This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division.
Fans of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” may remember that World War I veterans grappling with disability occupied a critical place in the show’s story. Fictional vet Jimmy Darmandy (Michael Pitt) struggled as much with PTSD as he did with a limp derived from shrapnel embedded in his leg by a German grenade. Richard Harrow (Jack Huston), on the other hand, endured facial disfigurement so severe he wore a mask to conceal his injuries, though his wounds went far beyond the physical.
Artifacts on display in the Library of Congress exhibit Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I demonstrate the human cost of the war, the government’s response and the ways in which injured veterans helped push forward—even if in a somewhat limited fashion—the disability rights movement.
During the war, 224,000 soldiers suffered injuries that sidelined them from the front. Roughly 4,400 returned home missing part or all of a limb. Of course, disability was not limited to missing limbs; as the “Boardwalk Empire” characters demonstrate, a soldier could come home with all limbs and digits intact yet struggle with mental wounds. Nearly 100,000 soldiers were removed from fighting for psychological injuries; 40,000 of them were discharged. By 1921, approximately 9,000 veterans had undergone treatment for psychological disability in veterans’ hospitals. As the decade progressed, greater numbers of veterans received treatment for “war neurosis.” Ultimately, whether mental or physical, 200,000 veterans would return home with a permanent disability.
“[A] man could not go through that conflict and come back and take his place as a normal human being,” veteran and former infantry officer Robert S. Marx noted in late 1919. Marx played a critical role in establishing the organization Disabled Veterans of the World War (DAV) in 1920. He knew well the sting of disability: Just hours before the war’s ceasefire, he suffered a severe injury after being wounded by a German artillery shell.
With the larger American Legion, founded in 1919, the DAV worked to raise public awareness about disabled veterans, while pressuring the government to adopt programs to address their rehabilitation and reintegration into American society. Though far smaller than the American Legion, which claimed 850,000 members within its first year of its existence, DAV membership rolls topped 25,000 by 1922 and had 1,200 local chapters and state offices nationwide. Overlap between the DAV and the Legion was unmistakable; roughly 90 percent of DAV members were also legionnaires. In fact, Marx helped to found the Legion’s National Rehabilitation Committee.
Together, the two organizations placed veterans’ disability at the forefront of the push for veterans’ rights and benefits, including for “shell shock” or what today would be classified as PTSD. Due to the organizations’ efforts, in 1921 the U.S. government established the United States Veterans Bureau, a precursor to today’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Red Cross and the government also acted independently to address disability. In 1917, the Red Cross opened the first institution dedicated to training amputees and individuals with damaged limbs: The Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men in New York City. Though not initially established for veterans, the institute soon found itself inundated with World War I soldiers. In addition to rehabilitating injured soldiers, the institute produced and distributed 50 pamphlets, broadsides and books focusing on rehabilitation in the first year after armistice. During 1918, the institute distributed 6 million copies of “Your Duty to the War Cripple” to New Yorkers.
The government established the Federal Board for Vocational Education in 1917; it produced the first studies on veterans’ disability. The following year, the Smith-Sears Vocational Rehabilitation Act passed, providing for rehabilitation and vocational training for disabled veterans.
Despite these efforts, the treatment of disabled veterans varied widely, and attempts to streamline it largely failed. Veterans lodged numerous complaints related to poor dining, housing and rehabilitation facilities. Counselors, meant to help steer veterans toward rehabilitation and vocational training, were seen by many veterans as distant and uncommunicative. Black veterans endured racial discrimination, greatly diminished facilities and systematic neglect.
Of the roughly 330,000 veterans eligible for rehabilitation, nearly half received some amount of training. It came with a steep price tag, however; in 1927 alone, the cost of rehabilitation exceeded $400 million. The following year, the vocational education board expended half a billion dollars in compensation for veterans.
Though not exactly a success story, the government’s role in rehabilitation did expand the development and institutionalization of the veterans’ welfare and demonstrated a commitment to restoring veterans to societal productivity.
World War I Centennial, 2017–18. With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.
