Remembering Those Who Served: The World War I Servicemen Portrait Collection at Cincinnati Museum Center

94 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Collection Essay Remembering Those Who Served The World War I Servicemen Portrait Collection at Cincinnati Museum Center F or those who attended the U.S. and Allied Governments War Exposition, held in Cincinnati at Music Hall in December 1918, one of the most poignant features of the event was the display of approximately six thousand photographs of area servicemen and women loaned to the local organizers for inclusion in the exposition. Although a traveling exposition, the local committee solicited the loan of photographs from the families of Cincinnati area servicemen for use in a special added display. The committee assured families that they would handle the images with care and return them after the exposition ended. Opening on December 14, 1918 at Music Hall, the Allied War Exposition (sometimes referred to as the Victory War Exposition) ran for nine days and attracted over 164,600 visitors. Cincinnati was one of numerous cities to host the Allied War Exposition in 1918 and 1919. George Creel and the Committee on Public Information conceived of the exhibition. Since 1917, Creel, a journalist and newspaper editor known for his muckraking investigative reporting, had headed President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information, created to help shape public opinion about U.S. involvement in World War I and bolster support for the war effort. As Creel himself put it, “Public opinion stands recognized as a vital part of the national defense, a mighty force in national attack. The strength of the firing line is not in trench or barricade alone, but has its source in the morale of the civilian population from which the fighting force is drawn.” The Committee on Public Information used a variety of devices, including some influenced by modern advertising techniques, to reach and influence the widest public audience.1 First Lieutenant Hall A. Taylor, Co. D, 148th Infantry, killed in action September 28, 1918. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER SCOTT L. GAMPFER SUMMER 2014 95 State fair organizers approached the committee with requests for a war exhibit as early as the spring of 1917. Although the committee discussed the idea with the army and navy, not until the summer of 1918 did they act on the requests. Ultimately, the committee set up exhibits at thirty-five state fairs around the country . These exhibits, produced with the cooperation of the War Department and accompanied by active duty service personnel, consisted of “guns of all kinds, hand-grenades, gas-masks, depth-bombs, mines, and hundreds of other things calculated to show the people how their money was being spent.”2 In June 1918, Creel appeared before the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives to explain how the Committee on Public Information spent its money. Creel had something of an uphill battle convincing Congress and others of the importance of exhibits as a way of “carrying the facts of war to the People of the United States.” Some members of the appropriations committee, including its chairman, responded to Creel’s arguments with “not only a very notable lack of enthusiasm, but even a distinct disposition to regard the idea as somewhat stupid and quite unnecessary.” Nevertheless, the House did appropriate a small amount of funding specifically for “war expositions.”3 The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World approached Creel and his committee with a request to stage a patriotic war exposition in San Francisco in July 1918 in conjunction with their annual convention. The committee contacted the U.S. War Department and the commissions of Italy, England, France, and Canada to request war trophies for inclusion in the exposition. The San Francisco exposition, although modest, proved larger and more comprehensive than the earlier state fair exhibits. The success of the event in San Francisco attracted the attention of city officials in Los Angeles who requested the exposition for their city. The war exposition drew an even larger audience in Los Angeles and made money in both cities. The public reaction to the exposition in its first two locations encouraged the committee to expand and improve it. Eventually, it grew in size until it required its own train to transport it from one city to another. It included captured weapons...