More Little Stories of the Great War
By Kristen Newby, WWI Project Coordinator, Ohio History Connection
July 2, 2018
Doyen Wardwell (back row, fourth from the right) is pictured here with other members of the 1917 class of pilots at Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. Courtesy of Hocking County Historical and Genealogical Society and Museum.
When’s the last time you visited the World War I in Ohio Collection on Ohio Memory (http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/wwi)? Through the Little Stories of the Great War: Ohioans in World War I project, generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, new content from the archives at the Ohio History Connection, as well as other cultural heritage institutions across Ohio, is added regularly!
Women played an important role in the Great War, both overseas as nurses and military personnel, as well as on the home front. Women answered the call to wartime service by working in factories that manufactured equipment and other supplies used by the Armed Forces, as well as growing war gardens, volunteering with the Red Cross, and selling war bonds. A series of National Woman’s Liberty Loan Committee pamphlets from the archives at the Mac-A-Cheek Foundation in West Liberty, Ohio, highlights women’s role in raising war funds. These pamphlets were published in 1919, after the armistice, to generate enthusiasm for the Victory Liberty Loan. The Victory Liberty Loan was the fifth and final Liberty Loan drive, designed to raise enough funds to offset debt accrued during the war, however it was met with resistance from many, as the war was over and many Americans had difficulty understanding why the government still needed their money. Some of these pamphlets, like this one written by journalist and suffragist Mabel Potter Daggett, emphasized that this final loan drive would bring home the last of America’s soldiers, and was a chance for women to make a difference, now that they had their own money in their pockets from working factory jobs.
The title Little Stories of the Great War, truly speaks to the main goal of our project—sharing the little stories of ordinary Ohioans who made important contributions to the war in a variety of ways. One such example is Doyen P. Wardwell from Logan, Ohio. Doyen “Dink” Wardwell was born in Kirkwood West Virginia, but moved to Logan at age two. When the United States joined the war, Wardwell left Ohio State University during his junior year to enlist. After completing his ground training at Fort Harrison, Indiana, Wardwell joined the Aviation Corps and trained at Wilbur Wright Field in Fairfield, Ohio, as a combat pilot with the 12th Aero Squadron. During the war, he conducted reconnaissance, pursuit, bombing, and escort missions in France as part of the 103rd Aero Pursuit Squadron, 185th Pursuit Escadrille. After the war, Wardwell returned to Logan and eventually moved to Caspar, Wyoming, with his wife and children where he became president of the Wyoming Airways Corporation in 1928. Tragically, Wardwell was killed when his plane caught fire in the air and crashed. To learn more about Wardwell’s story, and to see his uniform and other military equipment, visit Ohio Memory or the Hocking County Historical and Genealogical Society and Museum.
Over the course of the next year, project staff will add new materials to the digital collection. Check back soon to view World War I treasures from across the state!