History Commons^™

Marching To The Music: The U.S. Military’S Impact On American Youth Through The Marching Band Movement, 1910-1990, Elise Eaton

Honors College Theses

High school bands have evolved greatly since the first band boom in the early 1920s. Beyond the performance responsibilities and commitments to football and sporting events, bands have their own cultural elements that only band members, band staffs, and families of band students truly understand. This thesis will demonstrate that high school band culture since the 1920s developed alongside the changing fortunes of the U.S. military. Accordingly, U.S. military history shaped the evolving culture of high school marching bands and other youth performing arts groups while these civilian youth groups in turn embedded and reinforced elements of U.S. militarism in …

Military Women In World Cinema: A 20th Century History And Filmography, Introduction, Deborah A. Deacon, Stacy Fowler

Faculty Articles

From British soldier Flora Sandes to the fame World War II Night Witches of the Soviet Air Force, women across the globe stepped up to defend their countries during every major and minor conflict of the twentieth century, and filmmakers have long attempted to capture their stories.

This book analyzes real and fictional military women's portrayals in world cinema, including movies from Israel, the United Kingdom, Italy, China, France, the Soviet Union, and others. It includes theatrical releases, direct-to-video productions, and made-for-television films.

Chapters, organized by decade, address topics including the women's sexuality, maternal and marital status, leadership skills, actual …

The Students’ Army Training Corps In Virginia, R. Matthew Luther

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The Students’ Army Training Corps (SATC) is an overlooked part of the United States’ military training system during World War I. In early 1918, the War Department realized that they would need more military officers due to the rapid expansion of the Army for the war, the high expected casualty rate of officers, and the planned spring 1919 offensive. To help fix this problem, the Committee on Education and Special Training, a subsidiary of the War Department, created the SATC. College campuses served as training locations and male students enrolled at the schools received military training in addition to their …

A Pelican's Journey To Flight: A Louisiana National Guardsman, The Development Of The United States Army Air Service, And The Human Cost Of Military Innovation, James H. Smith

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

George E. Dicks deployed to the Mexican Punitive Expedition and World War I with the Louisiana National Guard. He recorded his experience in writing and photography, which reside in the Jackson Barracks Military Museum in Chalmette, Louisiana. His memorabilia reflect an officer’s perspective on early military aviation and parallel to the United States military’s experimentation with aviation. Through experimentation, Dicks became an aerial observer in World War I.

This thesis explores George E. Dicks’ memorabilia and how it both represents the development of the American Air Service and the human cost of military aviation with photographic evidence. By representing aviation’s …

Graduate, 1st Place: World War I War Front And Home Front: The Correspondence That Brought Them Together, Michelle Thole

2023 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

The First World War was the first time American soldiers had participated in a war at a distance from home that did not easily facilitate home furloughs. Although the United States and Europe are physically separated by more than 3,500 miles, the relative distance between American World War I soldiers on the war front and their families on the home front was minor; the correspondence between them mitigated the physical and cognitive distance.

Historians of the First World War have explored soldiers’ contact with their families while in training camps and the US military’s intentional cultivation of a balance between …

The Development Of Uniforms And Equipment In Trench Warfare From 1914-1918, Katherine M. Tyson

CAFE Symposium 2023

The First World War was one of incessant destruction, but the birth of a new modernized era with an abundance of technological advancements. These advancements ranged from the introduction of the first ever tank, to the individual details that soldiers changed on their uniforms. The uniform is also a vehicle to express a soldier’s memories and experiences, preserving their story.

American Horse Power During The Great War, Hanna K. Lipsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation charts the significant, if understudied, history of American horses during the era of World War I, from roughly 1914 to 1919. Its chapters trace how the US Army acquired, used, cared for, and ultimately demobilized horses over the course of that conflict. Beginning with their acquisition, via either an Army Horse Breeding Program or a complicated buying process, horses faced a complex introduction into military service. Life for these animals did not get any easier once they reached the European front. Although the US military was beginning to replace horses with motor trucks and tractors, horses remained central …

A Subtle Discrimination: Segregation And The Selective Service Act Of 1917-1918 In Abbeville County, South Carolina, Harris M. Bailey Jr.

