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National Museum of French-American Friendship and Cooperation
CHATEAU DEBLÉRANCOURT | |||
Museum building with a 1785 Houdon statue of George Washington in the foreground. | |||
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Primarily an historical museum containing collections of artwork and memorabilia commemorating the history of French-American cooperation from the American War of Independence through the Second World War.
The elegant seventeenth-century château witnessed the ravages of the French Revolution and the 'Great War' [World War I]. When the tide of battle turned in the latter conflict, 1917, Anne Morgan, daughter of the wealthy American John Pierpont Morgan, organized at Blérancourt a group of American women volunteers who delivered medical and social services to the local French population which had been severly traumatized by the war. In 1918, the Armistice was signed in a railroad car parked in the nearby woods. Anne Morgan's work continued until the French authorities were able to assume the tasks.
In 1931, Blérancourt became a French national museum on Franco-American Cooperation. The unique collection informs visitors of the American participation in the Great War, highlighting the activities of Anne Morgan's American Committee for Devastated France; of the first American 'fly boys', the Lafayette Flying Corps; of the volunteer ambulance drivers, especially those of the American Field Service.
An excellent background paper by Alan Albright can be found at American Volunteerism in France. It reviews American relief work in France going back as far as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1), covering later aspects in peace and war.
A remarkable collection of 19th and 20th century paintings and sculpture is displayed in the Florence Gould pavilion, which opened in July 1989. The exhibit brings together works of American artists in France and French artists in the United States, and attests to the richness of a century and a half of artistic exchanges between the two countries.
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Page last updated 17 February 2010. |
