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Happy Summer, People!
Since we last met up here, we’ve observed Memorial Day as well as the 80th anniversary of D Day (June 6, 1944) when Allied soldiers from around the world landed on France’s Normandy Beach to defeat Nazi Germany and its Axis allies,1 ultimately winning the Second World War.
But before there was WW2, there was of course WW1, then called the Great War and epithetized as the war to end all wars, a grand ambition to which human history remains stubbornly resistant. My maternal grandfather was drafted in that war though he didn’t serve. Family lore has it that he left the draft board and got riproaring drunk. The next day, November 18, 1918, he woke up to a sore head and the news that Germany had surrendered.
The Great War (yes, let’s keep calling it that) is a pivotal event in my historical novel, Irish Eyes when Rose’s son, Joey, signs on to fight “Somewhere in France.”2 Since the story is told through Rose’s point of view, I focused my research on the war effort waged from the home front.
The United States entered the war on April 4, 1917, and pro-German dissent fast fizzled. Nearly everyone had a son or brother, husband or sweetheart fighting overseas.3 Suffragists and anti-suffragists, Democrats and Republicans, big business and unions, working folks, moguls, and film stars including Martha Mansfield, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and British-born Charlie Chaplin all set aside their agendas and pitched in to support the troops. They sold Liberty Bonds. And dollar donuts for the Salvation Army.4 Women took up the jobs in offices and factories vacated by men fighting on the Front. Other women signed up to serve overseas. Still others volunteered for the Red Cross and in other relief efforts.5 Girl Scouts planted victory gardens, learned to drive and service automobiles, received badges in Morse Code,6 and sold their first-ever Girl Scout cookies.7
And, thanks to medKNITation creator, Suzan Colón I now know that women from all walks of life also displayed their patriotism by knitting!
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Once American soldiers began shipping out en masse, there was a big demand for socks and other knitted items for the doughboys overseas.8 The Navy League, the American Red Cross and sundry women’s magazines all enjoined American women to “knit their bit.”9
Knitters proudly plied their craft in public parks, at social events, and even in darkened movie theaters with radium-tipped knitting needles. Knitting bags became prominent emblems of patriotism as well as fashion accessories. Cozies of knitters formed knitting bees, and there were goodnatured competitions for which group could knit the most items.10
The armistice meant women could put down their knitting needles or at least slow them. Twenty-three years later, they would pick them up again to support a second global war.
UPCOMING EVENTS
June is shaping up to be a busy month! If you’re in or near the New Jersey Shore, join me at one or more of these in-person signing events.
Saturday, June 15th
Thunder Road Books
Greater Spring Lake Irish Festival
3rd Avenue, Spring Lake, NJ
11 am – 1 pm
Saturday, June 22nd
Barnes and Noble, Brick, NJ
Hope signs copies of IRISH EYES.
44 Brick Plaza, Brick, NJ | 732-255-6600
1-3pm
Saturday, June 29th
Barnes & Noble, Holmdel, NJ
Hope returns to sign copies of IRISH EYES.
Commons at Holmdel
2130 Route 35, Holmdel, NJ | (732) 203-6180
1-3pm
You can pick up a signed copy of IRISH EYES at these booksellers:
Barnes & Noble Upper West Side, Manhattan
Barnes & Noble, Brick Plaza, NJ
Barnes & Noble, Holmdel, NJ
Barnes & Noble, Pikesville, MD
Book Culture, Manhattan (2 locations)
The Corner Bookstore, Manhattan
Posman Books Chelsea Marketplace, Manhattan
Thunder Road Books, Spring Lake, NJ
The Comfort Zone, Ocean Grove, NJ
Also, find IRISH EYES on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Target, Walmart and wherever books are sold.
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https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/highlight/80th-anniversary-of-d-day/
To prevent disclosure of troop locations, tactics and so forth to the enemy, postal censors redacted potentially sensitive information from deployed soldiers letters home.
By early 1918, 120,000 American troops were arriving in France each month. https://pieceworkmagazine.com/patriotic-knitting-bags-of-world-war-i/
According to usinflationcalculator.com, one dollar in 1917 is the equivalent of $24.54 today, so a very pricey donut.
I would argue that women’s wartime valor, labor force stamina, and stoic volunteerism did as much or more to bring about a federal suffrage amendment than any prior protests and marches.
https://www.edithbollingwilson.org/wwigirlscouts.html
The sale of cookies to finance troop activities began as early as 1917, five years after Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Scouts in the United States. The Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project. https://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/cookie-history.html
https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2020/10/world-war-i-and-early-20th-century-knitting/
https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2020/10/world-war-i-and-early-20th-century-knitting/
https://pieceworkmagazine.com/patriotic-knitting-bags-of-world-war-i/
Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know about the knitting.
I loved this history lesson! Amazing how something now looked at as a hobby was so meaningful to everyone.