Category Archives: Great War centennial

W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868 – 1963

27 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Great War centennial, Those we remember, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington, D.C.

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This past weekend I purchased David Levering Lewis’s W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919, volume one of Lewis’s two-part narrative of the life and times of the historian and sociologist. It’s part of a wider plan I have for a few projects that I intend to work on this academic year. I don’t want to go too into detail now, but I will say that I intend to take an international perspective on certain issues that often are interpreted through a domestic lens. Biography of a Race was released in 1993, the year I graduated and took a class on twentieth century Black Protest as an undergraduate. For that course we had to read The Souls of Black Folk, which I was too young at the time to fully comprehend and appreciate. I might delve in again this autumn. Du Bois has never been more relevant than he is today.

Du Bois as he was when attending college in the late 1880s

It is difficult to believe it was twelve years ago, but 2007 a colleague and I ordered The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois, a 19-volume set of the scholar’s complete works, for our library in our capacity as subject specialists. Du Bois is really always there. Two years ago during the Great War centennial students in a module I co-taught read him and others to gain different perspectives on the First World War. Sadly but not surprisingly some students had no idea who he was, though thankfully we changed that in our own small way. Du Bois lived in Brooklyn for a time, in a house he purchased from Arthur Miller no less.

I say all this because it had not occurred to me until reading about it on the social media platform of a journalist I follow that today, August 27, is the anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’s death. Much like Adams and Jefferson’s passing on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Du Bois’s death had a poetic aspect: the 1963 March on Washington took place the following day. It was there on the National Mall that many heard news. Du Bois was far away in both body and spirit; he was ninety-five years old at the time of his death and had long since left America. Du Bois must have found the independence movements invigorating in the winter of his life. He died in Accra, Ghana.

(image/NYPL)

Versailles

28 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by in Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Great War centennial, Preparedness (WW1), Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Woodrow Wilson

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Summer has come full on. I was off today and had the windows open and fan on as I worked on an article I’m doing about Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ve got about 400 in the books and hope to write another 400 or so this evening before declaring victory. I would be remiss if I did not pause and note that today, June 28, 2019, is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors. I don’t intend to write too much about it right now because there is already so much good reading out there today. For now I though I would emphasize the quickness and degree to which resistance to the treaty, especially its covenant for a League of Nations, had manifested itself even before the ink had dried.

Henry A. Wise Wood, the son of Civil War Era New York City mayor Fernando Wood, led the campaign against the League of Nations the very day of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

One hundred years ago tonight the League for the Preservation of American Independence held a rally in New York City’s Carnegie Hall. One of the American Independence League’s leaders was Henry A. Wise Wood, an engineer and inventor who had been active in the Preparedness Movement with Theodore Roosevelt and others in the Great War’s early years before American entry into the conflict. Born in 1866, Wood was the son of three-time New York City mayor Fernando Wood. The League for the Preservation of American Independence enjoyed tremendous popularity and easily filled Carnegie Hall that night in protest against Wilson, the Versailles Treaty, and prospective League of Nations. A spinout crowd gathered outside on the sidewalk. Wood asked that the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt fill the hall.

TR had died almost six months previously but almost certainly would have opposed the League of Nations. One Roosevelt who did support it was Franklin, who when he ran for the vice-presidency in 1920 advocated for the League. FDR’s position may or may not have been opportunism based on loyalty to Wilson and the knowledge that, because he and running mate Jacob M. Cox would likely lose the election, he could take a position confident in never having to carry it out. Franklin D. Roosevelt did learn the lesson of the failures of Versailles however, and when he became commander-in-chief began pushing for what became the United Nations a quarter of a century later.

(image/Library of Congress)

 

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.

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)

One Wednesday morning

13 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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Yesterday morning a colleague and I opened and assembled a six-panel exhibit our library received from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. We had to inspect it to ensure that there was no damage in transit. This morning we are going to install the panels in our exhibit space. I also intend to create a screen roll of related photographs that will run on a loop on a large screen computer. It has been a privilege to collaborate with The Library of America and Gilder Lehrman Institute these past two years.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Mitchel Square

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, John Purroy Mitchel, Monuments and Statuary, New York City, Quentin Roosevelt

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Yesterday I put the final touches on my upcoming talk this Sunday at Camp Doughboy on Governors Island about John Purroy Mitchel. Later I did a dry run for a friend in my department to work out the kinks. A dress rehearsal always helps with these things in turns of timing, avoiding ambiguity, and just making certain that are sufficiently clear. I am as ready as I am going to be.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney sculpted this doughboy statue in Upper Manhattan in 1923 and later founded the Whitney Museum of Art. Quentin Roosevelt was engaged to her daughter when killed in an airfight in France in July 1918.

In part of the talk I discuss the ways the JP Mitchel is remembered in New York City. Mitchel Square at 168th and Broadway is just one memorial to the Boy Mayor. There too is this beautiful statue that we see above, which was not sculpted expressly for Mitchel himself but for the men on Washington Heights who fought in the war. I happened to be in northern Manhattan a few weeks ago on my way to somewhere else when I stumbled upon it. Yesterday after my walk through my friend and I were discussing Mitchel and breaking down some of the details of his life and times. Color me ignorant but I did not know that the statue in Mitchel Square was designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Gertrude was the mother of Flora Payne Whitney, Quentin Roosevelt’s fiancée. Of course Quentin himself died in a military plane incident above France just two weeks after Mitchel was killed in Louisiana two weeks earlier.

Check out the schedule for Camp Doughboy 2018 here.

 

A floating Picasso

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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I hope everyone had a good weekend. I rested up yesterday in preparation for what will now be a busy week. It is supposed to be in the mid 90s here in New York City today also. I’m ready for autumn days.

This video could have been much longer but here is a small piece from the Smithsonian about the dazzle art used on ships during World War One. Remember that the 1913 Armory Show was held in New York City (and reviewed reasonably favorably by none other than Theodore Roosevelt) in 1913, the year before the war’s start. We and some friends and are hoping to take a ride on one of the contemporary WW1-inspired dazzle ships here in the city this fall. Modern art inspired the camouflage worn by soldiers in uniform. The Allied navies incorporated The same principles were used on vessels as well. Cubism in particular into the camouflage painted onto ships. I have never seen such as this one however, where instead of zebra-like colors and angles the innards of the ship art painted on the outside.