Joel Spingarn's “Constructive Programme” and the Wartime Antilynching Bill of 1918

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Ellis
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Colored People ◽  
War Department ◽  
Democratic Administration ◽  
National Emergency ◽  
The Military ◽  
Congressional Action

In the summer of 1918, the white chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Major Joel E. Spingarn, called for urgent congressional action on mob violence. He seized the opportunity of a post in the Military Intelligence Branch (MIB) of the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C., to put forward a “constructive programme,” the central idea of which was the passage of a bill to make lynching in wartime a federal offense. Attempting to exploit the peculiar circumstances of the national emergency and the expansion of federal powers during World War I, Spingarn also proposed a series of more modest initiatives designed to lessen discrimination and raise black morale. The official reaction to the arguments he advanced in support of his program sheds light on the reluctance of the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson to develop a policy on race relations. It also suggests some of the problems and hazards facing a would-be reformer working from within.

“A Perilous Venture for Democracy”: Soldiers, Sexual Purity, and American Citizenship in the First World War

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley A. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Military Government ◽  
World War ◽  
War Department ◽  
The Military

This essay examines the influence of the social purity movement on the U.S. government's campaign to protect servicemen from the temptations of drink and illicit sex during World War I. This influence had been forged in the context of U.S. imperialism in the two decades prior to American entry into the war, as purity reformers linked the sexual morality and temperance of soldiers serving in occupied territories overseas to racial purity and national character at home. War Department policymakers who were allied with the purity movement likewise understood male moral restraint and sexual self-control to underpin democratic self-governance. This linkage between civic virtue and moral virtue was especially problematic at the outset of the war, as many native-born Americans (progressive policymakers included) questioned whether all members of the ethnically and racially diverse nation had the capacity for self-government. The goals of social purity and wartime policymakers were thus aligned as the War Department launched its crusade against liquor and sexual vice within the military. Government officials required moral sobriety of servicemen in order to remake the body politic. But even as they demanded virtuous conduct from the man in uniform, they simultaneously infantilized the “soldier lad” in their effort to safeguard him.

The Direction of Supply Activities in the War Department; An Administrative Survey, II

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-498
Author(s):  
John D. Millett
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
General Staff ◽  
War Department ◽  
Chief Of Staff ◽  
General Officers ◽  
Planning Development ◽  
The Military ◽  
Secretary Of War

Interestingly enough, in the extensive consideration given to War Department reorganization immediately after World War I, almost no attention was paid to the possible value of the S.O.S., A.E.F., experience. Three thousand miles behind the A.E.F., in Washington, it may have seemed that there was little to distinguish between the Services of Supply and the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff with its accumulation of hostile reaction.In August, 1919, the General Staff of the War Department presented its version of desirable legislation for the reconstitution of a peace-time Army. The measure provided for a General Staff Corps to consist of a Chief of Staff with the rank of General, five assistants to be detailed from the general officers of the line, five Brigadier Generals, and 220 other officers. The bill provided that the Chief of Staff should have “supervision of all agencies and functions of the military establishment” under the direction of the President or the Secretary of War; and it went on to provide that “the Chief of Staff shall be the immediate adviser of the Secretary of War on all matters relating to the Military Establishment, and shall be charged by the Secretary of War with the planning, development, and execution of the war program.

Cinema's Military Industrial Complex

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
World War ◽  
Film Exhibition ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Military

Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex examines how the American military has used cinema and related visual, sonic, and mobile technologies to further its varied aims. The essays in this book address the way cinema was put to work for purposes of training, orientation, record keeping, internal and external communication, propaganda, research and development, tactical analysis, surveillance, physical and mental health, recreation, and morale. The contributors examine the technologies and types of films that were produced and used in collaboration among the military, film industry, and technology manufacturers. The essays also explore the goals of the American state, which deployed the military and its unique modes of filmmaking, film exhibition, and film viewing to various ends. Together, the essays reveal the military’s deep investment in cinema, which began around World War I, expanded during World War II, continued during the Cold War (including wars in Korea and Vietnam), and still continues in the ongoing War on Terror.

he designs of the Russian war memorials from the World War I in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Kingdom of Yugoslavia: Ideas, symbols, realization

2020 ◽  
pp. 204-227
Author(s):  
Milana Živanović ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Kingdom Of Yugoslavia ◽  
The Military

The paper deals with the actions undertaken by the Russian emigration aimed to commemorate the Russian soldiers who have been killed or died during the World War I in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The focus is on the erection of the memorials dedicated to the Russian soldiers. During the World War I the Russian soldiers and war prisoners were buried on the military plots in the local cemeteries or on the locations of their death. However, over the years the conditions of their graves have declined. That fact along with the will to honorably mark the locations of their burial places have become a catalyst for the actions undertaken by the Russian émigré, which have begun to arrive in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of SCS) starting from the 1919. Almost at once after their arrival to the Kingdom of SCS, the Russian refugees conducted the actions aimed at improving the conditions of the graves were in and at erecting memorials. Russian architects designed the monuments. As a result, several monuments were erected in the country, including one in the capital.

Transition of the Rusins of Austria-Hungary to the bosom of Orthodoxy in the end of 19th - beginning of 20th century: Lost perspective for Russia

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10-4) ◽  
pp. 196-205
Author(s):  
Vadim Mikhailov ◽  
Konstantin Losev
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
World War ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Military ◽  
Church Policy

The article is devoted to the issue of Church policy in relation to the Rusyn population of Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. In the second half of the 19th century, the policy of the Austro-Hungarian administration towards the Rusyn Uniate population of the Empire underwent changes. Russia’s victories in the wars of 1849 and 1877-1878 aroused the desire of the educated part of the Rusyns to return to the bosom of the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, even during the World War I, when the Russian army captured part of the territories inhabited by Rusyns, the military and officials of the Russian Empire were too cautious about the issue of converting Uniates to Orthodoxy, which had obvious negative consequences both for the Rusyns, who were forced to choose a Ukrainophile orientation to protect their national and cultural identity, and for the future of Russia as the leader of the Slavic and Orthodox world.

scholarly journals History of the Military Nurse Corps and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Lessons for the 2019 Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A Talbot ◽  
E Jeffrey Metter ◽  
Heather King
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Patient Outcomes ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Primary Therapy ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Nursing ◽  
History Of ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
The Military

ABSTRACT During World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic struck the fatigued combat troops serving on the Western Front. Medical treatment options were limited; thus, skilled military nursing care was the primary therapy and the best indicator of patient outcomes. This article examines the military nursing’s role in the care of the soldiers during the 1918 flu pandemic and compares this to the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.

Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917-1921

1986 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 986
Author(s):  
William J. Breen ◽  
Robert H. Ferrell
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson

“Complete Continence Is Wholly Possible”

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-162
Author(s):  
Andrew Byers
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Enlisted Men ◽  
War Department ◽  
American Expeditionary Forces ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
European Women

This chapter examines U.S. Army deployments to France during the First World War and the occupations of France and Germany in the aftermath of the war. At the outset of American involvement in World War I, army and War Department officials were especially concerned with how they might cope with an anticipated venereal epidemic, and how to deal with expected problems from romantic fraternization between American soldiers and the European women they would encounter while deployed. This chapter also examines uses the experiences of the American Expeditionary Forces to illuminate differing conceptions of masculinity and sexual propriety for the officer corps and enlisted men.

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