FIRST WORLD WAR PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL WAR WORK COUNCIL OF THE YMCA

1919. Very good. Three months after the armistice, Eleanor Williams sailed from New York aboard the R.M.S. Cornia, arriving in Liverpool on February 9 and proceeding to France. Her duties with the YMCA and the troops of the American Expeditionary Force took her to Paris and various parts of the war-torn French countryside, prior to her return voyage to her home in Brookline, Massachusetts in September. Accompanied by Williams' original red and blue YMCA armband, which she can be seen wearing in several snapshots, this album contains 167 original photographs and 39 postcards. The black-and-white images show volunteers performing Shurtleff relief work, bombed out towns, and various points associated with the war, including The Hindenberg Line, Verdun, The Dariaruat, Soissons, Amiens, Reims, Marne, Fort La Pompelle, Fisyes, Chateau Thierry, and Fort Douaumont. There are also photographs of an American cemetery at Belleau Wood, captured tanks and guns, and two soldiers guarding a prisoner. Also noteworthy is a series of images from the July 14, 1919 victory parade in Paris, including shots of General Pershing, Marshall Haig, and Marshall Petain on horseback, and a photograph of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with President Woodrow Wilson seen seated. The images are accompanied by white holographic annotations and mounted to black paper leaves, which are bound in an oblong black cloth album (11 1/4" x 8 1/4"). A few of the photographs are loose and laid in place. Some mild fading to the extremities of the cloth; otherwise very good.