Category: World War I
Omaha’s Wartime Charcoal Boom
War has a way of reviving old industries. In 1918, as World War I reshaped American manufacturing and pushed prices skyward, charcoal burning suddenly became…
Americans Urged to Hold Nutting Parties to Win the War
During World War I, even the smallest scraps from the kitchen table could become weapons of defense. In 1918, Americans were urged to save fruit…
Reims Schoolchildren Wore Gas Masks to Class
In the winter of 1916, the children of Reims, France, went to school under conditions that seem almost impossible to imagine. German shells were falling…
Firsthand Accounts of the Horror of Poison Gas in World War I
The First World War had already introduced the world to horrors on a scale few could have imagined, but in 1915, a new terror drifted…
The Rat Lady Who Helped Win the War
At a small white cottage in Granby, Massachusetts, Miss Abbite Lathrop tended to one of the strangest wartime households in America: a family of roughly…
The Night Black Tom Island Blew Up
At 2:15 on a July morning in 1916, New York Harbor erupted. A series of explosions tore through munitions cars, barges, and warehouses near the…
Deadly Gas Attack Hits American Trenches
In the winter of 1918, American troops in France were still adjusting to the brutal realities of trench warfare. The battlefield was not only a…
