Showing posts with label Service Organizations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Service Organizations. Show all posts

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Friday, April 27, 1923. The IRA calls it quits, The Pro Treaty Sinn Finn depart, New Country Club, Harding and Work.

Having already effectively ceased combat operations, as they'd already lost the war, Éamon de Valera announced that the Irish Republican Army was prepared to agree to a ceasefire.

On the same day, Cumann na nGaedheal ("Society of the Gaels) a political party of pro treaty former members of Sinn Féin was formed.  It would merge into Finn Gael in 1933.

For residents of Casper, familiar with the Country Club, the origins of it were in evidence in this day in 1923.


Quite an assortment of other news as well.

And not just in Casper, but all around, it would seem.

The horse jumping over car photograph, probably last popular as horse jumping over Jeep during World War Two, was in vogue.



Jack Prestage on Tipperary in this case.

President Harding, whom we now know should probably have been in a clinic, visited the Tri State Clinic.


Warren G. Harding, who was in the last year of his life, was 57 years old at the time of his death. . . a good 20 years older than Donald Trump is now.  People don't really "live longer", contrary to the common claim, but they don't die as young due to various factors and heart attacks and strokes kill fewer.

Still, It's insane to be electing a President over 70 years of age.  It's questionable, really, to be electing somebody to their first term over 60 which means, if my restrictions mean anything, that I wouldn't be qualified.  I'd do a better job than either of the main candidates, I'm quite certain, which disqualifies me to start with, but age ought to.

In this photo, Harding didn't really look well.

And the guy third second from his left, as viewed, looks annoyed.

Huber Work accepted a resolution from his postal clerks.

Monday, April 17, 2023

Tuesday, April 17, 1923. Scouting in Casper.

I'm putting this edition of the Casper Daily Tribune up for one reason.


The article on the Boy Scouts.

It notes its explosive growth at the time, and that there was a troop in Mills. There's no troop there today.

Indeed, church troops, which this article notes, have really dwindled, although they still exist.  I know that in the 30s, St. Anthony's Catholic Church and St. Mark's Episcopal Church both had troops. They no longer do, although St. Mark's retains a cub scout troops.

According to the short search of it I did, today the local troops are:

6Units found near this ZIP Code

1
Troop 1035 American Legion George W Vroman Post 2
-1 miles
1868 S Poplar St
Casper WY 82601

Contact: Devin Hutchinson

Phone: (307) 337-1185

Email: devin930@hotmail.com

Boy Troop

Online Registration available for this unit.

Meets on Thursday nights at the church.

2
Troop 1167 Elks Casper Lodge
17.9 miles
3
Troop 1167 Elks Casper Lodge
17.9 miles
108 E 7th St
Casper WY 82601

Contact: Richard Summerton

Phone: (307) 259-8878

Email: rlsummerton@gmail.com

Boy Troop

Online Registration available for this unit.

Meets on Tuesday nights in the basement of the Elks Lodge.

4
Troop 1094 Casper Five Trails Rotary Club
18 miles
701 S Wolcott St
Casper WY 82601

Contact: Craig Dutcher

Phone: (307) 258-9379

Email: craigdutcher@hotmail.com

Boy Troop

Online Registration available for this unit.

Troop 1094 is dedicated to provide an educational program for boys and young adults to build character, to train in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and to develop personal fitness. Our Troop camps during most months of the year, participates in several community service projects, and meets every Tuesday evening for regular meetings.

5
Troop 1113 First Christian Church Of Casper
18.1 miles
6
Troop 1013 First Christian Church Of Casper
18.1 miles
520 Cy Ave
Casper WY 82601

Boy Troop

Online Registration available for this unit.

Great Troop! Great fun! Meets on Monday nights at the church.


A few things to note.

Two of these are associated with a church, that being the First Christian Church.  Way back in antiquity when I was briefly a Boy Scout, even though I'm Catholic, that was the troop I was in.  I think this was solely because somebody we knew was in it, and I was invited.  In retrospect, I'm surprised that my parents didn't suggest I look at the St. Anthony's troops, which was still around at the time, although its members were no doubt mostly alumni of St. Anthony's school.

The George Vroman legion troop actually meets at College Heights Baptist Church, based on that address. So is it a church troop?  That's not clear, but probably not.  That Legion post meets at the National Guard armory, so it doesn't have its own meeting site, which might explain it partially.

Two of these troops are associated with service organizations, the Elks and Rotary.  Service organizations are on the decline as well, although both of those seem to be doing well in Casper.

