Monthly Archives: November 2018

Sunday morning coffee

25 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, WW2

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The Blackwelder family observe Thanksgiving on the assembly line, circa 1942

I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving weekend was good. I was more tired than I knew. I slept until 7:20 am on Thanksgiving Day and until 9:30 am on Friday, which is unheard of for me. We had visions of going to the National Gallery of Art the day after Thanksgiving but decided to pass because of the cold. Yesterday I took the bus home. It left Arlington at 12:30 pm and we arrived in New York in a driving rain six hours later safe and sound. The bus drivers who work for the various lines along the Northeast Corridor do an extraordinary job. Unfortunately we saw a few accidents along the way.

When I arrived home I emptied my bag and took a hot shower. I was so keyed up that I stayed up reading and working until 1:30 am. I ordered some library books, explored up a few things in some databases, and moved a few files around. I also went online and bought a 2019 weekly planner, which will arrive Tuesday. I don’t want to go into the details just yet, but I have a strong sense of what my 2019 projects are going to be. I hope they come to fruition.

I thought I would share one more Thanksgiving-related image before putting this holiday in the books. The one above was taken during the Second World War, probably in 1942 although that is not certain. President Roosevelt had given his “Arsenal of Democracy” speech in December 1940 when the United States was still technically neutral. Here we see a father, mother, and daughter pausing for a quick Thanksgiving Day meal before supposedly heading back to their stations on the assembly line. I say “supposedly” because these do not look like workers on the line; they seem too clean and their clothes too well-pressed for that. The Office of War Information’s own Office for Emergency Management originally created the image, which could be a giveaway. Whatever its provenance, it is a striking photograph from a unique moment in our history.

Enjoy your Sunday.

(image/FDR Presidential Library)

Thanksgiving in Siberia, 1918

22 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial

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The Red Cross distributing care packages at a military hospital in recognition of Thanksgiving, Tieumen, Siberia, November 1918

I hope everyone has been enjoying their Thanksgiving. It is a cold one here in Virginia. I wanted to share one more photograph relating to Thanksgiving 1918. The above image was taken in Tieumen, Siberia in those weeks just after the Armistice. As I have said before, it is important to remember that the fighting did not neatly end on November 11. Here we see Red Cross workers passing out parcels, including cigarettes, to the wounded in a hospital ward. The A.E.F.’s involvement in the Siberian campaign is one of the least explored aspects of the Great War. Hopefully someone has been working on that in preparation for the centennial of the war and we will learn more in 2019.

There is an interesting lesson in the provenance of this photograph. Its Library of Congress record says the image was taken on Thanksgiving Day, 20 November. Thanksgiving that year however fell on 28 November. I figured this was a typo and so checked the Catalogue of Official A.E.F. Photographs Taken by the Signal Corps, U.S.A., the source from where the Library of Congress catalogers took the bibliographic record. The thing is, the Signal Corps catalogue lists Thanksgiving as falling on 26 November. I checked the 1918 calendar and the record is obviously wrong; 26 November 1918 is a Tuesday.

I did a little digging but could find nothing more definitive about this Siberian Thanksgiving one hundred years ago. My guess is that both of those second-hand sources are incorrect and the image was taken on Thanksgiving Day itself. Or, they celebrated the holiday on another day for some logistical reason. Whatever the full story–and we alas will probably never know–it is an extraordinary image and testimony to the power and importance of Thanksgiving for Americans wherever they may be.

Wherever you are, enjoy your holiday.

The United War Work Campaign of November 1918

18 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in New York City, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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The YMCA was one of the seven organizations involved in The United War Work Campaign in November 1918.

The Armistice of November 11, 1918 coincided with the start of The United War Work Campaign, a national initiative to raise a staggering $170,500,000 in 1918 dollars to aid the American Expeditionary Forces. The project began back in the summer and was, to put it mildly, a massive undertaking; in addition to raising that extraordinary sum, organizers hoped to marshal one million Victory Boys between the ages of 12 and 20 to feed, entertain, and provide educational instruction to doughboys. The United War Work Campaign was the effort of seven agencies: the YMCA, the YWCA, the National Catholic War Council of the Knights of Columbus, the Jewish Welfare Board, Salvation Army, American Library Association, and the War Camp Community Community Service. Clearly the intent was to involve as many constituencies as possible across religious and other lines. The chairman of the initiative in New York City was none other than John D. Rockefeller  Jr., who spoke at various functions around the city in early October drumming up interest. Another prominent New Yorker involved in the campaign was Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke at the Manhattan Opera House on November 1 for that same purpose. Colonel Roosevelt implored his audience that while the kaiser was on his heels there was still much work to be done in winning the war.

