1919

Articles from 1919

The W.W. I Overseas Cap Will Remain (Stars and Stripes, 1919)

A STARS & STRIPES clipping from 1919 announcing to both Army and Marines that the era of the overseas cap had arrived and was not going away anytime soon:

The overseas cap, which has (not) protected its wearers from the rains of sunny France and the suns and snows and sleets all over the A.E.F., will be permitted to remain the official headgear of the returning troops after they get back to the States.

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Artist of the Ashcan School: John Sloan (Touchstone Magazine, 1919)

The editors of TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE hired one of John Sloanstyle=border:none‘s (1871-1951) groupies to interview him for one of their feature articles. It is an informative interview and there are a number of seldom seen sketches reproduced; the opening paragraphs give one a sense of what 1920s Greenwich Village was like at night, although one comes away feeling that the man could do no wrong. John Sloan’s friend, Robert Henristyle=border:none (1865-1929), when given the chance also failed to make any nasty comments about the painter.

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Poiret Wraps and Coats (Vogue Magazine, 1919)

By the time these images in American VOGUE hit the streets, the fashion house of Paul Poiret (1879 – 1944) was very much on the decline. Following the close of the First World War the designer was never able to regain his pre-1914 status. With the restlessness of the Twenties came the demand for a new mood in fashion and Coco Channel (1883 – 1971) became the new champion of Paris Fashion. Poiret closed his doors ten years after these photos were printed.


Read about the 1943 crochet revival

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An Abbreviated War Record of the 92nd Division (The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army’s Ninety-Second Infantry Division during World War One. It is highly likely that the attached description of the 92nd’s service record had been rewritten to suit the personal taste’s of the paper’s Jim Crow editors. Sadly, there are other examples of such biased editing at THE STARS and STRIPES.

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A Post-War Visit to Metz (Literary Digest, 1919)

This is a letter from an American infantry Major, James E. White, who wrote home to explain that there was still much to do six days after the armistice.

The major’s letter relayed his experiences as being one of the first Allied officers to enter the formerly occupied city of Metz, in order to evacuate wounded American prisoners:

The following Tuesday the grand entry of the French troops took place, but no welcome was more spontaneous than than that given to the group of American officers who on that Sunday peacefully invaded the fortress of Metz.

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Elihu Root on Teddy Roosevelt (The North American Review, 1919)

Eight months after the death of Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), the now defunct Rocky Mountain Club asked the former Secretary of State Elihu Root (1845 – 1937: Nobel Peace Prize 1912), to say a few words of remembrance regarding his old friend and colleague:

No one ever misunderstood what Theodore Roosevelt said. No one ever doubted what Theodore Roosevelt meant. No one ever doubted that what he said he believed, he intended and he would do. He was a man not of sentiment or expression but of feeling and of action. His proposals were always tied to action.


The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Theodore Roosevelt at number 17 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…

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Supplying Candy to the A.E.F. (America’s Munitions, 1919)

Historians may ad the following to that list of the many firsts that World War I has claimed as its own:


The First World War was the first conflict in which the American soldier preferred candy to chewing tobacco.

Candy in the days of the old Army was considered a luxury. The war with Germany witnessed a change… Approximately 300,000 pounds of candy represented the monthly purchases during the early period of the war. Demands from overseas grew steadily. The soldier far from home and from his customary amusements could not be considered an ordinary individual living according to his own inclinations, and candy became more and more sought after. As the need increased, the Quartermaster Department came to recognize the need of systematic selection and purchase.

The suffering sweet tooth of the Yank was not appeased by candy alone. The third billion pounds of sugar bought for Army represents a tremendous number of cakes, tarts, pies and custards. An old soldier recently stated that the ice cream eaten by the Army during the war would start a new ocean…


Click here to read about the shipments of chewing gum that was sent to the American Army of W.W. I.

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