Most of these troops have a girls troops associated with them.  The introduction of girls into what had been the Boys Scouts happened a few years back, and when it occurred it took all the LDS troops out of the organization.  They'd had a big presence in it.  The move also irritated the Girl Scouts, for obvious reasons.

I don't know if It's helped the Boy Scouts or not. They've certainly been in decline, but I suspect that the introduction of girls hasn't helped.  Mostly what it probably has served to do is to create one more way in which it's impossible for boys to be with men in a formal way. Scouting was reeling under homosexual rape/seduction scandals at the time, although I'm sure that some would object to that characterization, even though there really is no other way to accurately describe it given as it was obviously male on male.  I'm not claiming, of course, that male on underage female, and for that matter female on underage male, sexual abuse does not occur.  Indeed, in the last year there's been a host of female on underage male abuse reported nationwide from public schools, school teachers in general being the number one sexual abusers of the underage.  Something, suffice it to say, is really amiss in our society, as it is likely that all of this reflects a big increase in this conduct, not merely the discovery of it.  

At any rate, the introduction of girls into the organization wouldn't seem to be directly related, but in a way it was, designed to show that Scouting was cleaning up its act and becoming inclusive.  It could have addressed that in another way, as it really undercut the basic nature of the organization.

As noted, my connection with Scouting is thin.  I was only briefly a Boy Scout.  I shouldn't, therefore, really care too much about its decline, but still, it says something about the evolution of American society over the past century, and whatever it says, it isn't really a good thing that it's a shadow of its former self.

Scouting no doubt has a lot to compete with these days.  However, the irony of that is that when it was first formed, it did to, and in some ways was formed expressly for those reasons.

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Sunday, February 1, 1942. US raids the Marshalls.

Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber on the USS Enterprise.  Note the very early war US roundals that featured the red dot in the center, which was later removed out of fears that this would cause US aircraft to be mistaken for Japanese ones.

Twenty years after the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty were agreed to, which limited ships of various types, but not aircraft carriers, this occurred:
February 1, 1942: US ships and aircraft from carriers USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown strike the Marshall and Gilbert Islands in the first offensive action by the US in the war.

The raids were of no long term consequence, but did provide valuable experience to the US Navy.

Interesting how many of these events occurred on Sunday.

That item, of course, is from Sarah Sundin's blog on daily events of World War Two.

Also, from it, for this day:

German Navy starts using 4-rotor Enigma machines, throwing off Allied code-breaking for eleven months. Nazis form puppet government in Norway with Vidkun Quisling as prime minister. Blue Star Mothers of America is established in Flint, MI, for mothers of servicemen and women.

Quisling was an odd character who had served as Norwegian Defense Minister from 1931-33.  Oddly, his first attempt to seize power in a coup, coincident with the German invasion, failed as it was not supported by Germany.

Sunday, May 2, 2021

May 2, 1921. Uprising in Upper Silesia

Polish insurgents in 1921.

On this day in 1921, the Third Silesian Uprising commenced in which Poles in Upper Silesia who sought to separate from Germany.  The uprising followed a plebiscite which yielded indefinite results and followed Polish fears that the British would support German claims to the region, which was proved to be correct.  The French supported the Poles.

During the fighting, the French somewhat supported the Polish insurgents and the British somewhat supported German forces in the region, but outside forces were barred from entry.  Ultimately the Poles prevailed.

On the same day the US announced that it would not mediate reparations disputes involving Germany and the Allies.  The French mobilized 50,000 men for anticipated Ruhr occupation.

Also on that day President Harding was visited by the American Waldensian Aid Society.

American Waldensian Aid Society, 5/2/21

While I'd never heard of it, it still exists, and is based in the Waldensian Church, a protestant church that claims a connection with the Waldensian heresy of the Middle Ages.  In 1975 it merged with the Methodist Church.

Harding appears to have had a busy day of meetings.


He met with members of International Association of Printing House Craftsmen, depicted above.


And also with the Alabama Congressional delegation.


And with Social Service School Workers.

Somebody he didn't meet with, but who was photographed that day, was Prince Zerdecheno, who claimed the title of Emir of Kurdistan, and his wife, May 2, 1921.


Elsewhere the famous hairpin turn on the Mohawk Trail and the Niagara Falls Fire Department were photographed.





Thursday, February 4, 2021

February 4, 1941. The United Service Organization founded.

See here:

Today in World War II History—February 4, 1941

The USO was formed on this day in 1941.  It still exists.

