WEEK 6
WORLD WAR I
All aspects of American life were affected by the war, including Buffalo County. In many such cases, the Selective Service, or better known as the draft, conscripted many of the Buffalo County servicemen between the ages of 18 – 45 who then rarely fought in Europe. For most of these conscripted men, they either found themselves at Camp Cody, New Mexico or along the Texas – Mexican border fighting an entirely different enemy, disease. See the Smithsonian Poster Exhibit, BCHS Photograph Analysis Activity, Letter from a soldier at Camp Cody, as well as the Kearney Military Academy section for this week’s lesson!
The Smithsonian exhibit,
The digital poster exhibit is found here. This exhibit also comes with guided questions to help students unpack the lasting effects of WWI in American History.
Photograph Analysis Activity
Please see the two images here and answer the corresponding questions.
Letter from Camp Cody – How to be an Historian Assignment
See the images of the letter below from Camp Cody, NM and answer the corresponding context questions to understand its contents.
Note: This is an advanced assignment for students applying historical interpretation and analysis. It is also recommended that if students have a hard time reading the handwriting they may need to get out a separate note pad of their own to decipher each letter of the word, like many of our volunteers and historians do everyday!
Context questions for Camp Cody Letters:
Who is this letter about? Who is writing this letter to who? What is a furlough? What is a discharge? What was the final decision on the furlough and why?
Kearney Military Academy:
For these assignments, student will be able to analyze the local history of the Kearney Military Academy in context of the world. For a brief background of Kearney Military Academy.
For additional information about the Military Academy see the Military Training section of a 1915 pamphlet in the BCHS archives.
The Korean connection: After some extensive research by a California professor, several boys from Korea enrolled into the Academy. In 1910, Kwan Soo Lee and several others were trained here in Kearney to fight the Japanese back in Korea. Kwan Soo Lee has a remarkable story about how he and others found their way to Buffalo County through our Buffalo Tales and the Digital Newspapers: Kearney Hub from the Kearney Public Library.
1. Letter from Kwan Soo Lee at Texas - Mexican Border
2. Kwan Soo Lee's return from Texas - Mexican Border
