100years ago inTheRecord

Sunday, Sept. 23, 1917

“The quiet content of the country village, which had been previously secure in its farming independence, [ has] been put aside by the grim realization of war,” The Record reports, “The draft has done this. It has taken at least one young man away from the smallest group of houses.” One day after the latest group of Rensselaer County draftees left the area for the Camp Devens training facility in Ayer MA, a fleet of eighteen automobiles containing “about forty prominent men and women” spreads out across the county to raise awareness of an upcoming Red Cross fundraising campaign. The second major Red Cross campaign since the U. S. declaration of war against Germany will begin on October 6. Today’s activities are “for the purpose of arousing the people, getting them to talk about it and work for it.” The publicity teams set out early to be on time for morning church services in their respective destinations. “The men went into the churches where they had no difficulty in gaining a few minutes to say what they wished,” while “women of the party went into nearby houses and, if they could find any of the housewives at home, enquired into the resources of the neighborhood with a view of organizing the women.” The male publicists “told of the needs of the Red Cross; that American soldiers were going to Europe every day; and that the help of every person was needed that the soldiers be assured of the best treatment.”

The female publicists learn that “practically every woman had been more or less interested in organizing her neighborhood, but the distance from the city and the uncertainty that her services would be really wanted had held man of them back.”

The Red Cross considers rural Rensselaer County a largely untapped resource. “The belief that the resources of the country had not been half touched in the first campaign was what sent so many into the villages,” our reporter explains.

“The first campaign was largely confined to the city because the city had set a goal and because time was short.”

It’s unclear from this story whether a goal for the new fund drive has been set yet for the city or county.

Organizers recall a “laxness that was met” in the villages during the first campaign. That laxness has been “stirred” into activism now that the reality of the draft, if not the war, has been driven home to rural communities. The organizers believe

“a good day’s work had been done” today, while villagers “seemed pleased they had been called on for help.”