The organization came into being  to provide, for a lack of a better way to put it, aid and comfort to American servicemen.  A non profit organization, it's services are highly diverse and difficult to categorize.

We're so used to the thought of their being a USO that its difficult to realize that during World War One, no such organization existed, and the same roles were instead provided by a variety of pre existing organizations such as the Red Cross, the YMCA and the Knights of Columbus.  The evolution away from such organizations to a centralized, larger, one with a singular focus is interesting in terms of what it meant in social development.  In no prior war had the US had an organization dedicated just to the needs of servicemen, broad needs at that.  It has ever since.

On the same day the Canadian SS Empire Engineer, a refrigerated ship, was torpedoed and went down in the Atlantic with all 39 hands.  It was one of ten cargo ships that went down that day, seven of which belonged to Allied nations, two of which belonged to the neutral United States, and one of which was German.

Commonwealth forces continued to advance in Libya, taking Msus.

More on the war on this day:

Day 523 February 4, 1941

The misery of war:

The cold wet misery of the Greek front line

Friday, February 14, 2020

February 14, 1920. A Sober Valentine's Day.

Zintkala Nuni

Zintkala Nuni, who was found as an orphaned infant on the bloody grounds of Wounded Knee died of the flu contracted from her husband on this day in 1920.

Her story is uniformly tragic.

She was found by an Army burial detail still tied to the back of her dead mother.  She was raised at first by members of her tribe, who named her "Lost Bird", but was soon taken into the home of Gen. Leonard Wright Colby who referred to her, at first, as a "curio" of the massacre.  Colby and his wife Clara Bewick Cody adopted her in 1891, with Clara, a suffragette and publisher of Women's Tribune principally raising her.

When she was five, her adoptive father abandoned Clara and Zintkala and married Zintkala's nanny, thereafter moving to Beatrice, Nebraska.  Her childhood was rough as an Indian child raised among the white privileged.  Like many Indian she was educated in Indian boarding schools for part of the time, in part because Clara was so busy.  At age 17 the rebellious Zintkala was sent to live with Gen. Colby and became pregnant soon thereafter.  The father of her child is unknown but some historians suspect Colby of sexual abuse of her.  After she became pregnant Colby committed her to a reformatory for unwed mothers, where the child was born stillborn.

She then returned to Clara's home and married, leaving her husband after a few weeks of marriage and after having contracted syphilis from her husband.  The Spanish Flu ultimately brought about her death.

On the same day Konstantin Konstantinovich Mamontov, former Imperial Russian General and then serving as a White Russian General, a Don Cossack, died of typhus at age 50.

Konstantin Mamontov

And in Chicago, the League of Women's Voters was founded.

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Friday July 25, 1919. Marshalltown to Jefferson Iowa, 81 miles in 10.5 hours

With a stop for ice cream in Boone.

If  you look up the towns mentioned today, which is worth doing, you'll note that we're to the north of the current Interstate 80.  While they both cross the nation more or less in the same areas, they're not the same road at all.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

May 18, 1919. Recalling the recent war.


The war wasn't actually technically over, with the Peace Treaty not yet signed, and it certainly wasn't forgotten.  It figured prominently on the cover illustration for the New York Tribunes graphic issue for this day, which was a Sunday feature.

Ft. Riley and Camp Funston, May 18, 1919.  Camp Funston, the locus of the great Flu Epidemic, would soon cease to exist and just become the wooded lot near Ft. Riley that it is today.

 Organizations laying wreaths as a statute of Joan d'Arc, Paris, May 18, 1919.

Gatherings seemed to be going on this Sunday in Paris.

Red Cross Societies banquet, Paris, May 18, 1919.

And dramatic news was going on, concerning the advancement of aircraft across the Atlantic, and in general.


A Cheyenne paper gave banner headlines to the loss of one of the U.S. Navy seaplanes attempting to cross the Atlantic, but it was the weather item, the same today as it was a century ago, that drew my eye to this one.

Poster Saturday. Salvation Army Home Service Campaign. May 19-26, 1919.



A poster from the Salvation Army form 1919 in support of their Home Service Campaign, following the conclusion of World War One.

The Salvation Army is a Protestant religious denomination, something that seems to escape people sometimes, that's somewhat uniquely organized on military lines.  I can't think of anything really comparable other than, I suppose, the Catholic military orders of the Crusades, but as they are monastic orders, and the Salvation Army is an entire faith, that isn't truly comparable.  Even Salvation Army churches are referred to in militaristic terms.

