Little Stories of the Great War: Ohioans in World War I
By Kristen Newby, WWI Project Coordinator, Ohio History Connection
January 10, 2018
One of the ways the Ohio History Connection is commemorating the centennial of U.S. involvement in World War I is a project titled Little Stories of the Great War: Ohioans in World War I. Over the course of this two year, grant-funded project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Ohio History Connection will digitize World War I collections from its own holdings as well as local history institutions across Ohio. All digitized materials are available in the World War I in Ohio Collection on Ohio Memory (www.ohiomemory.org), serving as a statewide digital collection of World War I materials. The Ohio History Connection is also developing various World War I related educational resources for K-12 teachers, including lesson plans and resource guides. Our first in a series of three lesson plans, Captain Robert S. Marx: Decorated World War I Soldier & Founder of the Disabled American Veterans, is now available here on Ohio Memory.
This article from the December 1917 issue of the Armco Bulletin summarizes letters received from the Ambulance Corps to Armco so that the men’s families can stay informed. The men recently worked in the Verdun sector where their “barracks were closer to the front line trenches than [their] post from which [they] evacuated.”
Many new and exciting materials have been added to Ohio Memory since the grant’s start in July! American Rolling Mill Company (Armco) bulletins, letters, and a book titled Armco Men in the World War, from the Middletown Historical Society, highlight the important ways manufacturing and immigration supported the war effort, and also tell the story of the Armco Ambulance Corps, a volunteer ambulance unit of fifteen Armco employees which received many military honors for its outstanding service. The Mary E. Gladwin Papers from the University of Akron Archives, including Gladwin’s diary, scrapbook, photographs, and manuscript chapters of her memoir The Red Crosser, detail her impressive nursing career, especially her World War I service in Greece and Serbia as a Red Cross nurse.
Correspondences between soldiers and loved ones at home provide soldier insights into training practices, camp life, and battlefield accounts from the Front. The Harlan W. Johnson Papers tell the story of McConnelsville, Ohio, native Harlan Johnson’s service as an aero-observer with the 168th Aero Squadron, spanning from his enlistment in May 1917 to his death in France in October 1918. Another aspect of war-time aviation is represented in a collection of Eddie Rickenbacker photographs documenting his U.S. Army Air Service career as a fighter pilot, earning the title Ace of Aces, in the 94th Aero Squadron.
This lantern slide shows soldiers launching mortar bombs during a training exercise at an unidentified military camp.
Recent additions to the World War I in Ohio Collection include the scrapbook and diary of Sergeant Ralph B. Evans of the Quartermaster Corps, and a series of training slides depicting gas, grenade and mortar, rifle and machine gun, and trench training exercises at military camps. A large collection of photographs, diaries, letters and other correspondence from the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums shares the many ways the descendants of President Hayes served in the war abroad and contributed to the war effort on the home front. Check back soon for more little stories of the Great War!
For more information about Little Stories of the Great War or upcoming educator resources, please contact ohiomemory@ohiohistory.org.