Discussion on Purple Heart History

[tdogchristy90]

I was asked to do a discussion the history of the purple heart, and more specifically it's awarding to Civil War veterans. A couple things: One, I have nice examples of everything except the PH certificate. Due to the fragility of paper I did not want to have the one in my collection shipped from home just for the program. I have thought about using a nice scanned copy that I have but am wondering if everything else is original should I bite the bullet and get one for the discussion? I guess I question getting one just for the sake of the discussion. So just seeking opinions.

 

My other question, and this is just seeking the communities thoughts, is there anything specific you think I should make sure and cover in my talks?

 

Thank you

[Allan H.]

I would start by telling you that I think you would be very hard pressed to find the award document for a CW Purple Heart and if you did, it would undoubtedly be rather expensive. I would think that if you have access to an original, that a scan would be outstanding and a photo would be sufficient. Doing this for educational purposes tells me that it isn't such a big deal to use reproductions or facsimiles. If you were trying to represent a copy as the real deal, that is where you would have a problem.

 

Imagine you are giving a talk on the airborne cricket used in Normandy. Having a real one is cool and will be at the forefront of the discussion, but if you were passing one around, you would sure only want to be allowing people to handle a reproduction.

 

My two cents.

 

Allan

 

 

[tdogchristy90]

4 minutes ago, Allan H. said:

I would start by telling you that I think you would be very hard pressed to find the award document for a CW Purple Heart and if you did, it would undoubtedly be rather expensive. I would think that if you have access to an original, that a scan would be outstanding and a photo would be sufficient. Doing this for educational purposes tells me that it isn't such a big deal to use reproductions or facsimiles. If you were trying to represent a copy as the real deal, that is where you would have a problem.

 

Imagine you are giving a talk on the airborne cricket used in Normandy. Having a real one is cool and will be at the forefront of the discussion, but if you were passing one around, you would sure only want to be allowing people to handle a reproduction.

 

My two cents.

 

Allan

 

 

 

Allen, I should probably clarify. Aside from the discussion/power point, a lot of what I'm using as show and tell is either from ww1 or ww2. The discussion will try to emphasis the Civil War but it will cover the whole history of the award, not just the Civil War. The one document I have is from WW2.