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Description: Trench Art
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Small objects were created by men in the front and second lines, which would have served the dual purpose of providing a souvenir whilst whiling away periods of boredom. Larger and more detailed pieces were made in workshops by troops behind the lines - they had materials, machinery, skills to engineer memory objects for soldiers heading home. In France and Belgium, work to make memory souvenirs was given to civilians displaced by the war. Objects were also made at home during the war by those awaiting
A large manufacturing industry developed during and after WW1 (selling souvenirs to "Battlefield Tourists"). Department Stores in the UK / USA sold engraved shell fuze heads, paperweights, clocks, dinner gongs, poker stands, engraved shellcases and anything deemed collectable for an increasing and escalating post-war market, where owning a war artefact was fashionable ! An example of this is was Orley E. Brown, Iowa City, USA, who set up business in 1920 as an "Artillery Shell Decorator" - he sent the foll
"A huge amount of First World War trench art survives to this day and, since 1918, has been augmented by pseudo-trench art produced to cater to the battlefield tourist market on the former Western Front. In recent times, it has become accepted that this manifestation of First World War material culture is far from trivial or ephemeral, but that it offers crucial insights into peoples experience of, and engagement with, the war." (courtesy: Paul Cornish, Imperial War Museums)