It was founded in 1865 in London, England, by a former Methodist minister as part of a widespread "Holiness Movement" that existed at the time.  It was widely spread in the English speaking world by World War One and had a major service role along with the YMCA and Red Cross to the extent that the three are sometimes confused. Indeed, along with both the Red Cross and the YMCA, the Salvation Army is associated with donuts due to the Great War, even though none of those organizations focused on serving donuts.

The Great War service organizations filled a roll that the USO and other organizations that were organized by the governments did during World War Two.  Not too surprisingly, therefore, they continued on in that role after the peace, at which time the economy was sinking in the wake of post war military discharges and the cancellation of wartime contracts, and also at which time large numbers of Europeans were homeless.

Monday, April 29, 2019

April 29, 1919. Germans Arrive. Americans Departing. Spring Horse Show


The German delegation arrived in Paris to start their negotiations with the Allies.  Of note, it had taken the Allies all this time from the Armistice to come up with a treaty to present to the Germans.


In New York, more traditional peacetime events were going on, albeit interesting to benefit a martial one, and a one that represented a different technology, making for an interesting contrast.

Still in France, Americans were coming home, or otherwise moving on with their lives.

Enlisted men and officers at a dance with Red Cross personnel in Brest.

 Canteen Directeress Florence (Henderson) Payne a few days after her marriage to Col. E. V. R. Payne of the 25th Engineers.  Some of the service personnel relationships with Red Cross personnel obviously had moved on to new levels.

Walking wounded embarking at Brest.

The U.S. suspended its "black list" of nations outside of the declared belligerents who traded with the enemy in the U.S. view.  The list, promulgated under the Trading With the Enemy Act, had been hard on companies in some regions, such as South America.

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

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.

Friday, September 21, 2018

American Service Organizations During the Great War

Some time ago we published this photo:

Gov. C. E. Milliken addressing new soldiers at Y.M.C.A. Hut 24, Fort Devons, Massachusetts. August 5, 1918.

And we've certainly posted a lot of photographs of members of the American Red Cross in Europe during WWI as well.

What was going on with service organizations anyhow? Well, quite a lot.  Almost too  much, quite frankly, to report on accurately.

And, moreover, why did this occur?

First of all, let's look at what did occur, although our report will frankly be incomplete.

And let's start with the American Red Cross.

American Red Cross

It should be evident from the numerous photographs of the American Red Cross in action during World War One that it played a huge role in the war.  Indeed, while not readily evident from what we have posted here, it played a gigantic role that extended to both sides of the war, with individual national Red Cross organizations playing a different role in different countries.  In the case of the Allies, the American Red Cross's role was large and partisan prior to the United States entering the war, and its medical establishment was so well developed that the American Army simply partially absorbed it in place, personnel and all.

How on earth did that occur?

The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 by American nurse, Clara Barton.  She had seen the International Red Cross in operation in the Franco Prussian War and was impressed with its humanitarian mission.

Clara Barton in 1904.

The Swiss based International Red Cross was a young organization when Barton first encountered it, existing only since 1863. It's origin has specifically been war, when its primary inspiration, Henri Dunat, had witnesses Italian casualties in the the Italian wars of unification suffering on the battlefield without attention.  His efforts resulted in the International Committee of the Red Cross, to provide relief to the victims of war of any nation, and it exists to this day.

The originator of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Henri Dunat.

Indeed, the ICRC provided nursing services to all the combatants during the First World War and continues on to this present day as a humanitarian organization.  Barton was inspired by her observations of the ICRC during the Franco Prussian War, as noted, and came back to the United States and lead the effort to form the ARC.

The American Red Cross was just one of the many Red Cross organizations that contributed nurses, hospitals and doctors to the warring nations.  It arrived in Europe well before any American soldiers did in that role.  It's important to note, however, that its services were provided to Allied nations in that context.  In later wars the ICRC tends to be associated with neutrality, and this should be how it was regarded in World War One, but it's also the case that during World War One the American Red Cross rapidly became an Allied deal.

As an "Allied deal", as I've put it, it provided a lot of emergency services that went far beyond the battlefield.  Much of what it did was of the classic Red Cross type of thing, but far beyond that.  It ran hospitals and distributed food and the like all over France and Italy.  But as the war progressed, what it came to do, while in keeping with its traditional role, became what we'd have to regard as partisan.

