Nina M. H. National Service School Photograph Album

Collection

Identifier: WV 0723

Staff Only

Content Description

Nina M. H. served with the paramilitary First National Service School for Girls in 1919, during WWI, which was a program designed to train young women for service in support of the U.S. Military. Album contains 109 photographs documenting Nina's training and also a Victory Parade.

Dates

1919

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information. Please see our Sensitive Materials Statement.

Biographical / Historical

An album compiled by a woman referred to as "Nina" while serving with the First National Service School for Girls during World War I. The Service was a quasi-official, paramilitary program designed to prepare young women for service in support of the U.S. Military during World War I. In 1916, the wives of the Chiefs of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps worked in conjunction with the Navy League to establish a training school to prepare young women for service during "war or national calamity." It was located on a tract of land at Chevy Chase, Maryland. This album begins with a group photograph of women in the school uniform and includes images of tent quarters, the staff, and students. The women were under the command of both male and female officers and some students who had risen in the ranks. Students were also able to go on trips which included Harper's Ferry, Mount Vernon, and Gettysburg, and other locations. A large section of the album features images from the Victory Parade and shows President Wilson and other officials celebrating the end of the war. It appears that upon graduation from the school, the compiler stayed at the Young Women's Christian Home in DC.

The program specifically prepared students for war work such as, according to an article in The Washington Times, "making and applying bandages, home care of the sick and wounded, and nursing in hospitals for convalescents [as well as] service as chauffeurs, aviators, ambulance drivers, and other capacities heretofore filled by men alone... ." As far as the accomodations "the students will live in tents...in the same rough-and-ready fashion [as men] and a uniform style of dress will be recommended although it will not be a mandatory requirement. [They] will be grouped into companies of fifty women each under the command of a captain and two lieutenants to be selected from their numbers." The training program closed down in 1919, four years after its inception.

An interesting album documenting a woman's time with a short-lived World War I-era paramilitary group.

Extent

1.00 Linear Feet (1 photograph album, custom oversized scrapbook box needs to be made.)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Condition Description

Stable but fragile. Needs interleaving and custom enclosure.

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