Month: July 2018
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Q.M.C. — Unfailing Provider of the Soldier’s Food
How were soldiers fed during WWI? By the Q.M.C., which stood for “Quartermaster [Corporal] Department of the United States Army.” They tried to keep the costs relatively low: The cost of the standard menu amounts to from 41 to 43 cents per day per man, varying according to the location of the camp and market […]
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Types of Feminine Slackers in New York
Almost everyone contributed and sacrificed for the war effort during WWI… but not everyone. A certain class of socialite women — with wealthy husbands and little to do — kept living their lives the exact same as before. Genevieve Parkhurst profiled them in this 1918 article: One woman had two Pekingese spaniels with her. She […]
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America’s Attitude Toward the Clergy
Clergy and religious leaders were losing influence and leadership in many different areas of life. in philanthropy: Look at the governing boards of such organizations as even the Red Cross, the Committee of Mercy and similar societies, and the astonishing fact reveals itself that the clergy are effectively boycotted! The very men on whose co-operation […]
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Insignia, Not Black Gowns, as War Mourning
Women in America had long worn all black to represent widowhood as a result of a husband dying in war. This 1918 article even noted that “There are now women who have been in black ever since the civil war.” But that began to change during WWI. Women began wearing a three-inch black band sleeve […]
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Who Will Be Drafted Next?
What should be the minimum and maximum ages for potentially getting drafted to serve in the military? This 1918 article details the then-current state of affairs: When the present law was before Congress the War Department asked that the draft be imposed between the ages of 19 and 26, inclusive. In both houses opposition developed […]
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Vagaries of the German “Michel”
“In Germany, a ‘Michel’ is, freely translated, a fool, a clown, a weak-wit of great physical power when aroused, but wholly dominated by his masters of higher intellect or greater power. You hear it every day and everywhere in Germany.” So reported A. Curtis Roth, the former American Consul General in Plauen, Saxony, Germany in 1918. […]
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Where Were You? (poem)
Every stanza in Schoonmaker’s 1918 poem Where Were You? ends with a question, challenging the poem’s readers to ask themselves whether they were truly and fully doing their part to help America’s effort as World War I raged. The poet, Edwin Davies Schoonmaker, would live until 1940 and write many plays and books including The Americans, The World Storm […]
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Where Were You?
Every stanza in Schoonmaker’s 1918 poem Where Were You? ends with a question, challenging the poem’s readers to ask themselves whether they were truly and fully doing their part to help America’s effort as World War I raged. The poet, Edwin Davies Schoonmaker, would live until 1940 and write many plays and books including The Americans, The World Storm […]
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