Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Ms-053: Charles D. Ryan, 66th Engineers, Meggan D. Smith

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The collection consists primarily of letters from Charles Ryan to Elizabeth Dooling, his wife-to-be. The letters to Elizabeth begin on March 29, 1918 and the final one in the collection is dated June 3, 1919. The only other items in the collection is an envelope addressed to Elizabeth Dooling from Charles Ryan, a newspaper clipping of Ryan’s marriage to Elizabeth, a blank postcard with two soldiers on the front, and a letter to Ryan from the Treasury Department.

Although Ryan briefly mentions significant events, such as Germany being defeated and Italy leaving the Peace Conference, his letters focus largely on …

Ms-048: World War I Service Questionnaires, Keith R. Swaney

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After the conclusion of the First World War, two distinct entities at Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College—Professor S. N. Hagen and the Phi Delta Theta fraternity— endeavored to document and commemorate the experiences of the college’s graduates in the First World War.

The first section contains the Phi Delta Theta questionnaires, which the fraternity sent to its alumni to record their participation in the field or on the home front. As the questionnaires note, the historian of the Pennsylvania College chapter wished to use this information in a publication to be entitled the “Karux.”

The second section contains questionnaires that Hagen, a …