Comments (11)
Having been raised in a military family I saw the emotional damage these men and women endured.My grandfather who served in WW1 never spoke of what he went through.He drank himself to death.My Dad ,who flew combat missions as a tailgunner on a B-17 used to cry,scream,and pace until he could fall back to sleep.He shared many of his experiences with me as I lived with him from the time he was 82-92.Tremendous man with integrity beyond words.My brother served as a Corpsman in Vietnam.He is starting to open up now at 70.Sadly the agent orange has been the source of cancer thus many surgeries.Our family was lower middle class and were always drafted.I would love to see a few of these rich congressmen and bankers forced to send their sissy boys to the front on battle.Maybe then their communication skills would come into play instead of our poor kids.
My grandfather was a soldier in the 16th Irish. He was blinded in the WW1. He was taken into St. Dunstan’s and was very well looked after. He never spoke about the war or how he was blinded. I still have his white walking stick and a prayer book given to him by Father Willie Doyle. Any information please ?
Thank you,
Regards,
Michael O’Hara
How much in dollars was a disability payment for wounded WW1 veteran? Had a great grandfather that was probably 100% just was wondering if anyone knows. Have not been able to find this or any information on his VA file. We do have all the letters he wrote during his induction to the getting discharged from Camp Dodge hospital.
My grandfather was exposed to mustard gas in WW1. He was involved in a march for veterans benefits and was put in prison then later pardoned. He was in the Army. How can i find information about him?
Thanks for your comments and questions. For reference inquiries such as yours, please visit our Ask-a-Librarian service at https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ and you’ll have access to our team of researchers and reference specialists best equipped to answer your question.
Mark Wearing: Damn right!
Here here, Mark W, it is sad that this still goes on today. The wealthy are protected while those with less have to defend the good of all. My daughter and I wrote a television series, The Great Forgotten, which is a story that gives voice to the women, the nurses, the VADS of WWI and their struggle to be given credit for all they did. It is juxtaposed with Manhattan’s Roaring Twenties, were the main characters, two sisters, return and both are afflicted with undiagnosed PTSD. My grandfather was in WWII, he never spoke about it. And my sweet Uncle Bill and Father in Law both died from Cancer caused from Agent Orange, they were only in their seventies.
I forgot to mention the name of the show! The Great Forgotten. We begin filming this Spring in France!
Karen Devaney, if you see this could you provide more information? I could not find it with several searches and I am incredibly interested in the plot!
I stumbled across the affidavits gathered on behalf of my grandfather who suffered from poison gas, shell shock and osteoarthritis from walking in cold infected mud and water in the trenches in Germany as an infantryman during WW1. As a kid, I had been informed that he was injured by mustard gas and nearly died from it, but what was most troubling were the stories about what happened when he heard loud noises decades after the war. I read them all and assembled them in a 104-page book that I intend to publish freely for the benefit of victims of war around the world. I have the affidavits on images and will put them into text to reduce the file size. He was denied disability for shell shock and osteoarthritis but was provided $10 per month for what they termed as mild bronchitis from the poison gas. He spent two months in the hospital in Germany after being sent there because of the gas. As he was fighting for disability, he was denied a civil service job because they said he was not physically fit for it as they continued to deny that whatever injuries he had were caused by the war. The was done in plain view of the Oklahoma senator who was trying to assist him. My grandfather never talked about the war. He was very gentle and soft-spoken. When he was going to school before the war, he was described as very athletic and good at every sport involving running. MNy sister recently donated his uniform to a veteran’s museum in Alaska. My grandfather never talked about the war to anyone as far as I knew. He died on my 15th birthday, and I take this as permission given in advance to tell his story. I will take no profit from his life’s struggles, but I think he would approve what I am doing because it is intended to help those who suffer through war. I will translate this into every language I can to get his story out. If his story helps even one soldier who has suffered in war, then this will all be worth it.
What a wonderful story!
Please keep in mind that our Veterans History Project collects and preserves just these kind of stories! Here’s the link: