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Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World
War
Discussion published by Maria Mazzenga on Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Announcing: Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War
The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives houses the richest collection
of materials related to the First World War in the United States. As America nears the 100th
anniversary of the United States’ entry into the First World War, the Archives is making hundreds of
pages of photographs, letters, scrapbooks, and other documents available online to the public free of
charge in a new website:
Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War.
When the wheels of the war machinery were set in motion with the United States declaration of war
on April 6, 1917, 5 million Americans were mobilized for victory. Among those were over 800,000
American Catholics, an often unwelcome religious minority in the U.S. at the time. The American
bishops, hoping to provide comfort and service to Catholic servicemen as well as demonstrate
Catholic loyalty to the nation, created the National Catholic War Council. The War Council became
the precursor of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, hence Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s
recent announcement that the Bishops’ Conference would be commemorating the centennial of the
war’s end in November 2017 with events celebrating the history of the Bishops’ conference.
The Archives, which holds the War Council’s records, among many others related to Catholic
participation in the War, has made key parts of these and other collections digitally available. From
the War Council records, we have digitized dozens of photos and documents related to Catholic
soldiers’ experiences overseas, women’s war work, and the early workings of the Bishops’
Conference. Bringing the war experience to the individual human level, the digitized Robert Lincoln
O'Connell papers chronicle the experience of an Irish-American Catholic veteran of the war in
correspondence and postcards. Underscoring the eclecticism of the materials, we have digitized a
series of articles published by the National Catholic News Service in the late 1920s, Catholic Heroes
of the World War, a chronicle of men, and some women, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor,
the Distinguished Service Cross, and/or the Distinguished Service Medal. Among these are a tribute
to Buffalo, New York native and future Office of Strategic Services mastermind, William “Wild Bill”
Donovan. Donovan earned Congressional Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross,
Distinguished Service Medal. 165th Infantry, 42nd Division, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).
Lesser known heroes are also featured in the online collections. Recently digitized are the papers of
Margaret Richards Millar, a descendent of Mayflower colonists who converted to Catholicism and
served on the Committee on Special War Activities of the National Catholic War Council. Her papers
offer an intimate glimpse into one woman’s service on behalf of Catholics in Europe.
Finally, Archives staff have compiled other resources highlighting Catholic participation in the war.
The For God and Country blogpost recounts CUA’s role in the war, as does Catholic University
Citation: Maria Mazzenga. Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War. H-Catholic. 04-07-2017. https://networks.hnet.org/node/3595/discussions/174409/chronicling-us-catholic-experience-first-world-war
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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H-Catholic
Declares War, and Catholic Women in World War One focuses on the role of Catholic women’s
organizations in the war.
Links to all of our World War One materials are conveniently collected on a single webpage:
Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War.
Citation: Maria Mazzenga. Chronicling the U.S. Catholic Experience in the First World War. H-Catholic. 04-07-2017. https://networks.hnet.org/node/3595/discussions/174409/chronicling-us-catholic-experience-first-world-war
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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