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When Did "The Great War" Become "World War I"?

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When does the Oxford English Dictionary establish the first uses of "World War I", "World War One", "First World War", etc?

World War, n.  

A war involving many nations of the world; spec. that of 1914–18 or of 1939 45.First, Second, Third World War: see the first element.

1848   People's Jrnl. 4 250/1   A war amongst the great powers is now necessarily a world-war

1864   G. Haven National Serm. (1869) Contents p.xx. (title)    The world war: aristocracy and democracy.

1889   R. B. Anderson tr. V. Rydberg Teutonic Mythol. i. xxxiv. 139   From the standpoint of Teutonic mythology it is a world war [Sw. världskrig]; and Völuspa calls it the first great war in the world—folcvig fyrst i heimi.

1900   N. Amer. Rev. Nov. 653   The South African war, following immediately upon the close of the Peace Conference at The Hague, has not yet reached its end, and already the horizon in Eastern Asia is lurid with the glare of a world-war.

World War I  n. (also World War One, World War No.1) = First World War n. at first adj., adv., and n.2 Special uses 2b. Abbreviated WWI.

1939   Time 18 Sept. 10/2   Exports of arms, munitions and related materials in World War I amounted..to only 25% of total exports to the Allies.

1947   Time & Tide 29 Nov. 1269/2   The despair and cynicism that followed what it has now become fashionable to call World War One.

A Striking Example of Superior Marginalia (1923)

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I bought this pamphlet many years ago in a very large collection of other pamphlets. Pamphlets in stacks are nearly impossible to identify individually because, well, they are mostly indistinguishable from one another in their slim anonymity...especially so when their in boxes. Seriously, though, it is very easy to lose track of these when there are many thousands of them waiting or attention.

And so with this one, an interesting-looking/sounding work written in 1923 by G. Graham Dixon, The Truth About Indian Opium, had its chance in the light yesterday.

I 've seen this pamphlet before, taking note of it, but never opened it.

When I did I was shocked to see that it was very heavily annotated by the last owner. As you can see, this was far beyond marginalia—the reader took the author to task on a lot, everywhere. This practice was so extensive that the reader/annotator had notations and marginalia for her (as it turns out) marginalia.

The notes were provocative, insightful, incisive. My copy came from the Library of Congress, and I could see on the back of the title that the pamphlet was given to the LC by “Ellen LaMotte” in 1932. Ms. LaMotte, born in 1870, was quite a person: among other things she was a nurse who was among the first to U.S. Citizens to volunteer for battlefield duty in WWI, arriving there in 1915 (at age 45). Her experiences were wide and traumatic, and she expanded her diary into a book The Backwash of War, The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an American Hospital Nurse.

that was published in 1915, though evidently it was too truthful and brutal a story for general consumption and was therefore lifted from publication, and didn't see republication until 1932. There's much in this book to recommend itself, from an overall sense of this nurse's view of the war to the details of the minute. (For the later, I found out from Ms. LaMotte that in her experience lightning speed for the delivery of a severely injured man at the front line to an aid station where he could receive proper treatment for a major wound was six hours.)

She went on to become an expert in the opium and drug problem then existent in England, publishing six books on the topic during the 1920's and 1930's. I assume that this was a source for a part of her work, and certainly explains the deep insight and knowledge evident in her annotations.

She did not think much of this work by Graham Dixon, who it seems to make the argument that alcohol and cigarettes were a more pressing problem than opium—LaMotte did not agree, and pressed her opinions, questioning the unattributed quotations and statistics and assumptions and conclusions. As annotated/marginalia goes, this is a tour de force.

Notes:

LaMotte's WWI book is available in full text online at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26884/26884-h/26884-h.htm

Also see: Hazel Hutchinson, The War That Used Up Words: American Writers and the First World War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015.

 

 

Introducing the 6 bit Core Memory UNIVAC 1004 (1962)

New for 1962, the UNIVAC 1004 Card Processor 1004. The text of the ad for this tri-fold/broadside advertisment tells us that the UNIVAC machine is "faster" than its human variants, and allows for more reports to be generated at a quicker pace. This was state of the art for 1962, and no doubt companies would want one, if they could afford it.  And just for the record, this unit cost about $148,000 when new, or about $1.2 million in 2017 dollars (computed by the BLS inflation calculator).  

(Be careful of the UNIVAC trademark, which was registered by Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, Remington Rand Corporation, Sperry Rand Corporation, Sperry Corporation, and Unysis.) 

The pamphlet-y object is an 11x4.5" tri-fold which opens to a display of 19x14" demonstrating the fabulous new and fast features of the machine (and improved by 1966 as the 1005). The image also shows the 1004 printer and a model coyly holding a few punch cards like a geisha fan. 

