TLS signed “Wm H. Taft,” one page, 8 x 10.25, personal letterhead, November 27, 1917. Letter to Eric Wilder. In full: “I have your letter of November 26th. England and her daughters have done wonders in this war, and have lived up to the highest ideals of the British race. Let us hope that Americans, of the same stock, will show that they are thoroughbreds, and will do their part in a struggle to rid the world of the pest of militarism and the domination of a ruler and a people indoctrinated with a false philosophy and obsessed with megalomania.” Intersecting mailing folds, a few staple holes to borders, and a couple spots of trivial soiling, otherwise fine condition.
As United States involvement in WWI escalated with the fall of Russia, steel production ramped up and women replaced men in the workplace as more soldiers were recruited for the war effort. Women filled non-traditional roles in manufacturing, communications, farming, the Women's Signal corps, nursing, and other war emergency jobs. British women had already assumed these roles before their American counterparts; no less was expected of American women.
As Taft remarks in this letter to Eric Wilder, "Let us hope that Americans, of the same stock, will show that they are thoroughbreds, and will do their part.” At war's end, over thirty thousand women had served in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, the Navy as Yeoman, the Marines, and the Coast Guard and at least three Army nurses received the Distinguished Service Cross award medal. However, in some areas, change met with continuing resistance. Despite numerous groups such as the military, educational organizations, and the YMCA advocating for a women’s corps equal to the British Women's Auxiliary Corps, plans for United States women's military corps were dropped by the War Department in 1918. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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