Veterans Day

Company E, 102nd Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army,
Curtiss Studio, photographers, 1917.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

The Allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France on November 11, 1918, bringing World War I to a close. Between the wars, November 11 was commemorated as Armistice Day in the United States, Great Britain, and France. After World War II, the holiday was recognized as a day of tribute to veterans of both world wars. Beginning in 1954, the United States designated November 11 as Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars.

In an interview found in American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940, World War I veteran Andrew Johnson remembered how his regiment stationed in northeastern France welcomed the end of the war:

Armistice Day found us before Metz. We were waiting to storm a great walled city which would have cost us many men, as we would have to
cross a level plain about two miles long.

Andrew Johnson
Levi C. Hubert, interviewer,
Brooklyn, New York, November 20, 1938.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

When Johnson and his mates finally arrived in the United States the following spring, he recalled, "We were given a bonus of $60, an honorable discharge, and the 368th Infantry regiment became a part of history."

"Welcome Home,"
Barbelle, Albert W., illustrator,
Ed. G. Nelson, music, Bud Green, words, 1918.
Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920

On the home front, the Armistice was celebrated in the streets. Massachusetts shoe laster James Hughes described the scene in Boston:

There was a lot of excitement when we heard about the Armistice…some of them old fellas was walkin' on the streets with open Bibles in their hands. All the shops were shut down. I never seen the people so crazy…confetti was a-flying in all directions…I'll never forget it.

James Hughes, "The House That My Uncles Owned in Ireland,"
Jane K. Leary, interviewer, Lynn, Massachusetts, April 28, 1939.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

The American Memory collections are rich in sources pertaining to World War I:

Home from the War,
Photograph of illustration, circa 1917-1920.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

• Search the collection American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 on world war to read more recollections of World War I.
• Search the Today in History Archive on World War I to find features on the outbreak and the end of the war, the sinking of the Lusitania, the entrance of the United States into the war, the first major offensive of the First U.S. Army in Europe, and on the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, General John J. Pershing. Also see the feature on the Bonus Army made up of 12,000-15,000 disaffected World War I veterans who marched on Washington, D.C. to demand payment of benefits during the Depression years of 1932 and 1933.

  
  Mechanic, Motor Maintenance Section,
  Ft. Knox, Kentucky, June 1942.
  Alfred T. Palmer, photographer
  America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945

• American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election features sound recordings of speeches made by prominent Americans during and immediately after World War I. Browse the subject index to find a speech of interest, or visit the special presentation From War to Normalcy: An Introduction to the Nation's Forum Collection.
• I Want You for the U.S. Army, the famous recruiting poster from World War I, is included in the American Treasures exhibition.

  
  Armistice Day Parade,
  Omaha, Nebraska, November 1938.
  John Vachon, photographer
  America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945

• Woodrow Wilson's notes for his Fourteen Points address are available online in Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years. In this famous address to Congress on January 8, 1918, Wilson outlined the terms he believed should be used as the basis for the treaty ending the First World War.
• Listen to a recording of George M. Cohan's "Over There," America's World War I anthem, available in the collection The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.

Washington: the Evergreen State

Lake Chelan, in the Cascade Mts., Wash.,
c 1908.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

On November 11, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison declared Washington the forty-second state in the Union. Less than fifty years after pioneers began entering the Pacific Northwest via the Oregon Trail, the United States borders extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Spanish and British explorers landed on the Northwest coast in the 1770s; American explorers followed. In 1818, the United States and Britain jointly occupied the "Oregon Country," of which Washington was a part.

In 1844, presidential candidate James K. Polk urged an aggressive stance with regard to ownership of the land below the 54th parallel. The slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" became a rallying cry of the Polk campaign. Two years later, the U.S. and Great Britain signed the Oregon Treaty setting the Canadian-American border at the 49th parallel and granting the United States territory that included present-day Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In 1848, Congress designated this newly acquired area the "Oregon Territory."

Bird's Eye View of the City of Olympia…,
E. S. Glover, lithographer,
1878.
Map Collections

Racial exclusion laws prompted the first settlers to venture into the Washington region. In 1844, George W. Bush, a man of African-American or possibly East Indian ancestry on his father’s side (his mother was Irish), was among the early pioneers to Oregon Country. He and his family left Missouri, a slave state, which forbid nonwhites from possessing land and becoming citizens. They set off with their friend, Michael Simmons and his family, along with three other white families on the Oregon Trail.