All Theses

The focus of this study examines how the South Carolina Abbeville County Draft Board (ACDB) implemented the provisions of the Selective Service Act of 1917 and its ancillary legislation to register and select men for induction into military service for World War I. The primary question is whether the ACDB, with no clear directions from the United States War Department, interpret and apply the Act’s provisions in a discriminatory manner against African Americans. This study will show that the Abbeville County Draft Board manipulated the provisions of the Selective Service Act to discriminate against both African American and Euro-American registrants. …

The Grand Strategy Of Gertrude Bell: From The Arab Bureau To The Creation Of Iraq, Heather S. Gregg

Monographs, Collaborative Studies, & IRPs

The remarkable life of early-twentieth-century British adventurer Gertrude Bell has been well documented through her biographies and numerous travel books. Bell’s role as a grand strategist for the British government in the Middle East during World War I and the postwar period, however, is surprisingly understudied. Investigating Gertrude Bell as both a military strategist and a grand strategist offers important insights into how Great Britain devised its military strategy in the Middle East during World War I—particularly, Britain’s efforts to work through saboteurs and secret societies to undermine the Ottoman Empire during the war and the country’s attempts to stabilize …

(Australian): Challenges Of The Australian Flying Corps During World War I, Patrick Joseph Blizzard

MSU Graduate Theses

The air forces of the Great War faced many challenges. These challenges included integrating air power into established military doctrine and coping with the ever evolving airplane technology. The hurdles identified had to be overcome in order for the belligerent nations to wage a successful aerial campaign and control the skies above both static and dynamic forces. For the members of the Australian Flying Corps, these shared challenges were augmented by being the lone British dominion to operate an independent air arm. But what were these additional challenges and how were they overcome? The goal of this thesis is to …

Memories From The Great War: An Analysis Of Jackson Purchase Veterans’ Changes In Perspective Since 1914, David Wallace

Honors College Theses

The First World War affected the lives of millions, creating collective memories of hardships, uncertainty, political tension, and animosity toward foreign enemies. In the United States, World War I was a turning point in the nation’s growth and development, but on a smaller scale it was a critical historical moment in the individual lives of the veterans who served. This research project showcases the experiences of the Jackson Purchase’s WWI veterans with an emphasis on their perceptions during the war, their reasons for enlisting, the countless once-in-a-lifetime experiences they had along the way, the hardships they faced, and the remarkable …

Coalition Warfare—Echoes From The Past, Michael Neiberg

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Finding A Place For World War I In American History: 1914-2018, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"World War I has occupied an uneasy place in the American public and political consciousness.1 In the 1920s and 1930s, controversies over the war permeated the nation’s cultural and political life, influencing memorial culture and governmental policy. Interest in the war, however, waned considerably after World War II, a much larger and longer war for the United States. Despite a plethora of scholarly works examining nearly every aspect of the war, interest in the war remains limited even among academic historians. In many respects, World War I became the “forgotten war” because Americans never developed a unifying collective memory about …

World War I Collections In Manuscripts & Folklife Archives At Western Kentucky University, Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

This is a list of collections in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives holdings of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections that relate to World War I. Included are letters and diaries of soldiers and civilians, military records and papers, research projects, photographs, scrapbooks and other, mostly unpublished material. Our collections are particularly strong in documenting the experiences of Kentuckians at home and overseas, and of others who found themselves in Kentucky (most notably, at Camp Zachary Taylor, the Army training facility in Louisville) during the war and its immediate aftermath.

The 1918 Anti-British Revolt In Najaf: Local Primary Sources Vs National And Religious Narratives, Mohammed Harba

MSU Graduate Theses

This research examines the diverse historical narratives of the 1918 Najaf Revolt against British forces during the concluding months of World War I on the Mesopotamian front. For a century, two distinguishable narratives have been developed and promoted in Iraqi literature: Pan-Arabist and religious, reflecting the objectives, motivations, and present-mindedness of two political eras in modern Iraqi history. Several local primary sources, mostly memoirs of Najafis who witnessed or participated in the revolt, have been re-surfaced and re-visited during the past twenty years. These primary sources shed new light on the established Pan-Arabist narrative or the recent religious framing of …

Indentured On The Western Front: The Chinese Labour Corps And The British Coolie Trade, Emily Sanders

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the recruitment, transport, and working conditions of the Chinese Labour Corps in World War I in comparison to the twentieth century British ‘coolie’ trade of Chinese indentured laborers on the basis of labor contracts, written testimonies, newspaper articles, books, photographs, and historical records. This thesis argues that the Chinese Labour Corps methods of recruiting, transport, and conditions of work were very similar to, if not the same as, the twentieth century British coolie trade. The Chinese Labour Corps can in many ways be said to be an extension of the preexisting British coolie trade, rather than an …

Haskins, Lee Owsley, 1890-1964 (Sc 3525), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3525. Letters to Captain Lee Owsley Haskins, written by his family in Bowling Green, Kentucky during his World War I military service. His father describes his business activities, discusses his son’s plans after the war, and reports in November 1918 of the ebbing of the influenza epidemic and the Board of Health’s plan to “lift the Ban.” His mother refers to his recent surgery, and his sister writes of the arrival of a troop train in Bowling Green and the soldiers’ march downtown for canteen service.

