Articles from 1917
An end of the year round-up of the 1916 lynchings concentrating on the state of Georgia as the lynching champion for the second year in a row (Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri were all tied for the 1914 title).
The Lynchings of 1916 (Literary Digest, 1917) Read More »
A wife, having suffered her husband’s stench long enough, had the police drag him away to stand before the local magistrate where, she hoped, some swift, punitive measure would be delivered and placate not only herself, but the long-suffering tax-payers as well. The husband agreed to bathe.
Husbands and Hygiene (Atlanta Georgian, 1917) Read More »
The American press seemed a bit late in writing about the wartime innovations when they printed this piece:
Observation posts made of lumber and sheet metal to look like tree trunks are among the latest disguises employed on the battle front to deceive the enemy and enable watchers to occupy positions of advantage.
The steel tree-stump gag had been in effect since 1915.
The Steel Tree Stump, Part I (Popular Mechanics, 1917) Read More »
The need for elevated artillery observation platforms is as old as the science of artillery itself. As this black and white image makes clear, the ones built during the Great War had to meet different needs: in order to evade detection from the air (as well as enemy artillery spotters) the more successful ones were built among the taller trees and draped in camouflage.
This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.
An Artillery Observation Tower (L’Illustration, 1917) Read More »
Printed five years apart were these two articles that we’ve attached herein collectively recalling three different events by three different services within the American military, each claiming to have fired the opening salvo that served notice to Kaiser Bill and the boys that the U.S. of A. was open for business:
•The first article recalls the U.S. Merchant Marine freighter MONGOLIA that sank a German U-Boat on April 19, 1917 while cruising off the coast of England.
•The second article chuckles at the Army for insisting that the First Division fired the premiere shot on October 23, 1917 in the Luneville sector of the French front;
•following up with the absolute earliest date of American aggression being April 6, 1917 – the same day that Congress declared war – when Marine Corporal Michael Chockie fired his 1903 Springfield across the bow of the German merchant raider S.M.S COMORAN on the island of Guam.
U.S. Navy Fired America’s First Shot (Literary Digest, 1917) Read More »
This cartoon is yet one more piece of evidence on this site that serves to show that silent movies, although compelling and at times addictive, were still recognized by some of the brighter members of society, to be highly predictable form of entertainment.
-an additional article from the 1920s defaming silent film can be read here…
A Predictable Silent Movie II (Punch Magazine, 1916) Read More »
The attached art review is a classic piece of anti-modernist criticism:
The intellectual degeneracy of the modernistic movement of to-day can easily be traced back to the moral degeneracy of the Second Empire, created by the Mephistophic traitor and despot Napoleon III…
Cubism: A Degenerate Work of Art (The Art World, 1917) Read More »
This small notice is interesting for what it doesn’t say: of all the uniform foppery and up-town military accessories that were made available for American officers of World War I, there was no run on serge, whipcord or fine Melton wools; pigskin was plentiful for custom boots and no one seemed fearful that pewter flasks were scarce. What was in short supply were trench coats. The officer candidates from Plattsburg (N.Y.) were making their desires known: they did not care to risk life and limb only to wear a mackinaw. These men wanted trench coats and the New York Times found that newsworthy (It is interesting to note that the reporting journalist had never actually seen one, or else he might not have said that it extended to the ankle).
Popular from the Start (NY Times, 1917) Read More »
Shortly after the U.S. Congress declared war against Germany, a New York City minister named Dr. John Haynes Holmes (1879 – 1964) took to his pulpit and made a series of sound remarks as to why the United States had no business participating in the European war:
Other clergymen may pray to God for victory for our arms — I will not. In this church, if no where else in all America, the Germans will still be included in the family of God’s children. No word of hatred will be spoken against them, no evil fate will be desired upon them. I will remember the starving millions of Belgium, Servia, Poland, and Armenia, whom my countrymen may neglect for the more important business of killing Germans…
Dissent in the Pulpit (Literary Digest, 1917) Read More »
A black and white magazine illustration from the cover of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN that appeared six months after President Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany in order to let Uncle Sam’s taxpayer’s understand what it will cost them to put a million and a half men in the field.
Uniform and Equipment Cost Illustrated (Scientific American, 1917) Read More »