As mentioned above the campaign began on November 11 just as news of the Armistice was coming in. For much of the the next week while the celebrated Americans still went out and participated in charity gold tournaments, bake sales, benefit concerts, and so many others things besides. When it became obvious that the funding goal would be a bit short come the November 18 deadline organizers pushed the date back, first to the 20th and then to the 25th. This had the desired results. In those two weeks just after the German surrender Americans donated $203,179,038 to the campaign.

(poster/Library of Congress, designed by Neysa McMein)

 

Armistice Day 2018

11 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, Memory, Ulysses S. Grant (General and President), Washington, D.C.

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Wall Street, Armistice Day 1918

It is hard to believe that the 100th anniversary of the Armistice is here. It seems like yesterday that I attended the WW1 Centennial Commission Trade Show in Washington. It is amazing what can change in four years, for good and ill. I thoroughly intend to carry on covering the Great War. As I said to someone earlier today, the fighting of did not end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Civil war raged in what was once Czarist Russia and small but equally intense conflicts erupted between Greece and the Ottoman Turkey, to give but two examples. These and other conflicts had enormous consequences and came with enormous costs. Putting the world back together at Versailles would prove a daunting task. We would do well to view the officials charged with that undertaking with humility and understanding. Theirs was no easy assignment.

I have been surprised at the wistfulness I have felt over the past few days. These anniversary observations are an interesting thing. For years, from 2009 (the anniversary of John Brown’s Raid) through 2015 with the 150th observation of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, many of us followed along and even visited the places where these things happened. For much of the rest of the world though, they were barely a thought. The same proved true from 2014-2018 Great War Centennial. I have met many interesting people who have enriched my life over these past few years. I had some ideas for various projects. Many of them came to fruition and others did not pan out as hoped. That’s the way it is with things. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Taking down the WW1 exhibit acquired on loan from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, October 2018

There are many memories I will always cherish, such as one steamy August Saturday a few years ago when my uncle took me around suburban Boston so we could photograph and record well over a dozen WW1 memorials, the freezing film excursion to Yonkers in March 2017, meeting and befriending the film editor who saved the day on that project, the screenings themselves later that year at my college and in Yonkers a few weeks later, Camp Doughboy at Governors Island, the exhibits that colleagues and I acquired on loan from the Embassy of Belgium & The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and so much else besides.

Regarding Armistice Day 2018 itself, there is so much coverage to watch, read, and contemplate that I will leave it up to you to discover it. I will however share one item: a friend sent me this article from The New York Review of Books written by historian Patrick Chovanec in which he ruminates on what he learned while tweeting the war in historical “real time.” That’s the thing about history: you and I know the outcome. We would do well to humble ourselves and remember that the people of the past lived just the way we do today: unaware of what the future holds and how it would all turn out.

(top image/New York Times Archive via Wikimedia Commons)

 

On the cusp of the Armistice

10 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, Incorporating New York (book project), New York City

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I hope everyone’s autumn has been good. These first ten days of November have been busy, thus the lack of posts here.

Readers may recall when I posted just after Memorial Day that I sent a proposal to an academic press regarding “Incorporating New York,” my book project about Civil War Era New City. I heard back earlier this week from the editor asking for the full manuscript. I sent it in this past Thursday. We shall see what happens. I have also been putting the final touches on a talk and interview I will be doing tomorrow for Armistice Day at All Souls Church in Manhattan. It all came about quickly when I got asked to do it a few weeks back. There is a nice bit of serendipity in the thing because All Souls plays a significant role in my history of Civil War Era New York. As Kramer would say, my worlds are colliding. The concert begins at 5:00 pm with my talk and interview an hour before that.

Seward Park, Canal and Essex Streets, November 10, 1918

The image we see above was taken in Seward Park on the Lower East Side 100 years ago today. It is the dedication of the J.W.B. Canteen Hut sponsored by the Jewish Welfare Board. Attorney, reformer, and American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the early years of the Wilson Administration Abram L. Elkus oversaw the proceedings. Present also was banker and philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff. Organizers knew that the war was about to end, though they certainly were not aware that it would be the following day. Schiff told the crowd we see here “Now that the war is ending happily for everybody . . . war work organizations will for many months need our support more than ever, our soldiers and sailors will demand more attention when the grim business of battle is over and the guns have ceased. When the boys come back we want them to feel that we did what we could for them.”

The J.W.B. Canteen did its part; in just the next two months alone the site served over 8000 meals to returning servicemen. The Seward Park canteen continued its work for much of 1919 as men continued coming from Europe en route home.

(image/Records of the National Jewish Welfare Board, Center for Jewish History)