"The UNIVAC 1004 was a plug-board programmed punched card data processing system, introduced in 1962, by UNIVAC. Total memory was 961 characters (6 bits) of core memory. Peripherals were a card reader (400 cards/minute), a card punch (200 cards/minute) using proprietary 90-column, round-hole cards or IBM-compatible, 80-column cards, a drum printer (400 lines/minute) and a Uniservo tape drive. The 1004 was also supported as a remote card reader & printer via synchronous communication services. A U.S. Navy (Weapons Station, Concord) 1004 was dedicated to printing from tape as a means of offloading the task from their Solid State 80 mainframe, which produced the tapes. A plug-board program called Emulator was widely installed to convert 1004s to stored-program operation, reading in instructions from program decks of cards which determined the processing of the following data decks."--Wikipedia on UNIVAC

Consequences of Ingestion by Man of Real and Simulated Fallout (1963)

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This is one of those titles that most people will read twice: 

The Consequences of Ingestion by Man of Real and Simulated Fallout.

(By LeRoy, George V. ; Rust, John H. ; Hasterlik, Robert J. Operated by the University of Chicago under Contract AT-(11-1)-69, Argonne Cancer Research Hospital, Chicago, 1963. 11x8", 32pp. )

I understand the need for the data and the research, but, still, it is a tough go, and no doubt a lot of unusual bits could be forced from the title. 

From the paper: "Abstract-Real and simulated particulate fallout and solutions of Sr⁸⁵CL₂ and Cs¹³⁴Cl₂ were fed to 102 healthy volunteers. Absorption and retention of ingested radioactivity was measured by whole-body counting using the gamma-ray spectrometer at the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital. An average of 3 per cent of the radioactivity of week-old local fallout W~S absorbed: the range was 0-9 per cent. Strontium and cesium leached or dissolved from simulated fallout behaved in the same way, metabolically, after absorption as they did when the tracer was swallowed in a solution or injected intravenously. The large number of subjects studied provided additional information on the range of variation of intestinal motility, biological availability of strontium, cesium and barium following ingestion of fallout, and retention of the radionuclides of these elements."

[Sr85=Strontium Cs134=Caesium]

Interesting set of descriptors used by the Defense Technical Information Center:

• "Descriptors :   (*RADIATION EFFECTS, FALLOUT), (*METABOLISM, FISSION PRODUCTS), (*FISSION PRODUCTS, ABSORPTION), GASTROINTESTINAL SYSTEM, EXCRETION, NUCLEAR PARTICLES, RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES, LABELED SUBSTANCES, TRACER STUDIES, ORAL, INJECTION (MEDICINE), DOSAGE, NUCLEAR RADIATION SPECTROMETERS, SOLUBILITY, CESIUM, BARIUM, STRONTIUM, SIMULATION, HUMANS."

Crystallograhic Found Art in the Annalen (1915)

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There is much that goes on in the pre-eminent German physics journal Annalen der Physik  (begun in 1799 and still going strong) beyond the consideration of "Found Art"--actually, everything that goes on there is beyond that consideration. Unless of course you happen to be flipping through the thing and find something that attracts your attention for its pure artistic inventiveness, which of course is almost entirely out of context.  The article in question is Otto Lehmann's "Die Struktur schleimig-kristallinscher Flussigeiten", and appeared in the journal in October 1915. (It would be in the Annalen months later that Einstein would publish his great paper on General Relativity theory and also there where he set the world afire in 1905.) Lehmann's 45-page paper is illustrated with 92 figures, some of which are out-of-context stand-alone beauties:

 

An Apparatus for Inhaling Thorium (1904)

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In researching the highly-unexpected mage of a thorium inhaler found in Scientific American for 1904 and trying to find out why someone would inhale the radioactive and toxic gas (discovered by J.J. Berzelius in 1829), I found an article with three transporting sentences that lifted themselves from the page:

"Small glass tubes containing radium bromide are placed
within accessible mucous cavities, i.e., mouth, vagina."

"Radium and thorium continually emit gases, which gases
themselves give out on their own account rays exactly
similar to the rays from radium and thorium themselves.
Hence a thorium inhaler is now used, by which these gases
are inhaled."--The Journal of the British Homoeopathic Society, vol XII, new series, London 1904.  

Of course the scientific and medical world was trying to figure out what applications could be made with the new discoveries of Roentgen and the Curies and Becquerel and all, but even with the modern lens looking backwards it still is a bit of a wincing experience to read about these applications.

Pressing on from the quacky homeopathy journal I found  another in the Medical Record which more fully explained the apparatus and treatment:

"Thorium in TubercuIosis.  Dr Soddy of London and Professor Rutherford of Montreal have suggested the use of thorium inhalations for tuberculosis. Certainly from its antiseptic and antifermentative actions it would appear to be a desirable agent to apply directly to the tissues affected in the fight against the tubercle bacillus."

