In doing the research for the posts this past week on the USS New York and the fleet review of December 1918 I came across sobering articles about a riot involving African-American troops from the Bush Terminal in late 1918. Really it was just one in a number of racial and other disturbances throughout the city, indeed throughout the country, during and immediately after the war. This one involved some men denied service at a saloon on DeKalb Avenue and quickly escalated into a scene with 2000 lookers-on and 150 military and civilian police. Shots were fired but no one was killed or injured. Incidents like these are part of why the Great War plays a smaller role in the imaginations of most Americans than other of our conflicts. Expectations so high in America and around the world in those heady days after the Armistice soon became mired in complexity and dashed hopes.

Brooklyn’s Bush Terminal was integral to the war effort.

Troops began coming home in that final week of 1918, a process that would continue in February and March of 1919. The end of our own year right now has me reflective on what happened in this heady months just after the Armistice. Temperance and suffragism were two goals of the Progressive Movement that came to fruition after the fighting stopped. What eventually came to be called the New Negro Movement was also coalescing. Scholars like W.E.B. DuBois believed that African-American soldiers returning from the Great War would comprise a vanguard that would end Jim Crow. That came partially true in cultural movements such as the Harlem Renaissance. In the meantime there were incidents like the bloody Red Summer of 1919. The relatively minor incident at a bar in Brooklyn was just a precursor. These are all topics to be explored as the Great War Centennial continues.

(image/Library of Congress)

It is a rainy Christmas Eve morning here in Brooklyn. Listening to the rain is quite relaxing. I just wrapped up and emailed off a small project that hopefully will see the light of day in the next few weeks. I don’t want to give too much away for the moment but I will say here that it is about the USS New York. Yesterday I came across these incredible images at the Library of Congress Prints and Images website and thought I would share them today. They were taken aboard the New York in the Brooklyn Navy Yard one hundred years ago, on Christmas Day 1916.

I am submitting them with little comment but will note that the funds for the gifts and toys were provided by the crew. On his own dime the ship photographer printed 1917 calendars with images of Captain Hughes and others, which he then sold for 30 cents apiece. The ship tailor raffled off a custom made suit, and so forth. For its endeavor, which it had begun the year before after returning from the blockade of Veracruz, the New York became known as the Christmas Ship. For Christmas 1916 they raised $1000–over $22,000 in today’s currency–and provided toys and Christmas dinner to 500 needy New York children. One year after these images were taken the United States was in the Great War and the dreadnought was attached to Britain’s Grand Fleet, keeping the Germans in check in the North Sea.

A few things: notice the Williamsburg Bridge in the background of some of the images; also note the stamps in some of the images, which I intentionally did not crop out. I could not tell if these were revenue stamps, and if so why they would be necessary. If anyone knows, I’d be interested to learn.

Merry Christmas, everyone.