Share your post's legacy

In 2018, The American Legion will begin celebrating 100 years of service to veterans, military personnel, families and communities. To honor the Legion’s centennial, many events at the national, department and post levels will occur starting at the 2018 National Convention in Minneapolis and continuing throughout the 2019 convention in Indianapolis. Planning for these celebratory events is currently underway by the Legion’s 100th Anniversary Observance Committee, but help is needed at the post level to tell the larger story of The American Legion’s first century.

All 13,000 Legion posts worldwide, whether chartered in 1919 or 2009, have histories and a legacies that have contributed to the overall identity of The American Legion. Each post can convey its legacy by sharing historical photos, videos and print material on the Legion’s new Centennial Celebration web page: www.legion.org/centennial

How to get started

Posts are encouraged to form centennial committees now, made up of members who will collect historical artifacts and data on the post. For example, the centennial committee may identify:

• Who founded the post and when
• Who the post was named after
• Important dates in the history of the post
• Families involved with the post for multiple generations
• Notable members
• Notable alumni from youth programs such as Boys State, the Oratorical Contest or Legion Baseball
• What makes the post special or unique
• Great things the post has done for its community

If this information isn’t accessible from post archives or members, speak with the local library or media outlets (newspapers, radio, TV) that have covered events about your post.

Share your story

Once your post’s centennial committee has collected photos, videos and print material related to its history, share it on the Legion’s new Centennial Celebration web page.

To create a post history page, follow these seven steps:

1. Go to the Centennial Celebration web page, www.legion.org/centennial
2. Register (in the upper-right hand of the page) to be an administrator. The administrator of a post’s page allows him or her to monitor all content submitted to the page before it appears to the general viewing public.
3. Click "Share Your Post History" located under "History" on the left hand navigation column.
4. Enter your department and post number.
5. Click "Yes, create post x."
6. Complete the required fields needed to start; you only need your post number, city and charter date. If you don’t know when your post was chartered, put in an estimated date until you find the answer; you can add/change information as you receive it.
7. Click "Save" when finished.

Once your post page is created, members — and those whose lives have been touched by the post — can add historical photos, timeline events (significant moments that helped build the chronology of your history) and upcoming events celebrating your history and the Legion’s centennial.

And for step-by-step instructions on how to share your post’s legacy and vision, download the Legion’s Centennial Celebration Workbook here.

If your post does not have access to the technical tools or expertise needed to create a Centennial Celebration history page, the workbook features paper forms of timeline events, photo galleries and upcoming events. The forms can be submitted to a third party who is willing to create the web page and act as the post’s administrator.

For more information, please email: ledwards@legion.org