James Rogers McConnell Memorial Collections

The James Rogers McConnell papers consist of approximately 210 items, including 160 letters written by McConnell to his friend Paul Ayres Rockwell and to Mademoiselle Marcelle Guérin, a French nurse serving at the hospital in Paris. The letters date from 1915, when McConnell served with the American Ambulance service on the Western Front in France; 1916, the year of the formation of the Lafayette Escadrille, with McConnell as one of its seven original American pilots; and, 1917, ending a few days before McConnell's death. The letters provide a vivid picture of McConnell's service in the cause of France, not only as a non-combatant, but also as an active participant in the war.

Colophon

This exhibition is drawn largely from McConnell's personal papers and from materials in the University Archives in Special Collections at the University of Virginia Library.