Responding to the challenge of World War I, American Catholics led by Father John J. Burke created the National Catholic War Council, the forerunner of the National Catholic Welfare Conference that has been known since 2001 as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the secretariat of the American Hierarchy. The War Council of 1917 represented the first coming together of American bishops in voluntary association to address great national issues affecting the Church. The records concentrate on the years 1917 to 1921 and contain files of Bishop Peter J. Muldoon, Chairman of the NCWC Administrative Committee, and those of Father John J. Burke, Chairman of the Committee on Special War Activities (CSWA). They also have office files of the Executive Secretary of the CSWA and individual sub-committees such as Reconstruction, Men, Women, Overseas, and Historical Records. Included in these digital files are administrative, financial, and legal records as well as personal correspondence, photographs, pamphlets, posters, news clippings, and memorabilia. The census of Catholic armed forces preserved on microfilm is of special interest. Digitized here are photographs, selected publications, scrapbooks containing information on burials and deaths of service members, postcards, and selected documents.