Blog Posts by Subject: World War I

To help in your lesson planning, we've highlighted some databases that feature information on the Treaty of Versailles:

Every librarian understands that the increased reliance on digital resources is a Faustian bargain.

"The hag Sedition was your mother, and Perversity begot you. Mischief was your midwife and Misrule your nurse, and Unreason brought you up at her feet — no other ancestry and rearing had you, you freakish homunculus, germinated outside of lawful procreation."  — Fellow playwright Henry Arthur Jones, on Bernard Shaw and his anti-war stance

Thank you for joining us this month in the Reader’s Den. I hope you enjoyed the first book in the Maisie Dobbs series. Birds of a Feather and Pardonable Lies are the next two books in the series. 

Here are a few suggestions if you want to read other novels set in World War I or the post-war period, or if you want to find more information about World War I and some of the issues addressed in Maisie Dobbs:

Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse has been a London stage play for four years running and has now come to Broadway. The Spielberg film version is slated to be released December 28, 2011.

The story takes place during World War I and describes the horrific conditions and loss of life, both human and animal, that took place.

I've just begun reading Nancy Mitford's essay collection The Water Beetle and have learned that this author's name can be added to the list of notable needlewomen who contributed to the World War I effort.

In "Blor," the first essay in this collection, she recollects how she crocheted for the cause: "I was soon sitting like a tricoteuse, on the balcony of Grandfather Redesdale's house in Kensy High Street, crocheting an endless purple scarf while the troops marched by on their way to France. (There was no khaki wool to be had so early in the war--you took what you could get.)"

Soon after, she apparently obtained a supply of khaki yarn: "I fell in 

A view of San Quentin.

I've been reading World War I-era newspapers lately (using America's Historical Newspapers, a full-text database available at all four Research Libraries), in a search of mention of famous knitters on the home front whose flying fingers supported the war effort. And yesterday I found a small article from the Daily Alaska Dispatch that painted a vivid picture of such efforts. A report from San Francisco published Dec. 7, 1917, begins: "Knitting needles are flying in the cells and workshops at the San Quentin and Folsom state penitentiaries, and a big assortment of socks, sweaters and other sartorial comforts are being turned out for the 

This is an an email I received from the President of the Tottenville Historical Society:

“I received a note today from long-time Tottenville resident Gordon Ekstrand, who is also Past Post Commander of the local American Legion, Beauvais-Hudson Post No. 126. He writes:

“I have been working since November 2006 to have the Borough Commissioner of Parks Thomas Paulo erect a new sign at the Pavilion next to Conference House Park. I called his office and was told the sign is up. I walked down to the pavilion and it’s really up above the steps. Also Sen. Lanza’s office pushed them, too. The brass $300.00 plaque reads:

Dedicated to Almer G. 

The Tottenville Historical Society put together a display titled “We Honor Our Veterans” that is on the display shelf in the branch on the first floor. There is a picture of Civil War Veterans marching in a parade, along with some other pictures. Also included is a program from the dedication of a World War II monument that was on Main Street. I believe that Linda Hauck, the president of the society, said that the monument disappeared when it was sent in for repairs in the 1950s. (It was made out of wood, I think.)

They are also trying to collect data on any men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces from the Tottenville, Richmond Valley, and 

Fingers fly in World War I homefront.

Every crafty person has probably been asked to help with, or perhaps has organized, charitable knitting projects: blankets and warm hats for the homeless, caps and scarves for children in need, and fancy goods for sale at fundraisers. What we don’t do so much of today is knit for the troops. But in World War I and World War II, the knitting of wool sweaters, hats, gloves, socks, bandages, and other items was a common activity that kept fingers flying on the homefront.

NYPL has many books and pamphlets from these wartime eras that guide the knitter in what to make and how. The Red Cross’s World