 Interior of operating room. American Red Cross Evacuation Hospital No. 110, Coincy, France

The Red Cross came to provide an ambulance and hospital service that existed very much in a military support role.  Red Cross ambulance drivers, all male, wore military uniforms and many, but not all, of the men who volunteered for that duty saw it as volunteering for a type of military service prior to the United States having entered the war.  Indeed, Ernest Hemingway's famous "military service" was actually Red Cross service as an ambulance driver in Italy, a role in which he was wounded.

A uniformed Red Cross ambulance driver, Ernest Hemingway.  In this uniform Hemingway's appearance would have been very close to that of an officer in an Allied army, even though he was not an officer nor even a soldier.

When the U.S. entered the war the line between the American Red Cross as a humanitarian organization and the American Red Cross as a auxiliary of the medical corps of the U.S. Army became highly blurred and then actually, to an extent, ceased to exist altogether.  Given the delay in building up the U.S. military going towards the war, there was no earthly way that the services could build a medical corps of sufficient size to handle the vastly expanded military.  The American Red Cross, however, was there in place, and in fact, in France and Italy. So they were partially incorporated into the Army.

 American Red Cross Advance Dressing Station. Major Franciscolin, 109th Inf. 28th Division in charge, assisted by Lt. Powell Leighton, A.R.C. attached to the 28th Div. Near St. Gilles, France. Aug. 15, 1918

But only partially.  Male members of the Red Cross were given the option of entering the Army in their existing roles at a rank assigned to them by the Army, and by and large they did.  They didn't have to, however, and some chose not to.  Nurses remained outside of the Army and stayed in their existing roles in what were now Army medical facilities.

Having said that, however, that only addresses the medical support roles taken on by the American Red Cross during the war.  Other roles also existed.  Simply providing comfort, often in the form of canteens or mobile canteens (i.e., coffee and donuts) was a role that, while not exactly major, was often fondly remembered post war.  Back in the U.S., the Red Cross undertook a serviceman and family support role that would be of the type that would be undertaken by the United Service Organizations (USO) during World War Two and beyond.  

The ARC also retained a humanitarian relief role that went far beyond the areas where the US military operated, attempting to provide humanitarian relief in the Middle East, Asia and Russia.  

In the end, it's difficult to actually define what the American Red Cross did during the war, as it was so vast in nature.  Some of it very closely mirrored what it does today.  Some of it anticipated the USO of later wars.  Some of it was in the nature of direct medical support to the Allied war effort.  It's role proved key in many ways to that effort, and its hard to imagine an Allied war effort without it.

The role of the American Red Cross was mirrored by the Red Cross organizations of other nations.  The International Committee of the Red Cross occupied a cross border humanitarian role much like it would during World War Two, not taking any sides in the war and attempting to provide relief where it could.  The German Red Cross trained nurses for the German military.  British and Canadian Red Cross organizations filled a role much like that of that of the American Red Cross and were augmented by national nursing organizations that were outside of the Red Cross but much like it.

Which takes us to the YMCA.

The Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association.

The YMCA?

YMCA "girl" depicted in a common YMCA role during the war, providing coffee and reading materials to the soldier, something that the YMCA did to a vast degree during World War One.

Yes, the Young Mans Christian Association..

The YMCA, contrary to the way people commonly imagine it, is actually a religion.  A branch of the Protestant Christian religions, the YMCA and its companion the YWCA came up during the Muscular Christianity movement we've discussed elsewhere.  It's history actually dates back to 1844 when it was founded in London, England, "to provide low-cost housing in a safe Christian environment for rural young men and women journeying to the cities."  This concern was not without a foundation as the mass influx of rural youth into European industrial cities did indeed exhibit a major corrupting aspect to it.*

Given the lack of service organizations that aided and supported soldiers prior to World War Two, it shouldn't surprise us, even though it tends to, that the YMCA started filling this role fairly early. There are some instances in the United States of it taking this role as early as the Civil War, but it really commenced them in a dedicated fashion during the Spanish American War.  So it should be no surprise that it stepped up to the plate again during World War One.

During the Great War the YMCA took up its service organization role in spades, occupying a role that again would be occupied by the USO during World War Two.  Like the Red Cross, it provided aid and comfort to soldiers serving in the war in the form of what we'd regard as canteens.  It also undertook to provide entertainment, assistance with writing letters (in an era in which the literacy rates were not as high as they'd later be.

YWCA poster urging young women to work in the factories and fields during the war.

