Photo Credit: National Archives
Vocational training for S.A.T.C. (Students’ Army Training Corps) at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Pictured is the Pole-Climbing class for the college’s telephone electricians with some of their instructors, ca. 1918.
Photo Credit: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Medical staff attend to a wounded Choctaw U.S. soldier at the U.S. National Red Cross Hospital No. 5 in Auteuil, France, c.1917-1918.
Photo Credit: Library of Congress
American Army field hospital inside ruins of church. France. 1918. This church looks to be quite large and, at one time, quite grand. I wish, with photos like these, we knew more details about the church, or at least the name/location of it. I wonder if it was repaired or destroyed after the war? Was it also damaged by the invading German forces during World War II? The endless questions that could be answered if one simply had a name or location….
Photo Credit: The New York Public Library
Marine bidding farewell to his child before going to war, ca. 1918.
Photo Credit: Denishawn Collection/The New York Public Library
Denishawn dancers selling Liberty Bonds, 1917.
Senate Sergeant at Arms Charles Higgins turns forward the Ohio Clock for the first Daylight Saving Time, while Senators William Calder (NY), William Saulsbury, Jr. (DE), and Joseph T. Robinson (AR) look on, 1918. Photo Credit: Senate Historical Office
As railroads dominated the landscape of the American West and Canada, standard time in time zones became a necessity. By 1883 standard time was initiated but was not signed into U.S. law until March 19, 1918 with the Standard Time Act.
World War I poster showing Uncle Sam turning a clock to Daylight Savings time as a clock-headed figure throws his hat in the air. The clock face of the figure reads “One hour of extra daylight.” The poster was sponsored by United Cigar Stores Company. Photo Credit: Library of Congress
The Standard Time Act also established daylight saving time (DST). Signed into law during World War I, “War Time” was meant to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power. The United States was hardly the mastermind of this wartime initiative. The Central Powers, notably Germany and Austria, were the forerunners of wartime DST when they started the program on April 30, 1916 by advancing the time by one hour until October. Three weeks later, many European countries and some Canadian territories followed suit.
It took the United States two years to formally adopt this program on March 19, 1918. The program established standard time zones and set summer DST to begin at the end of the month. “War Time” ran for seven months but once the war ended, the Standard Time Act was dropped and DST became a local option, however standard time in time zones still remained in law. Some states (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) and cities (New York, Philadelphia and Chicago) continued with DST.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a declaration of war in 1941. “War Time,” a variation on daylight-saving time, followed. Again the idea was to save fuel. Photo Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images/NPR
During World War II, President Roosevelt re-established “War Time,” for the same reasons as the First World War – to conserve energy. Since DST was a hot-button issue, the Act explicitly states that it will end. ”This Act cease to be in effect six months after the termination of the present war or at such earlier date as the Congress shall be concurrent resolution designate.” The program ran from February 9, 1942 to September 30, 1945.
After World War II, DST varied again among states and cities, which naturally caused confusion for broadcasting and service companies. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966 which established a beginning and end date for DST for those local jurisdictions that decide to use it.
The “energy crisis” in the 1970’s spurred Congress and President Nixon to enact the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act that enacted earlier starting dates for DST. The Act was in response to the Arab oil embargo and the Department of Transportation estimated that 100,000 barrels of oil was saved each day because of the Act.
Currently most areas in the United States observe DST, except for Arizona (the Navajo Nation does observe DST), Hawaii and overseas territories.
Sources
“Daylight Time”, United States Naval Observatory.
“A Time-Change Timeline”, NPR. March 9, 2007.
The Act of 1918 & the Act of 1942.
History of Daylight Saving Time
Photo Credit: “The Literary Digest History of the World War”, volume V, p. 55./Online
Photographed are the various gas masks employed on the Western Front during the First World War. The photo quality is not the best but it does shows how varied, and creepy, some of the masks were made.
Photo Credit: UA Archives – Upper Arlington Public Library (Repository: UA Historical Society)
This image accompanied a group of letters in the February 1919 Norwester magazine titled “Paragraphs from Some of Our Folks Overseas.” The letters were from U.S. Army officers and enlisted men as well as a Red Cross nurse. They were written near the end of the war, the first major war in which air power played a significant part. The effect on soldiers is evident in a letter from Corporal John Hill of the Artillery, American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F.) in France. He wrote, “Gee! but it’s great to be able to walk out thru the fields in the daytime without hearing the whine of big shells overhead and without fear of being spotted by an aeroplane–also to be able to sleep in billets where you can have plenty of light at night instead of sleeping in a little hole in the ground without any lights or fire, and to know that you can walk out in the open whenever you want to without having to put a tin hat on your head, your gas mask over your shoulder and your automatic on your hip, and still feel perfectly safe in doing so.”
During World War I, United States aviators flew as a part of the U.S. Army, since the U.S. Air Force did not become a separate military service until September 18, 1947. One of the most famous WWI American fighter aces was Eddie Rickenbacker, a native of Columbus, Ohio. Residents of Upper Arlington remember him landing his plane in the emergency landing field located at Andover and Tremont Roads after the war.