[Note: M. Curie and Gerhard Schmidt determine and demonstrate that thorium is radioactive in 1897-8; Soddy and Rutherford discovered thorium X in 1902.]

The note continues:

--Medical Record: A ... Journal of Medicine and Surgery, edited by George Frederick Shrady, Thomas Lathrop Stedman; New York, William Wood,  1904, Volume 65, page 128. 

Another short description of the work of the inhaler:

"The procedure leaves in the lungs a fine film of radio active matter which in turn produces the phenomenon of induced radio activity in the same parts which may last for one or two days. This is shown by the patient after inhaling thorium emanations exhaling on a photographic plate which produces the ordinary effects on the silver salts..."--Mihran Krikor Kassabian,Röntgen Rays and Electro-therapeutics: With Chapters on Radium and Phototherapy, New York, 1907, page 508.

That is a tough go.

The Wiki article on thorium has this to say about more than standard/casual exposure to thorium: "Natural thorium decays very slowly compared to many other radioactive materials, and the alpha radiation emitted cannot penetrate human skin. As a result, owning and handling small amounts of thorium, such as those in a gas mantle, is considered safe, although usage of such items may pose some risks. Exposure to an aerosol of thorium, such as contaminated dust, can lead to increased risk of cancers of the lung, pancreas, and blood, as lungs and other internal organs can be penetrated by alpha radiation. Exposure to thorium internally leads to increased risk of liver diseases."

It is not known to me how much of a dose of thorium was intended for the user of this cure.

A Fine Display of Pie Charts 1893

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"This apparatus works unerringly as the mills of the gods, but beats them hollow as to speed"--Electrical Engineer, November 11, 1891

Many splendid displays of newly-manipulable data made their appearance in the Henry Gannet atlas to accompany the great U.S. census of 1890 --this example displays the composition of foreign born inhabitants of each of the states.  Part of this was due to the use of the Herman Hollerith tabulators, which made their appearance for the census office to work their electromechanical magic to process data faster than the 8-year-long process of the 1880 census. As it stands, the Gannet atlas and the census report was published beginning just two years after the completion of the 1890 census, a job made possible by the "mills of the gods" machine and some 48,000 enumerators (who completed returns for 13,000,000 households).  With prodigious thanks to Hollerith, the census was completed quickly and with a wider variety of data collection rather than what would have been the opposite without them. 

The Beauty of Contour Lines and on Missing Importance (1893)

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I found magnificent and early contour image of Ben Franklin in a tweet from Tim Wallace (@wallaectim) who found it in Appleton's Cyclopedia of Technical Drawing (1893). (The full text of Appleton's is here: https://archive.org/stream/appletonscyclopd01wort#page/100/mode/2up/search/franklin and a larger image of Franklin is located below.)

While checking out the fascinating Franklin in the text, I found an interesting graphic that locates a certain History of Importance in one tidy display. The graphic is in the section on topological drawing, and contains "conventional signs for the more important objects that are likely to be represented on a map", at least for 1893:

 

All of this makes sense, of course, except perhaps for the surprise of locating taverns, which I think I've not noticed before in 19th map legends--it does make sense though, especially for more regional maps, as the tavern would be a central force for a small town, as well as operating as a possible hotel.  Many of the rest of the important things for a late 19th century map have slipped into obstructed memory, if not further. 

The Invasion of Musical Robots, 1929

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There is little doubt that scribes and woodblock cutters and such absorbed the stab of the movable type printing press, and that stationers felt the stab of modernity when the telegraph came into play threatening sales of paper generally used for letter-writing, an art form that they felt would be diminished by the new technology. At about the same time though came the second revolution in mail delivery, which made it cheaper and more regulated in using a more-competent mailing system, which meant an increase in letter writing. Ditto that for the telephone, which again would threaten written communication. Movies too threatened the theater, and on and on.  

And so too for music, the musician, and recorded music. I suspect that in the 53 years since Mr. Edison's invention of the phonograph that not many musicians made very much in the way of royalties for their recorded music, at least not at this early date. (On the other hand my guess is that there was a different economic experience in the sheet music department.)  On the other hand, there was a popularization of music far beyond what had been possible in the period before recorded music, so there was at least that direct and enormous benefit.

Then came recorded music in theaters, which was a different thing entirely, as there was no real direct benefit to musicians--in this instance, live accompaniment would disappear in favor of recorded music, and so to the jobs of thousands of players.  

