JF Ptak Science Books: World War I Photography

Information/sales contact:  jfptak AT thesciencebookstore DOT com 828.989.8326

Inro to the World War I Press Photographs Collection

This section of the blog is dedicated to photographs made during World War I--the official photographs, because the control of military images during the 1914-1919 period was very nearly complete.  

Photographs were made by pools of photographers working for several different photographic news agencies. The content of the images were generally secured and approved by the Committee for Public Information (CPI), which came into existence by executive order under President Woodrow Wilson on April 13, 1917, and which was charged with the task of wining the hearts and minds of the people of the U.S., to gain public support for the war and for American participation.  

It is somewhat both ironic and not terribly uncommon for Wilson to have run for the presidency for one thing and then doing exactly the opposite, as he did with his 1916 re-election campaign slogan "He Kept Us out of War".  

The way that many newspapers obtained the war images that they published in their papers was via a semi-centralized pool of war images.  The newspaper would request, say, a photo of German prisoners, and would contact one of these photographic agencies—for example, say, the Central News Photo Service of 26-28 Beaver Street, NYC—and purchase the rights for republication, and then print it in the newspaper along with the story.  In almost every case the photo would be accompanied by a caption mimeographed onto an attached piece of cheap paper, or have the information stamped on the reverse.

Photography was just one aspect of the information distribution and control by CPI--there were also thousands of Newspaper articles, public speakers (the famous "Four Minute Men" who would give some 7 million pepper talks at the beginnings of movies and public events), radio broadcasts, films, posters, demonstrations and anti-demonstrations, and other public displays.  

 

On the Home Front: Italy

 

Original photograph, 5.5x7.5 inches, with original printed caption. WEstern Newspaper Union Photo Service.   $125

June 25, 1918.

Trench Consultation

A Trench Consultation, 5.5x7 inches.  Original News Photo Service photograph, a British Official Photo, from the Western Newspaper Union.  $150

Heavily-Laden Soldier, ca. 1918.

7.5x5.5 inches, with printed caption. Original photograph, ca. 1917/18. Fine condition. $125

Small Comforts of the Wounded, 1917: Electrophones

JF Ptak Science Books  WWI Photo #82

Overall, these soldiers look to be in pretty good spirits, even if they were told to be so, they still looked fairly genuine. And who wouldn't be, at least to some degree?  They were a few of the millions of soldiers who were wounded in WWI, which means at least that they were among the millions of the dead.

10x8", with small printed caption card, pasted to the back of image and folded.  Fine image.  $225

The caption that accompanies these News Photo Service image (made by the Central News Photo Service and dated May 11, 1917, says that they were enjoying the donated headsets--Electrophones--and represented a few of the hundreds that received them.  This device was basically a telephone receiver, and years after Bell and Edison dreamed of social integration and advancement and wide-ranging culture, of delivery literature and music to people flung near and far, these soldiers were enjoying the benefit of limited concerts and other entertainments via telephone lines.  

Here's a very good quote on the electrophone from the highly interesting The Cat's Meat Shop, written by Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London, the Victorian Campaign Against Filth. (It is an interesting topic--filth and its control--because you really can't have an Industrial Revolution without lots of workers living close to their jobs, which means that lots of people live close together, and you can't have that unless you somehow control for good sanitary conditions, which means you've got to take care of filth.)  

"The most picturesque and entertaining adjunct of Telephone London is the electrophone. There is not a leading theatre, concert-room, or music-hall but has the electrophone transmitters - in shape like cigar-boxes - installed before the footlights, out of sight of the audience. They are at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; and in many of the principal places of worship a wooden dummy Bible in the pulpit bears the preacher's words, by means of the N.T.C. telephone lines, to thousands of invalid or crippled listeners in bed or chair in their homes or hospitals. It was thus that Queen Victoria, seated at Windsor Castle, heard 2,000 school children in Her Majesty's Theatre, in the Haymarket, cheer her and sing "God Save the Queen" on her last birthday. King Edward was likewise relieved from ennui at Buckingham Palace during his illness, for the brightest music, mirth, and song of London were ever on tap at his side. Queen Alexandra is also a devotee of the electrophone, more especially throughout the opera season. On the other hand, the cruel lot of certain hospital patients, of the blind, and even the deaf - for the micro-phonic capacity of the electrophone enables all but the stone-deaf to hear - is thus greatly brightened by science. The sadness of the bedridden, the incurable, or the sufferer from contagious disease is enlivened by sacred or secular song and story, and, as a much-to-be-welcomed addition to the alleviations of London's strenuous life, the benefits of the electrophone are innumerable. It may be added that in the imposingly decorated salon in Gerrard Street from time to time fashionable parties assemble and "taste" the whole of London's entertainments in one evening. Thus, over mammoth aerial and subterranean wire-webs does London, annihilating distance, work and play by the aid of Science.--George R. Sims (ed.), Living London, 1902

The Women's Land Army of England, 1918

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

What a great name--the Women's Land Army of England.  This was a voluntary service that recruited women to work in jobs (generally in agriculture and forestry and such) that were left unfilled by men going into military service.  The "Land Girls" performed a huge variety of work and were a very necessary part of the economic and social structure of the U.K., a Florence the Farmer response to Rosie the Riveter.

Image7x5", original; photograph, with the original text/caption attached.  Very good condition.  $150

The image below is of  a continent of the Forestry Corps of the Women's Land Army of England, working at cutting telegraph poles, and commanding some great-looking draft horses.  (The horse on the right--ears back--looks big and perhaps a little sensitive.)  The horses are pulling a land sled filled with at least five other women and a load of telegraph poles that don't look particularly long...

I love that the women are wearing ties.