1919 – Page 8 – Old Magazine Articles

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

Although the origins of chewing gum have been traced to many different parts of the ancient world, no culture has whole-hardheartedly embraced the stuff quite as thoroughly as the Americans. The Yankee bromance with chewing gum has largely been credited to the American industrialist William Wrigley, Jr. (1861 – 1932) for creating, in 1906, a gum that appealed broadly to the American palette – and when Americans went to war in 1917, Wrigley’s chewing gum was in their arsenal.

We added to this page a small column about Dr. Morris Nafash, who was one of the brilliant chemists at the Bazooka Bubble Gum Company.

Click here to read about the A.E.F. love for candy…

Click here to read about all the effort that was made to get cigarettes to the Doughboys.

The U.S. Navy Railway Guns
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

An article written for an American veterans organization one year after the war, the attached piece tells the story of the five American naval batteries that were mounted on specially made rail cars and deployed along the Western Front. The article is two pages long and is filled with interesting facts as to the whereabouts of their assorted deployments and what was expected of the naval crews who worked them.

Three Collections of War Poetry Reviewed
(The Independent, 1919)

A review of three volumes of World War One poetry: From the Front edited by Lt. Clarence Edward Andrews (dates?), Songs From The Trenches by Herbert Adams Gibbons (1880-1934) and Robert Graves’ (1895–1985) Fairies and Fusiliers.

Life in a Trench
(What the Boys Did Over There, 1919)

Corporal Frank Sears of the American Expeditionary Force put pen to paper and explained for all posterity the unsanitary conditions of <b.living in a W.W. I trench in France:

Life in the trenches is made up of cooties, rats, mud and gas masks…
We became so used to mud up in the lines that if our chow did not have some mud, or muddy water in it we could not digest it. It was just a case of mud all over: eat, drink, sleep and wash in mud.

The Versailles Treaty and the German Colonies
(Leslie’s Weekly, 1919)

Half way through the year of 1919, editorials like this one began to appear in many places which served to inform the English-speaking world that the Germans were peacefully handing over their African colonies (as they were obliged to do in article 119 of the Versailles Treaty):

Germany renounces in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions.

Rudyard Kipling Condemned
(Current Opinion, 1919)

The author of The White Man’s Burden gets the back-hand for all of his narrow-minded jingoism by Robert Wilson Lynd (1879 – 1949), who penned this angry review of Rudyard Kipling’s (1865 – 1936) body of work, finding the author to be too much the Victorian imperialist.

An article about the Muslim opinion concerning colonialism can be read here…

The New Objectivity
(Current Opinion, 1919)

A review of the paintings and sculptures from the Weimer Republic and the manner in which that new art served to reflect the social upheaval that was taking place in Germany at that time. The article concerns itself primarily with one art exhibit in particular, the Spring Exhibition of the Berlin Secession (1919) and the two art factions who participated: there were the artists of Der Sturm a movement that existed prior to the war and a newer, post-war tribe; the November Group. Also displayed were the works of two painters who served in the Kaiser’s army and did not return; Franz Marc (1880-1916) and August Macke (1887-1914).

It is hoped by the German Expressionists and the artists of the New Objectivity that their art will serve as a tool for the destruction of Germany’s old order.

Click here to see a few trench war images by German Expressionist Otto Dix.

Click here to read about Expressionist woodcuts.

The New Objectivity held up a mirror to the political crises that was playing out all over Germany, click here to read about it…

A French Village Welcomes the Ninety-Second Division
(The Crises, 1919)

This is a lovely piece, originally written in French for a village paper, in which a journalist describes the collective excitement of the townsfolk in welcoming the Americans to their sleepy hamlet during the First World War, and how astonished they were to find that the arriving Doughboys were all of African descent!

Read an Article About American intervention in W.W. I and the Gratitude of France.

The Mining of the Seas
(Sea Power, 1919)

Naval mines had been around for centuries, in one form or another – and this article pertains to the particular type of anti U-boat mines that were put in place along those well-traveled sea lanes known best by that kind of German warship.

Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic.

The Evolution of the Tank
(NY Times, 1919)

A three page article concerning the development of tanks during the First World War. While they were being created on the drawing boards of Britain’s W. Foster Company, the code name for these land dreadnoughts was water tanks; hence the name.

The first armored battle cars, or tanks were a British invention developed from an American automobile tractor used for agricultural purposes on the Western prairies. They made their initial appearance at the battle of the Somme (Flers), September 15, 1916.

However, it should be known that they were first used to greatest effect in the Battle of Cambrai (November 20 through December 7, 1917).

Click here to see a diagram of the W.W. I French Renault tank.

Read about the Patton tank in Korea…