC USN Ret and Toyoko Inoue, his parents. Belcher’s father was a USS Indianapolis crewman and three-war veteran, and his mother survived B-29 bombings, a fighter plane strafing and the occupation of her country only to meet, marry and spend a lifetime together.
• “A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of US Museums,”  Clarissa Ceglio | January 23, 2026
  The notion of museums as “social instruments”—as storytellers to inspire informed civic action—led to experimentation in the 1930s. But as the nation went to war, progressive practitioners found that the line between purposive education and propaganda was neither as clear nor as easy to walk as they had thought.
• “Fences of War: Spatial Boundaries and Microhistories of WWII,” Cassie Tanks | January 28, 2026
  Fences of War considers World War II through the lived places and personal stories shaped by the war. In this NPS talk, we'll examine how fences - literal, symbolic, and administrative - gave shape to landscapes of conflict, containment, and belonging, and how they connected lives across time. Using digital humanities methods and microhistories drawn from personal documents, oral histories, and local archives, the presentation highlights everyday experiences of the home front. Attendees will leave with new ways to think about space, memory, and how small, place-based stories deepen public understanding of the long afterlives of war.
• “Remembering African American Service a Different Way,” Tim Campbell  | January 30, 2026
  Join Tim Campbell to explore the ways that historical perspective can influence the significance of a historical event while encouraging conversations about engaging in this type of work more with our respective research interests.

To learn more about the American WWII Heritage City Program, visit https://www.nps.gov/subjects/worldwarii/americanheritagecity.htm.