[The following letter is one of the many World War I exchanges from Lloyd Maywood Staley to his sweetheart Mary Beatrice Gray. Staley was in the 35th Division U.S. Army which was made up of the National Guards of Missouri and Kansas. This letter was written while he was en route to Liverpool, England before landing in Le Havre, France, where Staley served the rest of his enlistment in the Postal Detachment of the 35th Division, A.P.O. 743.]
Lloyd Maywood Staley’s official army photo. (Photo courtesy of Marjorie Layton, Lloyd’s eldest daughter and found here)
May 1, 1918
Most anywhere in the Atlantic
My Dearest Mary,
It has been some time since I have written you but facilities for mailing of letters is rather limited I have found. I suppose I may expect you to get this some time this summer and, if I am lucky, I may get my answer by next winter.
I remember that today is May the 1st and that it is also your birthday. The best I can do is to write a letter from almost nowhere on earth. I certainly hope May 1st was a more pleasant day in K.C. than here. The sea has been a little rough for two days and this is a pretty sick bunch on board this ship. I have been able to keep going all the time and, aside from feeling disagreeable, I have been alright. I don’t like the looks of anything to eat, though, and don’t expect to until this ship gets across.
I have been sort of an orderly around the office since I have been here and I get to move around a little which keeps me doing something. All I want to do is to cross this water just once more, then I have no desire whatever to go on any more ocean trips.
We are going to have an athletic contest of some description tomorrow. There is a half-mile run scheduled so you see we have quite a ship. It won’t take very many turns around this deck to make the distance either.
There is little to write about, it seems. When I started to write, I thought I might be able to write quite a letter, but this trip is getting so frightfully monotonous that it takes all the pep out of one. The scenery is about the same all the time except it jumps a little higher and perhaps throws a little salt spray on you if you get too close.
Another amusement we have is to watch the other ships and see how far they duck into the waves each time. Sometimes they are almost out of sight in a hollow between the waves. I used to think I might like the Navy but, if this is a sample, nothing to it for me.
Don’t be surprised or feel hurt if my letters are short. There is so much we can’t say that I usually tell you about and then conditions for writing of letters are going to be decidedly poor, I am afraid. I will write all that I can and as often as possible and I hope that you get them all O.K.
I wish you all sorts of good luck and happiness for your birthday. This seems like an inconsistency as you may get this in a month or two, but I am sure you know my thoughts of you tonight.
So I close with the best of love for the only little girl in the world for me,
Your own Lloyd
Lloyd survived the war and on September 15, 1920, Lloyd and Mary were married. They had five boys and three girls. During World War II, their oldest son, Warren, served as a co-pilot on a B-25 bomber while their second son, John, chose the Navy. In February 1944, Lloyd and Mary were informed that Warren was missing in action after flying over the Mediterranean Sea on a mission. They were not given any more information and Warren was later declared killed in action. The other three sons also went into the military but did not serve overseas during this war. Mary passed away on October 11, 1974, Lloyd wrote that they “had fifty-four years of married life and I believe that we both would say they were good years. Times were sometimes difficult but we faced our difficulties together and were strengthened because of them.” Lloyd Maywood Staley passed away on December 15, 1983 at the age of 88 years.
(Photo Credit: National Postal Museum, Curatorial Photographic Collection)
An unidentified group of American military censors at work in an unidentified location during the First World War. During this conflict, the US military began its first large-scale censorship of troop mail. Censors were on the alert for anything that might aid the enemy. References that were almost certain to be cut or blacked out were those to troop locations and movements.
“President Wilson’s Sheep at White House” Photo Credit: Martin A. Gruber/Smithsonian Institution
Sheep were a common sight on the White House grounds during World War I. President Wilson and the First Lady kept sheep on the lawn because it reduced the cost of cutting the grass. Additionally, they auctioned off the wool and the proceeds went to the Red Cross.
(Photo Credit: War Department)
“Thanksgiving cheer distributed for men in service. New York City turned host to the boys in service today and cared for every man in uniform.” (Underwood and Underwood: ca. 1918)
(Photo Credit: U.S. War Department)
During World War I, 18,000 Officers and Men create a human Statue of Liberty at Camp Dodge near Des Moines, Iowa September, 1918.
Aerial dogfight over Western Front during World War I.
I came across this photo of a World War I dogfight and wondered about the different airplanes used in that war. After a quick search, I found some scanned photos of a The Chicago Daily News War Book describing the different World War I airplanes. In the above photo the planes with the circles are Allied (perhaps English?) Morane planes while those baring a “+” are German Fokker planes. (I’m basing this off of a comparison with the photos below, so if you think I’m wrong please let me know!)
Dogfight photo found here.
World War I plane descriptions found here.
On 20 July 1917, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, blindfolded, drew the first draft number in the lottery to be called up: Number 258. Those drafted were to serve in the American forces during World War I.
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