At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the world changed. An atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. These two cities witnessed first-hand how devastating the effects of nuclear weaponry would be. The cities were destroyed instantly and many lives were lost.

The current exhibit in the Main Library Exhibition Hall, Material Witness: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, features a Hiroshima-Nagasaki poster collection donated to the Libraries by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The exhibit covers the history of the atomic bombings in Japan up to present day peace activism.

The Hiroshima Peace Foundation organized a U.S. national poster exhibition tour of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from September 2007 through December 2008. The purpose of the traveling exhibition was to convey the reality of the damages and horrors of those events, as well as extend the Foundation’s efforts for the abolition of nuclear weapons and calls for peace. Organizers from 103 cities in 44 states hosted the same exhibition and now the UI Libraries is joining them.

The exhibition was organized by Chiaki Sakai, Japanese Studies Librarian; Marianne Mason, Federal Documents Librarian and Duncan Stewart, Cataloging Librarian.

To learn more about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the exhibition committee put together an online resource guide at http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/Hiroshima-Nagasaki.

The exhibit will be on display in the North Exhibition Hall of the UI Main Library through February 28, 2010. If you would like to schedule a tour of the exhibit for your group, please contact Kristi Bontrager (kristi-r-bontrager@uiowa.edu or 319-335-5960) to make arrangements.