> >Greetings: > > > >This announcement is being sent to a number of lists. Please accept > >our > >apologies for any duplicate postings: > > > >The Library of Congress' Serial &Government Publications Division is > >pleased to announce the release of a new addition to the National > >Digital Library - the online collection The Stars and Stripes: The > >American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919, available on > the > >American Memory website at: > >http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sgphtml/sashtml/. > > > >At the direction of General John J. Pershing, The Stars and Stripes > >newspaper was published in France by the United States Army from > >February 8, 1918 to June 13, 1919. By early 1918, American forces > were > >dispersed throughout the western front, often mixed at the unit level > >with British, French and Italian forces. The primary mission of The > >Stars and Stripes was to provide these scattered troops with a sense > of > >unity and an understanding of their part in the overall war effort. > The > >eight-page weekly featured news from home, poetry, cartoons and sports > >news, with a staff that included journalists Alexander Woollcott, > Harold > >Wallace Ross and Grantland Rice. On borrowed printing presses, using > a > >delivery network that combined trains, automobiles (including three > >Cadillacs) and one motorcycle, the staff produced a newspaper with a > >circulation that peaked at 526,000 copies. This new online collection > >presents the complete run - 71 weeks - of the World War I edition. > > > >The collection also includes special presentations that discuss the > >newspaper's content: its illustrations and advertising, its > publication > >of soldiers' poetry, its coverage of women. Brief biographies of > >editorial staff members and their later careers hint at the level of > >journalistic talent within The Stars and Stripes. A timeline and map > >place the newspaper within the greater historical and geographical > >context of the war. > > > >The collection was processed with optical character recognition (OCR) > >software to allow users to search the full text of the newspaper for a > >word or phrase. This feature expands the collection's usefulness to > >historians and genealogists researching names and details that do not > >appear in the headlines. The Stars and Stripes collection served as a > >pilot project in the development of search and display capabilities to > >be utilized on future releases of historic newspapers. > > > >Please direct all general inquiries to: > >http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus2.html