By Ryan O’Connell Associate Editor As part of its series on Americans and the Holocaust, the Henry Whittemore Library’s Archivist and Special Collections Librarian Colleen Previte has arranged a collection of articles from The Gatepost and other FSU records to illustrate what life was like before and during the Second World War. While the main Americans and the Holocaust exhibit focuses on years 1941 to 1945, Previte said her collection begins in 1939 and goes until around Victory in Europe Day - May 8, 1945. She added while there was published material regarding the war and the state of the world, for the most part things were “business as usual” for Framingham State, which continued to hold regular events, dances, and their yearly “May Day” celebration. This may have been because Framingham State College - as it was known at the time - was an all-girls school until the 1960s, she said. Previte said after the United States joined the war, there was a lot more published about students selling war stamps, sewing for the Red Cross, and even joining the U.S. Army and Marine Corps as dieticians after graduation. “It was interesting to see,” she said. “We happened to be lucky to have a few scrapbooks that [belonged to] people who went during that time, so we have some actual artifacts.” The display cases in the Henry Whittemore Library showcase these artifacts, as well as clippings from The Gatepost which illustrate how WWII affected the campus. Previte said she enjoyed putting the collection together, and that it’s “such a worthwhile topic,” but picking and choosing what was included was difficult. She specifically mentioned Lt. Doris Cummings, who enlisted in 1943 and had excerpts of her wartime correspondence as a nutritionist in North Africa included in at least one edition of The Gatepost. While all of Cummings’ correspondence offers insight into how Framingham State students perceived the world during WWII, only the beginning of one article featuring her letters was included in the display case, due to the space constraints. Previte said students at FSU were trying to support American troops during the war “as much as they could.” She added options were limited for women, but many still did enlist or fundraise. She said FSU students learned about the state of the world in a number of ways - from guest speakers like the war hero and future president John F. Kennedy who visited in 1944, to letters from loved ones in service. Some male FSU professors also enlisted in service - she added students were also sharing where to write in order to get into contact with some of the professors, who would share information from the war. Previte said she didn’t find anything mentioning the Holocaust in her research. “It’s sad that the story is that maybe the world didn’t fully know the extent of the horrors going on. Sometimes the story appears here that it was a little bit business as usual, and that’s sad,” she said. Previte added, “But I also see - I was doing up a list, and I have not completed it, but after this I asked, ‘Well, how many did go into service?’ and so I was starting this list, and there were quite a few. “So obviously there were some that wanted to do something to help the world and help with what was going on in the best way that they could.”