And so the reason for this advertisement in The Nation, placed by the American Federation of Musicians, which found the idea of "canned music" to have nothing to do with "the Art of Music", and representing it as a robot, "a pale shadow of real Music". "Machinery can do many things well, from a  utilitarian viewpoint, but music lovers deplore its attempted invasion of music, where only the hands and hearts of gifted humans can give true aesthetic pleasure."

"Surely, America is too intelligent to tolerate--and pay for--a Titmouse conception of the art of music."

 

 

Music as an Oil of the Industrial Machine (Muzak, 1941)

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Entertaining works for a happier labor force has certainly been a "thing" for quite some time--I don't know the history very much¹ but I know it extends back into the 19th c to some probably very small degree, and I do recall a Lewis Hine photo of a Lectore in Havana reading to cigar rollers (in 1909).  It makes sense to make your workers comfortable and to work to end intellectual monotony, though few employers proceeded that way. 

And thus to Muzak, the improbable source of injecting music into the cooperation equation of industrial control of workers.  [Source: via the Library of Congress]

I came to this quick realization--late to me--after finding a pamphlet in the warehouse, Music in Industry as a Means of Breaking the Monotony of Work and Improving the Morale of Workers. It was published in 1941--which is earlier than I expected for the Muzak Corporation--which adds to the surprise of the scope of the company's long-lived impact, its history stretching back to the early 1930's. It seems as though Muzak, which has a somewhat complex ownership and control history over its first 15 years or so, was a significant contributor to the sound landscape in the United States. It provided four  different broadcasting "networks" of selected musical patterns from the early days of wireless broadcast (at about a dollar a day per month) that provided a certain sort of architecture/design of a sound wall, though the music at this point was coming over telephone lines. In any event, Muzak started providing massive amounts of music into public and private spaces for some time, and their position was accelerated after the company's war effort during WWII, and then becoming involved in U.S. post-war propaganda programs, and then into the Muzak that we think of today...all of which was happening a few decades before I thought it did. The fact is though that Muzak was filling silence in a controlling way in work and public places for a very long time. I imagine that one could think of this as a sort of early robotization of the human workforce--that is extreme, of course, but the thought worked its way through my head and came out here. 

Notes:

1. I don't think I've ever mentioned this in the 4500-odd posts I've made to this blog in the last nine years, but the one rule I try to abide in writing one of these posts is that they take no more than an hour, start-to-finish. 

• For an interesting read, see  Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other, by Joseph Lanza.
• There are no copies of this work found in WorldCat/OCLC, in spite of this being the second printing of the pamphlet. There are several other works by this title--generally being journal articles) and even a music in industry bibliography published in 1943, but no listings for the Muzak title. 

Grand Central Terminal, NYC,1939

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This is a very Grand-Central_terminal-centric image of NYC--and rightfully so, being one of the great buildings of Manhattan. These images come from a promotional The Gateway to a Continent, published in 1939, which is a fairly luxurious publication which I think was intended for the appreciation of possible luxury accommodations for visitors to the 1939 New York World's Fair. The result is an overview of the venues on Lexington/Park/Madison from 42nd-51st streets. There's a great two-page map that shows this section in detail and which leaves out virtually everything else save the text mentions of some like "the Chrysler Building", "the Empire State", and "Penn Station" without images of them.

 

Homes for Workers, 1943

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This doesn't ring quite true, nowadays, but this pamphlet, Homes for Workers in Planned Communities Thru Collective Action, published in 1943, was a work published by the massive unions UAW-CIO (United Auto Works and the Congress of Industrial Organization) in a very highly socially supportive way. The work outlines a way to organize more-or-less ideal communities for workers via collective action and pooled money, with large groups purchasing major lots of land and then contracting for construction.  No doubt there was also some thinking going on about the returning soldiers and the expansion of the general industrial base of the U.S. in a more international role. No doubt this sort of thinking would be thought of as Socialist in just a few years, once the Soviet Union had been recognized as a competitor and then an aggressive enemy.  In any event, this is an interesting pamphlet, with a certain allegiance to the general comfort of the working class. 

 

One of the Earliest Popularly-Published Eyewitness Accounts of the Armenian Genocide (1916)

This is a well-traveled pamphlet¹, its face showing its miles.

The author, the "German Eyewitness", was Dr. Martin Niepage², a school instructor at Aleppo, who wrote what was to become (apparently) the first popularly-published account in the West of the Armenian Genocide.  The pamphlet was published in 1916 and begins the story in 1915, getting quickly to the terror stories of chopped-off children's hands. 

“In April 1915 the Ottoman government embarked upon the systematic decimation of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at about two million in 1915. An estimated one million had perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923 virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared.”--Armenian Genocide Organization

The full text is located at archive.org  https://archive.org/stream/horrorsofaleppos00niep/horrorsofaleppos00niep_djvu.txt

From the Niepage text: