Matt Jay

Western Union Telegrams and War Posters

Visiting the archive at West Virginia and Regional History Center was a very interesting experience. I found it pretty amazing that these documents were able to be kept in the condition that they were in. Some of these documents were dated all the way back to 1919 and most of the sources are still extremely clear and easy to understand. The preservation of documents (especially in a time of war) is extremely important. It can reveal many different facts such as war strategy, everyday human life, and family knowledge. All of these different types of documents let people discover so many different types of things. Taking a look at archives is extremely beneficial because it opens up a whole new view of how normal people have to go about their daily lives in a tough time like World War I.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to visit the West Virginia and Regional History Center with the rest of the class but I was able to visit a few days later. When I went in there was a folder full of old World War I documents as well as three large posters on display for me. I realized that each of the papers inside of the folder felt very thin and extremely fragile so I made sure I was as gentle as possible with them. After skimming through the documents I had picked a couple out based on the fact that It takes me way too long to read cursive writing.

One of the more interesting ones that I had found had a big header that said, “Western Union Telegram” and seems to be from President Newcomb Carlton and Vice President George W. E. Atkins. This document seems to be written to the family of Paul Hoskins who was a first Lieutenant in World War I.

The telegram begins by saying, “I sincerely regret that we are unable to attend the memorial service. The following quotations might interest you.” After that it lists many positive things that were said about Hoskins.

“We called him the jolly little fellow,” and “I have actually seen him pumping a rifle from the trenches and I never saw anybody shoot so fast,” were some of the things the telegram reported about Hoskins. All of the things that were said about Paul Hoskins were very positive and I am sure that his family appreciated the letter.

Reading this makes me feel very sorry for family members of people off at war. It is even crazier to me that this telegram letter was delivered to someone living in Morgantown. Something like that just connects me to a strange feeling when I think about how a little over 100 years ago, people were really going to war and families were stuck at home having to worry.

Another set of World War I material that caught my eye in my visit to the archive were the three posters laid out. There weren't many words on any of the posters so it left you to figure out what they meant.

After looking at the poster that says, “Come on! Buy more liberty bonds,” I was able to conclude that it was an American soldier standing over a German soldier. It also shows a helmet in the bottom right of the image and after some research I found that it is called a “pickelhaube.” This helmet grew to be hated by the American people and was commonly used in propaganda posters. In this case, the illustrator was trying to get people to buy more liberty bonds.

The other poster that I took a look at was an image of a woman operating what looks like a telephone switchboard. This was one of the first times that women were involved in military operations. While these women were participating in the war, they were also fighting for their right to vote. I feel like this was one of the first steps of change that eventually gave women the right to vote. It also shows how much meaning and how many different takeaways you can gain from viewing propaganda.

During my visit to the West Virginia and Regional History Center, I was able to look at a folder of different letters and newspapers as well as the posters that I have discussed. After the visit, my view on World War I and history as a whole has changed. In a class you only hear the numbers and broad facts about a topic but when visiting an archive, you are able to dive so much deeper into different aspects of the topic that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. In this project specifically, most of the sources have some sort of connection to Morgantown which personally connects you to things that were happening about 100 years ago right where we live. Researching archives really forces you to put yourself in someone else's shoes which makes understanding stuff a whole lot easier.

To tie things together, I am very appreciative of the opportunity to visit the West Virginia and Regional History Center. It opened my eyes up in a way that the internet could not do. I feel like I gained a ton of knowledge about general and local World War I history from my research and also through my classmates' research.

Works Cited

Whitehead, Walter. 1918. “Come On! Buy More Liberty Bonds.” World War I Posters, January. https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/wwiposters/34/.

“Back Our Girls over There United War Work Campaign | NCpedia.” n.d. Www.ncpedia.org. Accessed November 11, 2022. https://www.ncpedia.org/media/back-our-girls-over-there.

West Virginia University in World War I Collection, A&M 0172, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/2490 Accessed November 10, 2022.

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