Lex Anteinternet: American Service Organizations During the Great War. More on the YMCA. . .and smoking.

Pipe smoking French soldier.

I ran this item back in September;

Lex Anteinternet: American Service Organizations During the Great Wa...: Some time ago we published this photo: Gov. C. E. Milliken addressing new soldiers at Y.M.C.A. Hut 24, Fort Devons, Massachusetts. Augus...

One of the organizations I referenced in this entry was the YMCA.  What I didn't realize when I posted that item is that World War One wrecked, for a time, the reputation of the YMCA.

I learned that from listening to a Pritzer Military History podcast on smoking.  I did know that World War One popularized the cigarette, which before the war had been seen as an effeminate foppish thing to smoke.  The war changed that massively as cigarette companies gave out vast numbers of cigarettes during the war.

The sold vast number too, and soldiers came to crave them.  They weren't issued in a ration, at least at first, and so they had to rely on people with stateside and rear area connections.  Enter the YMCA men.

The YMCA, being an organization that supported the Muscular Christianity movement was more or less actually opposed to smoking.  But YMCA men, wanting to help the soldiers, bought cigarettes and then resold them to the troops.  The resale was necessary but soldiers didn't appreciate that, and felt they were being gouged. 

After the war, the YMCA had to over come that.