Press Release: October 29, 2009
National Archives at Kansas City
Authors and physicians speak at National Archives about Armistice and Influenza: a Kansas City Hospital in France during the First World War
For More Information Contact:
Kimberlee Ried
(816) 268-8000
Kansas City, (MO)…The National Archives at Kansas City will host authors and physicians Grace Holmes, Fred Holmes and Anthony Kovac at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 12, for a discussion of "A Brave and Gallant Company": A Kansas City Hospital in France During the First World War. The authors will be available to sign copies of their article as featured in the fall issue of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains. A 6:00 p.m. reception will precede the event. The National Archives at Kansas City is located at 400 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO.
Staffed by a “brave and gallant company” of Kansas City area doctors and nurses, the Base Hospital No. 28 in Limoges, France admitted 9,954 patients from July 1918 to January 1919. Although its wards were located in hastily constructed temporary buildings and tents, the state-of-the-art hospital saw and successfully treated complicated battle wounds, serious medical problems, and victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Remarkably, the staff only lost 69 patients during the six months the hospital was open. Many of the Base Hospital No. 28 records survived and are kept by the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial.
Copies of Kansas History will be available for purchase at The Kansas City Store at the National Archives. For more information or to make a reservation call 816-268-8010 or register by e-mailing: kansascity.educate@nara.gov.
Anthony Kovac is professor of anesthesiology, Grace Holmes is professor of pediatrics and of preventive medicine, and Frederick Holmes is professor of medicine and of the history of medicine at the University of Kansas – School of Medicine. They have presented the results of their research at local, regional, and national medical and historical meetings, and in this recent article published in Kansas History.
The National Archives at Kansas City is one of 13 facilities nationwide where the public has access to Federal archival records. It is home to more than 50,000 cubic feet of historical records dating from the 1820s to the 1990s created or received by nearly 100 Federal agencies. Serving the Central Plains Region, the archives holds records from the states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The facility is located at 400 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO 64108. The National Archives at Kansas City is open Tuesday–Saturday 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. for exhibits viewing and Tuesday–Saturday from 8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. for research.
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NREA 10–04
