Arts & Humanities

Yale collections are time capsules of the people, politics, and propaganda of WWI

As the world commemorates the centennial of the First World War, Yale offers a wealth of material in its collections that can help make sense of the broader implications of the war, such as how the USFA managed to feed American troops abroad, as well as allied armies and civilians.
1 min read
By
Amy Athey McDonald
Gallery

World War I in the Yale Collections

  • 1 / 13
    An autograph album, with numerous notes and photographs, compiled by Patricia Young, nurse of the Volunteer Aid Detachments, while she was stationed at a Red Cross Hospital in Dumfries, Scotland, 1914-1917. Yale Center for British Art.
  • 2 / 13
    Selection of postcards from "Collection of WW1 Ephemera, 1914-1918," Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund.
  • 3 / 13
    “Field Service Post Card,” 1916, Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund. The Army Postal Service censored communications through standardized cards, which carried a set of messages on one side that could either be checked or deleted, allowing soldiers to communicate essential information to loved ones.
  • 4 / 13
    Posters created for the U.S. Food Administration: Harvey T. Dunn, “Victory is a Question of Stamina,” 1917; J. Paul Verrees, “Can Vegetables, Fruit, and the Kaiser, too,” 1918, Purchased through the Kent Ellis Fund 2010, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
  • 5 / 13
    Frederick G. Cooper posters, 1917, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Purchased through the Lucia P. Fulton Fund 2010: “Food/don’t waste it,” and “Save/and serve the cause of freedom.”
  • 6 / 13
    "The American Commission to Negotiate Peace," including Colonel Edward House (far left) and President Woodrow Wilson (center). Each participant has autographed the photo. Colonel Edward M. House Papers, Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.
  • 7 / 13
    A page from the war diary of Harvey Cushing (Class of 1891) — considered the father of neurosurgery — who filled several volumes with notes and memorabilia from WWI. Here, he describes operating on wounded “heads” from the Battle of the Marne in July 1918. Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
  • 8 / 13
    Wounded soldiers are loaded for transport at Mobile Hospital No. 39 in France — The Yale Unit — organized by Joseph Flint, Professor of Surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. Joseph Marshall Flint Papers (Box 2), Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.
  • 9 / 13
    F. Trubee Davison, while in aviation training with the first Yale Unit in West Palm Beach, Florida, ca. 1918–19, F. Trubee Davison papers, 1882-1961. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.
  • 10 / 13
    Poems by Wilfred Owen, a British poet and soldier, and one of the leading poets of the First World War. Fellow British poet and mentor, Siegfried Sassoon (whose work is also in the collection) provides an introduction. London: Chatto & Windus, 1920, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
  • 11 / 13
    A crowd forms outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, following the formal declaration of war, July 20, 1914. Romanov photograph album, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
  • 12 / 13
    From the Yale University Art Gallery: George Bellows, "Base Hospital, No. 1," from the "War Series," 1918, lithograph, 1987.1.92; Max Beckmann, "Weeping Woman (Weinende Frau)," 1914, etching and drypoint, Stephen Carlton Clark, BA 1903, Fund, 1971.77.
  • 13 / 13
    WWI Medal from France, 1915, bronze, transfer from the Yale University Library, Numismatic Collection, 2001, Yale University Art Gallery, 2001.87.29484.

Arts & Humanities