BATH — Maine State Historian Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. will deliver an illustrated lecture, “ The Maine Homefront in World War I,” in the Community Room of the Patten Free Library in Bath 10:30 a.m. Oct. 21. The program is sponsored by Bath Historical Society, which will present a small exhibit of photographs of Bath during World War I.

This illustrated lecture will document the role played by men and women across the state in World War I, especially on the home front. Previously unseen historic photographs, many of them photo post cards of the period, tell the story of recruitment, troop departures, parades, bond drives, shipbuilding, war-related industries, and knitting socks for the soldiers.

According to the society, Bath’s population doubled during the war as the shipbuilding industry responded. Two steel and four wooden shipyards produced commercial and naval vessels for the war effort. A housing shortage led to new housing developments, a tent city and villages of houseboats that grew up along the waterfront. Local National Guard units were mobilized, and local people joined the other military services, the Maine Coast Artillery, the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, the Red Cross and other organizations participating in the war.

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