Observation, Donation, Action: Americans Respond to War 1914-1915 - Christopher Capozzola

Christopher Capozzola is Associate Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen and has published articles and essays in American Quarterly, Diplomatic History, Georgetown Law Journal and the Journal of American History as well as in popular periodicals including The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Politico and The Washington Post. He is also the Co-Curator of “The Volunteers: Americans Join World War I,” a historical exhibition about American civilians who volunteered in Europe during and after the First World War.
This presentation focuses on American responses to the beginning of war in Europe in 1914. Despite President Woodrow Wilson’s request that Americans remain “neutral in thought and in action,” ordinary people responded actively to the war. Within a year, Americans had set up nearly 100 volunteer organizations in Europe. Large-scale institutions such as the Commission for Relief in Belgium distributed food, clothing and medicine to wounded soldiers. Young men left jobs or put college careers on hold to drive ambulances; women traveled to Europe to operate hospitals or steer relief trucks. Tens of thousands of other Americans served under arms, crossing the border to enlist in the Canadian Expeditionary Force or crossing the Atlantic to soldier with the French Foreign Legion or fly as pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille. Americans were thus engaged in World War I long before the U.S. officially joined the war, prompted by altruism, personal ambition, a search for adventure or a prayerful hope for the redemption of a devastated Europe. Drawing on personal papers, press accounts, postwar memoirs, and material culture artifacts this presentation aims to show that Americans were deeply involved in the First World War in 1914, even if America was not.
Presented November 7, 2014P as part of the National World War I Museum and United States World War I Centennial Commission 2014 Symposium, "1914: Global War & American Neutrality."
The Symposium was held in association with The Western Front Association East Coast Branch and the World War I Historical Association. Sponsored by Colonel J's, the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund and Verlag Militaria.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org