Mark Wilcox/Daily Mining Gazette Houghton's Carnegie Museum is seen in this photo taken Friday, November 7. There will be a public reception for the museums new exhibit looking at the Copper Country's involvement in World War I.

HOUGHTON — The First World War marks the first modern “total war.” As millions of combatants were called to the battlefield, massive and rapid mobilization required civilians to reorganize their daily lives to wartime. Though less recognized, rural communities, such as the Copper Country, were integral to the war effort on the home front.

A new exhibit “World War I and Copper Country Home Front, 1917-1918 opens Tuesday at the Carnegie Museum in downtown Houghton. To open the exhibit, there will be a public reception on Veterans Day, Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

In April 1917, when the United States entered the war, Americans were soon overwhelmed by unrelenting government propaganda campaigns that pressured all residents to “Do Your Bit.” Over the next year and a half, as over 4,500 local men volunteered to join or were drafted into the American Expeditionary Forces, Copper Country communities were faced challenges unique to wartinme.

How did families support their fathers, sons, brothers, and sweethearts serving overseas?

How did the community mobilize for absent friends and neighbors, employers and workers?

Drawn primarily from articles printed in the Daily Mining Gazette, the area’s largest circulating newspaper, this exhibit features 11 panels: Michigan College of Mines; Newspapers and Mobilization; 4-Minute Men; Funding the War; Food Will Win the War; Every Garden a Munition Plant; Advertising and War; Relief Volunteerism; Copper Country Children; Dear Mother; and Copper Country Mines: Boom to Bust.

Tuesday’s opening reception features WWI-era music and refreshments and an opportunity to meet exhibit curators and researchers. Browse the 12-panel exhibit based on research as reported in the Daily Mining Gazette, 1917-1918, about the Copper Country home front. Admission to the museum is free.

WWI&CC Home Front was funded by a Keweenaw Heritage Grant; the Department of Humanities, Michigan Tech; and a grant from Michigan Humanities.