Stilwell during his naval service in the Philippines, Japan and China from 1908-1912 and during World War I in France and aboard the Destroyer U.S.S. The collection consists of photographs and postcards acquired by Donald H. In 1917 he rejoined the Navy, serving in the Atlantic area near France.
From 1912-1917, he worked in a naval shipyard in Maryland. Alexandra Solodkaya Collections Donald Hiram Stilwell Photograph Collection, 1908-1918ĭonald Hiram Stilwell served in the Navy from 1908-1912 as an enlisted man and was posted in Asia for most of his enlistment. As American historian Jay Winter writes, "what photographs, or plays, or poems, or letters provide are traces of a world that has almost vanished from both memory and history." These collections serve as a point of remembrance for the all but vanished world in which the Great War was fought. Flanders World War I Correspondence Collection, 1918-1919 shares the lived experience of a soldier in wartime as he communicated with loved ones at home. Correspondence collections provide readers a glimpse into the thoughts, ideas and day to day lives of the writers. The American Expeditionary Forces Photograph Album, 1918 is an example of the type of military surveying made possible with a small format camera.
The Donald Hiram Stilwell Photograph Collection, 1908-1918 is an example of the types of photographs soldiers may have collected and taken during deployments abroad and during military engagement.
#WW1 PARTICIPANTS PORTABLE#
In the years leading up to the Great War technological advances in photography made it possible for soldiers to carry portable cameras while deployed. Photographs, photo-albums, postcards and correspondence are evidence of their time in military service and a record of events as seen through the eyes of direct participants. The collections below highlight some of the experiences of American soldiers prior to, during, and after the Great War. Germany surrendered in the fall of 1918 and peace terms were negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference and ratified in the Treaty of Versailles. merchant ships, President Woodrow Wilson famously called on Americans to join the fight in order to make the “world safe for democracy.” The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were deployed to the Western Front. In April of 1917, after Germany escalated to unrestricted submarine warfare and downed several U.S. did not officially enter the war until 1917, but the outbreak of the war, in 1914, deeply affected U.S. Although the majority of the fighting occurred in Europe, many of the actors were colonial powers and those colonies were drawn into the conflict. It was referred to by contemporaries as the Great War because it was quite literally greater than any other conflict that preceded it. World War I (1914-18) was the first conflict that caused military mobilization on a global scale. Warning: This collection contains graphic images.