Behind the Gas Mask: The U.S. Chemical Warfare Service in War and Peace by Thomas I. Faith

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-186
Author(s):  
Rich Hamerla
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Gas Mask ◽  
The U.S

Battle, 1918

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas I. Faith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
World War ◽  
Western Front ◽  
Gas Mask ◽  
Heavy Gas ◽  
The U.S

This chapter focuses on the American Expeditionary Force's (AEF) experiences with poison gas on the Western Front and the logistical effort made by the United States to support chemical warfare during World War I. The nascent Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) had to support battlefield operations in 1918 as the AEF faced poison gas in Europe. On the whole, the CWS found itself seriously challenged by conditions on the Western Front and dependent on U.S. allies for information and equipment. This chapter examines the CWS's efforts to train the AEF, manufacture chemical weapons, and use poison gas on the battlefield throughout 1918. It discusses the comparatively heavy gas casualties suffered by the AEF in the fighting due to the inadequacy of the gas-mask training that its soldiers were given. It also considers the AEF's limited use of chemical weapons against the Germans and the U.S. Army's inability to organize for chemical warfare jeopardized the gas warfare program's status after World War I ended.

Microbes for War and Peace

Germ Wars ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Biological Weapons ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
High Security ◽  
Modern Warfare ◽  
The U.S

When the U.S. military created a bioweapons research program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, following World War II, it enlisted microbiology in the production of modern warfare. Biological weapons magnify the potential of germs to harm humans, remaking the terms of risk to account for natures that have been engineered to be more contagious, fatal, and far-reaching. This alliance between war and science also bracketed certain ways of knowing nature by creating spaces and mechanisms to control microbes according to human desires. Beyond the weapon itself, bioweapons research promulgated knowledge of containment, designing top-secret, high-security laboratory spaces for the safe study of deadly microbes, thereby materializing the belief that microbes must (and could) be contained.

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE, U. S. A: Gas MAsk Absorbents.

1919 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 420-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur B. Lamb ◽  
Robert E. Wilson ◽  
N. K. Chaney
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Gas Mask

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas I. Faith
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

This book documents the institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the U.S. Army organization responsible for chemical warfare, from its origins in 1917 through Amos A. Fries's departure as CWS chief in 1929. It examines the U.S. chemical warfare program as it developed before the nation began sending soldiers to fight in France during World War I; the American Expeditionary Force's experiences with poison gas on the Western Front; the CWS's struggle to continue its chemical weapons program in a hostile political environment after the war; and CWS efforts to improve its public image as well as its reputation in the military in the first half of the 1920s. The book concludes with an assessment of the CWS's successes and failures in the second half of the 1920s. Through the story of the CWS, the book shows how the autonomy of the military-industrial complex can be limited when policymakers are confronted with pervasive, hostile public opinion.

Why No National Health Insurance in the U.S.? The Limits of Social Provision in War and Peace, 1941–1948

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
National Health Insurance ◽  
National Health ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
The U.S

Why, alone among its democratic capitalist peers, does the U.S. not have national health insurance? This question has invited a range of replies; some focusing on specific historical episodes, some invoking grand political or cultural or economic explanations for the peculiar trajectory American social policy. For the most part, the historical accounts have trouble climbing from narrative to explanation; little of the scholarship on the failure of health reform in 1920 or 1935 or 1948 or 1970 or 1994 makes any substantial contribution to our larger understanding of the American welfare state and its limits. And the theoretical accounts often stumble on the descent to historical context; the largely artificial debate between “state-centered” and economic explanations, for example, rests largely on abstractions which are either not unique to the American setting (capitalism, industrialism, liberalism) or which are offered in such broad strokes that they make little sense in specific historical contexts. In explaining this “hole” in the American welfare state, it is necessary to pursue two lines of inquiry; to consider both the relative success of other American social programs during the years in which health insurance was beating at the door, and the relative success of public health insurance in other national settings. Our understanding of the American health debate of the 1940s, in other words, must in part explain both the distinct trajectory of health policy during the formative years of Social Security, and the “exceptional” character of the American welfare state.

scholarly journals To the Issue of Creation and Functioning of the U.S. Department of State (18th-19th Centuries)

2017 ◽  
pp. 273-289
Author(s):  
Tetiana Klynina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Usa ◽  
William Jennings Bryan ◽  
The U.S

The article focuses on the question of the creation of the U.S. Department of State and its functions. We surveyed historiography (works by Mihalkanin E., Plischke E., West R.,Glad B. and so on). For over 200 years, the Department of State has conducted American diplomacy through war and peace, amidst the competing currents of isolationism and internationalism that have shaped American foreign policy and its commitment to liberty and democracy. The Department of State was established as the Department of Foreign Affairs by the act of July 27, 1789 and became the first Federal agency to be created under the new Constitution. In September 1789, additional legislation changed the name of the agency to the Department of State and assigned to it a variety of duties. There are 5 main periods of existence of the U.S. Department of State: the emerging State Department (1789-1860), the Department comes of age (1861-1895), managing the foreign affairs of a great power (1900-1940), the Department of state and the U.S. as a Superpower (1945-1960), the Department of State’s role in the U.S. Foreign Affairs Community (1961-2000). Special attention is paid to the positions of the Secretary of State who is in charge of defining and implementing U.S. foreign policy. Thomas Jefferson, Henry Kissinger, John Quincy Adams, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Clay, James Madison, George C. Marshall, George Schultz, and Daniel Webster are just a few of the Secretaries who played the greatest role in the providing of the USA’ foreign affairs. Then author gives the illustration of the secretary relations with the President, Cabinet and Congress.

Legacy, 1926–1929

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas I. Faith
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

This chapter evaluates the successes and failures of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) during the second half of the 1920s, in light of the organization's ultimate incapacity to influence foreign policy. By 1926, the CWS was a well-established organization capable of supporting the continuation of poison gas work into the foreseeable future. It had successfully influenced public policy to continue chemical warfare research after World War I. However, the CWS and its supporters failed to convince people to believe that gas warfare was humane. Public hostility toward chemical weapons ultimately led to the signing of international agreements prohibiting chemical warfare. This chapter discusses the CWS's sustained accomplishment during the period 1926–1929, with particular emphasis on its new chemical weapons initiatives in partnership with other departments and branches of the military; the United States' continued support for international efforts to prevent chemical warfare; and the CWS's reorganization into the U.S. Army Chemical Corps after World War II.

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