St. Croix Researchers, I thought this may be of interest to you who have WWI veterans! Roxanne St. Croix CC > > 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 >