The American Army Air Service During World War I'S Hundred Days Offensive: Looking At Reconnaissance, Bombing And Pursuit Aviation In The Saint-Mihiel And Meuse-Argonne Operations., Duncan Hamlin

History Undergraduate Theses

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to research and analyze the American Army Air Service during the Hundred Days Offensive of World War I. Aviation was a relatively new concept to warfare in the beginning of World War I in 1914 and brought many new concepts to the battlefield, such as aerial observation and reconnaissance, aerial bombing and achieving air superiority. The research conducted reflects the desire to understand the impact American aviation had on ending the war in 1918 and helps others understand the importance and sacrifice made by hundreds of American airmen. The American Air Service played …

Making Good : World War I, Disability, And The Senses In American Rehabilitation, Evan Patrick Sullivan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study looks at how disabled American soldier-patients and the US Army used the senses as tools of rehabilitation after the Great War. Contemporaries argued that, when the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers came home wounded or sick after the Great War, the men needed to make good. The phrase “making good” meant that sacrifice in the war was not enough, and veterans had to become socially and economically independent, and return to heterosexual relationships. In an effort to return to normalcy, the US Army relied on rehabilitation, which aimed to medically and socially re-integrate the men into society.

Milem, Charles Arthur, 1893-1950 (Sc 3493), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3493. Letters, 28 March and 27 April 1919, of Arthur Milem to his future wife Bendola White in Covington, Kentucky. Writing from Verdun, France, where he is serving with the American Expeditionary Force, he reports on the weather, letters received from family and friends, and his uneventful military life. Noting that his is now the oldest company left at Verdun, he expresses hope that orders will arrive soon allowing them to embark for “the good old U.S.A.” Hearing that Bendola and his sister are planning a reception …

From The Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration, Amy E. Lucadamo, Ian A. Isherwood, R.C. Miessler, Jenna Fleming, Meghan E. O'Donnell

R.C. Miessler

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences …

The Great War And The Digital Humanities: Creating A Project And Building A Team, Ian A. Isherwood, Amy E. Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler

History Faculty Publications

Using the framework of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History, this workshop will give guidance for team-building and project management, provide examples of Digital Humanities tools and methods that can be used with First World War collections, and outline pedagogical uses for digital history in the classroom.

The First World War Letters Of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History, Ian A. Isherwood, Amy E. Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler

History Faculty Publications

This poster provides a high-level overview of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History project, giving information on its creation, the collection of letters, how it has used digital mapping, and its use in the classroom.

Howell, Ray, 1893-1977 (Sc 3440), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3440. Personal papers of Ray Howell, Bowling Green, Kentucky: postcards sent during his military service in World War I and bearing his image; a 1931 certificate confirming his 1919 discharge from the U.S. Army; a certified copy of his birth certificate; a postcard from California advising of a death; and Howell’s funeral instructions. Also includes the 1919 reply of another “Ray Howell,” then serving in Germany, to whom Howell’s sister Maud’s letter was sent by mistake; he also encloses a postcard bearing his image.

Ms-238: Prisoner Of War Letters From World Wars I And Ii, Kelly A. Murphy

All Finding Aids

This collection consists of various correspondence between POWs and their families, including 86 letters, 174 postcards, and about eight package slips during both world wars. Most of this correspondence was authored by the prisoners and sent to their families from camps in Europe, although it contains some correspondence from camps in Asia and Africa. The collection also contains correspondence from prisoners in concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, and from interned civilians in France and Germany. Because these letters were the main way to contact family members, most of the POW correspondence contain thoughts of homesickness and loneliness along with updates …

Thirty Two Days In The Argonne Offensive, Grover C. Maus

Adams County History

It is manifestly impossible for one man, without access to official records, to write anything like a comprehensive history of the great Meuse-Argonne conflict. So no attempt will be made to write a history, but simply to describe some events, experiences, feelings, and hardships from the standpoint of a personal observer in the hope that they will provide to be typical of the experiences of the average Adams County boy who book part in that battle. [excerpt]

Bringing To Life The Grandfather I Never Knew, Valerie J. Young

Adams County History

My grandfather, Chester Allen Bower, was born in New Oxford, Pennsylvania on August 30, 1894 and died near there in Hanover on December 30, 1939. He was my mother's father, and she was just 12 years old when he died. I never had the chance to meet him.

Chester served in the Great War in the U.S. Army's 79th Division, which took part in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive from September to November 1918. This Offensive was the largest military operation ever undertaken by the U.S. Army at that time and its success led, in part, to the end of the war. …

Ua1c4/8 Military Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of student military organizations.

Strahm Family Collection (Mss 655), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 655. Data, clippings and information about the Strahm family and related families. Most of the material relates to Franz J. Strahm, WKU music director from 1910-1941, and his son Victor H. Strahm’s career in military service. Includes photographs of Franz, Victor, and other family members.