The YMCA also took a direct role in recruiting women for war work during the Great War, associating itself with Womens' Land Armies in the agricultural sector and in recruiting women to industrial work.  In this, it somewhat ironically was in the situation of encouraging the very type of thing that it originally was formed to address, in that the Land Armies and the industrial work took young women out of their homes and into urban environments.

The YMCA and the YWCA were Protestant organizations, of course.  Given that, it's not surprising that we'd find the major Catholic organization in the US also involved in the war effort, that being the Knights of Columbus.

The Knights of Columbus



Or maybe it is surprising.  It cannot be fairly stated that there is a religious element to World War One.  All the warring nations in Europe were Christian nations. And confessionaly we would find that there were Protestant and Catholic nations on both sides, more or less.  The United Kingdom, at that time comprised of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and therefore was the home of two of two official Protestant faiths and one large unofficial Catholic one.  Germany was likewise split between Lutheran based Protestantism (it's somewhat more complicated than might be imagined in that area) and Catholicism, although Protestantism was heavily favored by the German crown.  The Austrian Empire, on the other hand, was nearly uniformly Catholic save for some regions that were Orthodox.  Italy was uniformly Catholic.  France was a Catholic country in culture and in faith although the French governments had been aggressively secular for a long time.  Imperial Russia was officially Orthodox but it had, on its western fringes, a large Catholic population.  The United States had no official religion at all, but had a majority Protestant population with a large Catholic minority (and of course minorities in additional Orthodox and Jewish populations).

The Knights of Columbus taking convalescing wounded on a tour of Washington, D.C.

Nonetheless, and particularly for countries like the United States and Canada (and the United Kingdom), confessional differences were very real and there was a real concern that minority Catholic soldiers in the US (and Canadian) armies would not have support facilities that reflected their faith.  The Knights of Columbus stepped up to the plate.

Indeed, the Knights were active prior to the United States entering the war.  They'd become involved early due to the concern noted above for Canadian soldiers.  This followed with the organization organizing support facilities for Catholic National Guardsmen who were mobilized to serve on the Mexican border during the Punitive Expedition.  So the organization had a head start for the American involvement in the Great War.


The role played by the Knights was similar to that played by the YMCA and the Red Cross in terms of rear area support.

The National Civil Federation

The National Civil Federation was a business organization that was founded in 1900 as a business organization dedicated towards working to resolve labor disputes.  Gigantic labor disputes have become so rare in the United States over the years that we've forgotten they even existed in the form that they once did. We've seen some of that story here, but suffice it to say they could be quite extreme in comparison to what we've seen for the past several decades.

 

The National Civil Foundation and the American Red Cross together formed the wartime National League for Women's Service which contributed the Women's Motor Corps to the war effort.  Perhaps the Women's Motor Corps is what it is best remembered for in the Great War context.

The WMC wasn't the only thing the National Civil Foundation did during the Great War, however.  It also operated domestic support facilities for soldiers.

Youth Organizations

The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts rather obviously contributed to the war effort through various efforts, including patriotic displays.  Both organizations, which we've discussed before, had martial origins in addition to being party of the Muscular Christianity movement.  That martial origin was particularly evident with the Boys Scouts which, as earlier noted, had a heavily military appearance at the time.

J. C. Leyendecker poster noting the Boy Scout's support of the Third Liberty Loan.

Some of this would repeat during World War Two, but not nearly to the extent that had been seen in World War One.  The Red Cross was of course highly active.  Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts reprized their earlier role.  But by World War Two the Army itself was prepared to take on the medical role that had fallen to the Red Cross and much of the home front support came from a new organization, the United Service Organization, which still exists.

It's interesting in that its a missed part of the Great War in a way.  World War Two, particularly in the United States, grossly overshadows the story of World War One so the huge civilian mobilization that the first war had seen has largely been lost in the mists.  But it says something about the war itself.  There were those who avoided it, to be sure, but the extent to which the civilian population self mobilized is truly remarkable.

___________________________________________________________________________________

*This strays way off topic, but the corrosive influence of large cities had long been noted and indeed was observed to be a primary facdtor in the destruction of democracies by Thomas Jefferson, who felt that large cities always gave rise to mobs and always ended up destroying democracies.  Indeed, in his writings he felt that the American democracy would ultimately fall prey to that fate and that it could only be staved off so long as most Americans were Yeomen Farmers.

The same factors noted by the founders of the YMCA and the YWCA lead to the formation of a
German Catholic organization with the same (male) focus, but whose name I unfortunately cannot now recall.  It also lead to a vareitiy of movements that sought to address or even redirect the forcdes that were in play.