The Great War and the Valleys

The National Library of Wales worked in partnership to present an online exhibition focused on the impact of the First World War on Merthyr Tydfil and the Cynon Valley.

The online exhibition detailed the harrowing experience of war in the trenches and documented the opposition to war and the impact of the conflict on civilian life. The ‘home front’ was an important part of the exhibition, and it looked at how women’s lives were changed by the war and how controversial events like the miners’ strike of July 1915 were reported. It explored attitudes to the war and local events such as the arrival of groups of Belgian refugees, as well as recognising that opposition to the war was a prominent feature of life locally. The content for the online exhibition was selected from two Welsh digital resources: the Jisc-funded digital archive (Welsh Experience of the First World War http://cymru1914.org, a collaboration between the libraries, archives and special collections of Wales), and from the People’s Collection Wales digital collection. The exhibition was written by Paul O’Leary, the Sir John Williams Professor of Welsh History in the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University. View the online exhibition: merthyrww1.llgc.org.uk

Right: Page from The Aberdare Leader, July 17, 1915. By permission of National Library of Wales