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A pair of University of Wisconsin Oshkosh students helped commemorate history with a dozen life-size cutouts—called “standees”—of the community’s World War I-era citizens.

“World War I was a long time ago, and many people don’t have a good idea of what it was about or how America was involved,” said Oshkosh World War I Committee Chairwoman Rebecca Matzke. “The project aims to get people to realize the many ways people in our community participated in the war. The standees try to connect current Oshkosh residents with past Oshkosh residents and make them think about what life must have been like back then for someone living in the same place.”

To create these informative standees, the Oshkosh World War I Committee enlisted the help of Beth Potter, a senior history major at UW Oshkosh who hails from Mora, Minnesota, and Chris Gauger, of Oshkosh, a UWO history major who graduated in spring 2017.

First approached by Gabriel Loiacono, UW Oshkosh professor of history and a member of the Oshkosh World War I Committee at the Oshkosh Public Museum, the two students expressed interest in finding opportunities that would allow them to bring history education to the public.

“Chris had talked with the history department internship coordinator about doing an internship, and he had a strong interest in military history,” Loiacono said. “Beth had talked with me about working in the field of public history (how you present history to the public), so the history department knew both students would be good fits for the project.”

Potter and Gauger researched and compiled information about citizens who lived in Oshkosh during World War I, focusing on both service members and those who remained on the home front.

“Chris and I have varying interests within history and that seemed to work for the best. Chris is more specialized and interested in military history and has taken more courses in that subject matter so he focused his searches on service members,” Potter said. “I have always been more interested in regular people and their stories. I find that those people are extremely relatable and sometimes extraordinary in their own ways.”

Much of the information and photos that were used to create the standees was unearthed from the archives of the Oshkosh Public Museum. Records of people who lived in Oshkosh contained valuable and fascinating information about life during World War I.

“Emil Kraning was one person who I profiled,” Gauger said. “He was a German-born Oshkosh man who served in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Border War and World War I. When he was deployed to Europe in 1918, his transport ship was sunk by a German submarine, although he survived.”

Information about members of the Oshkosh community who didn’t serve in the war was also available through these archives.

“Eli Rice is my favorite person who I profiled because of how incredibly involved he was. He couldn’t go and fight but he did quite a bit here in Oshkosh for his country,” Potter said. “He was a very talented singer and extremely hard- worker, running a shoe-shine business on the corner of Main and Waugoo in downtown Oshkosh.”

The standees are located in nine, high-traffic public places in an effort to connect Oshkosh citizens to the citizens of the past. Sites include UW Oshkosh Polk Library, the Oshkosh Senior Center, Mercy Hospital and EAA.

“This is a way to take history education out of the museums and the university and make it available in places that people visit every day,” Loiacono said.

Service and community members are no longer alive to tell their stories, making the project all the more important.

“The last of this conflict’s veterans have passed away by now. By telling the stories of the people who participated in the war, we will keep their memories and experiences alive so that people can learn from the past,” Gauger said.

While the project is for the public to enjoy, Potter and Gauger also found themselves changed from the experience of researching and creating the standees.

“I learned more about World War I while doing this project than I could have in any textbook,” Potter said. “I was able to look at a picture of the James’ house from 1900 from the online archives while standing outside that same house on High Avenue. This project gave me the opportunity to see Oshkosh in a different light and I hope it does the same for everyone else.”

Learn more about The Great War at oshkoshmuseum.org.