1917

Articles from 1917

A War Like No Other (Hearst’s Sunday American, 1917)

An article by the admired British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881 – 1931) concerning those aspects of the 1914 war that combined to make the entire catastrophe something unique in human history:

Everything has changed; uniforms, weapons, methods, tactics. Cavalry had been rendered obsolete by trenches, machine guns and modern artillery; untrained soldiers proved useless, special battalions were needed on both sides to fight this particular kind of war that, in no way, resembled the battles your father or grand-fathers had once fought.

A good read.


Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…


To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…

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High Culture in World War One Prison Camps (Literary Digest, 1917)

This two page article is about P.O.W.s and the plays and concerts that they launched while in captivity; it is illustrated by numerous images of the prisoner/performers in costume.


If you are looking for an article that spells out how much more educated people used to be as compared to now, you might have found it.


Click here to read about the W.W. II Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.


Click here to read about American POWs during the Vietnam War.

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The Army as Moral Guardian… (Literary Digest, 1917)

Our boys are to be drafted into service. We cannot afford to draft them into a demoralizing environment.

-the words of Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick (who would later be lampooned by Chester Gould in the comic strip, Dick Tracy as Fearless Fosdick) as he announced the intentions of the Federal Commission on Training Camp Activities. This long forgotten and failed government program was set up two years prior to prohibition to combat the demoralizing influences so the officers and men could concentrate on more sublime topics, like chemical warfare.

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Anti-Soft Drink Legislation Defeated (The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

On the same day that it was announced that the state of Georgia was going to prohibit alcohol a full year and a half prior to the Congressional measure, a bill died in the state legislature that would have prohibited all alcohol substitutes that had caffeine, as well (Georgia, you’ll recall is the home of the Coca-Cola Company):

In an effort to force the bone-dry majority of the House to the greatest extreme, Representative Stark of Jackson, Friday offered an amendment which would have barred all substitutes for liquor, all patent medicines, and soft drinks containing caffeine.

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Prohibition Comes to Washington, D.C. (The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

In 1917 Washington, D.C. had no mayor, no city council and no say as to the goings on in Congress – the city was lorded over by the President and a Congressional commission. It was set up that way by the founders – and that is how Prohibition came to Washington, D.C. two years earlier than the rest of the nation: with the flick of his wrist, President Wilson signed the Sheppard Bill, legislation that declared that after November 1, 1918 all alcohol would be prohibited in the District of Columbia.

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American Arts and the Black Contribution (Literary Digest, 1917)

The attached column is an abstract of an article that first appeared in THE NEW YORK EVENING POST in 1917. The original article was penned by NAACP secretary James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1938)

I believe the Negro possesses a valuable and much-needed gift that he will contribute to the future American democracy. I have tried to point out that the Negro is here not merely to be a beneficiary of American democracy, not merely to receive. He is here to give something to American democracy. Out of his wealth of artistic and emotional endowment he is going to give something that is wanting, something that is needed, something that no other element in all the nation has to give.


Johnson was quick to point out that American popular culture was enjoyed the world-over and these dance steps and catchy tunes were not simply the product of the Anglo-Saxon majority.

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The French Navy Sank Their Own Submarine (The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

This news piece appeared in a Georgia newspaper during the closing weeks of American neutrality. The first report of this French naval blunder involving a French torpedo boat sinking a French submarine came from Berlin, rather from Paris or London, where such events would never make it past the censors.

This brief notice makes no mention as to the original source or who witnessed the accident.

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‘How Did it Feel to be a Soldier?” (Outing Magazine, 1917)

This collection of Civil War letters, written by one of the younger members of an Illinois regiment, was printed in a men’s magazine at a time when the U.S. was gearing-up for it’s first military adventure in Europe. The editors wished only to impart to their younger readers what a soldier’s life is like:

I will try to give you some of the particulars of soldier life so far as I have tried it…We don’t have more than half enough to eat…Health is good, with the exception of dysentery.

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