The Bush and Simmons parties soon learned that the Oregon Provisional Government also prohibited black people from owning property. Bush's party evaded control of the provisional government by crossing the Columbia River and heading north—away from the American settlers and their government. They settled in late 1845 on land that was under the purview of Britain's Hudson's Bay Company—where the restrictive laws were not actively enforced. This land was later named Tumwater, of which Olympia, the state capital of present-day Washington, traces its settlement. The 1846 Treaty of Oregon, however, brought this land under the Oregon Territory's discriminatory laws.

Bush, a generous man and friends with many of the new territory's legislators, was now without a clear legal claim on land that he and his family had cultivated. Members of the first session of the Washington Territorial Legislature voted unanimously to petition Congress to validate Bush's title to his land. Congress read twice and committed a bill on January 30, 1885, "An Act for the Relief of George Bush, of Thruston County, Washington Territory." The bill passed on February 10, 1885.

With fertile rivers, dense forests, and a natural harbor, the land offered riches to those willing to work. Yet, the region gained slowly in population. Friction with the Cayuse Indians discouraged some settlers while discovery of gold in California lured others. By 1850, natural resources and ready access to California's growing market spurred migration to Washington. Officially a part of Oregon Territory, popular agitation resulted in the organization of Washington Territory in 1853.

Visiting the West in 1865, newspaper editor Samuel Bowles admired Washington's lush forests and economic potential. He called the area around Puget Sound, already dotted with saw mills, the "great lumber market of all the Pacific Coast." Little Olympia he wrote, "puts on the airs and holds many of the materials of fine society; and entertained us at a most comfortable little inn." Noting the delicious meals he enjoyed there, Bowles joked:

If there is one thing, indeed, more than another, among the facts of civilization, which the Pacific Coast organizes most quickly and completely, it is good eating….When the Puritans settled New England, their first public duty was to build a church with thrifty thought for their souls. Out here, their degenerate sons begin with organizing a restaurant, and supplying Hostetter's stomachic bitters and an European or Asiatic cook. So the seat of empire, in its travel westward, changes its base from soul to stomach, from brains to bowels.

Our New West (Hartford, CT: Hartford Publishing, 1869), 462.
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920

During the period 1878-89, Congress consistently rejected appeals for Washington statehood despite its growing population. Denial of statehood was largely due to a concern that the lack of an interstate railroad connection would interfere in the effective governance of Oregon as a state. More significantly, the legislators hesitated to disturb the delicate balance of Democrats and Republicans in Congress by creating another state. Finally, a decade after its initial request, Congress admitted Washington into the Union along with Montana and the Dakotas.

The Pacific Squadron at Puget Sound Navy Yard, 1908.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

"California as I Saw It": First Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 contains personal accounts of travels in the West, including one by journalist Edward S. Parkinson. His Wonderland; Twelve Weeks in and Out of the United States details a cross-country trip he took during the spring and summer of 1892. Parkinson admired Washington's natural beauty:

The shore of Puget's Sound, on each side, is densely wooded with forests of pine, fir and hemlock, beginning at the water's edge and reaching to the snow-line on the high mountains. The landscape forms a most beautiful picture of water, forest and snow-capped mountains.

Edward S. Parkinson,
Wonderland; Twelve Weeks in and Out of the United States,
(Trenton, NJ:  MacCrellish & Quigley, 1894), 169.
"California as I Saw It": First Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900

Find out more about Washington State and the Oregon Territory:

• Use the "Zoom View" feature to examine the literary map of Washington Writers featured in the exhibition Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America.
• Search these American Memory collections on Washington to view more photographs of the natural splendor of the state:
  • Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
  • Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
  • American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936: Images from the University of Chicago Library
• Search on Washington Territory in American Indians of the Pacific Northwest to read reports from the Office of the Commission of Indian Affairs about the territory and the various Indian reservations.
• Search on Washington State in Map Collections to view maps of the area in the late nineteenth century.
• Read more of Samuel Bowles' Our New West in The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920.
• Search "California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 on Washington Territory for personal recollections of the times.
• Read the speech of Mr. J. A. Seddon in A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875 concerning American settlers in Oregon.
• Read the Today in History entry on the Oregon Territory to learn more about settlement in the area.