Going through some family photos and stuff this past weekend I came across this publication. it's an album style printing stapled and covered in a manila type paper. It was apparently a magazine published at the Edgewood base by the enlisted men, but this was the final issue in 1919. The first half is about 45 pages long, has the officers, photos of the buildings, lots of foldouts showing panorama style shots of the facilities and big groups of people - officers, medical unit, etc and various articles about life on base - like the one about the naturalization ceremony. The second half is a roster as of November 1918, with lots of foldouts showing the units, including several "coloured" units. I knew my Grandfather had been stationed there during the war, but I had never done much research on it. His unit wasn't involved in the gas manufacture. I guess they were there to guard the place. I can find a great deal about the history of the base, of course, but can't find any mention of this publication. Does anyone know if this is a common item, or one I should photocopy & send to their historian? The argument in favor of chemical warfare on the first page is interesting, coming as it does totally contemporaneously with the events. Of course, some distance showed that the long term effects were not as benign as supposed. On the whole an interesting item. - cheers Edgewood 1 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 2 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 3 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 4 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 6 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 7 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM Edgewood 8 by elarnia posted Apr 28, 2015 at 1:10 AM
from book "Chemistry in War:" As an illustration of how deadly mustard gas is:—Out at the Edgewood Arsenal an officer came into an office wearing the rubber gloves with which' he had been handling the gas. He moved a chair to a desk to sit down. He was called to the telephone. Another officer came in and, sat down in the chair. A little of the mustard gas had gotten off the gloves onto the chair. It ate through the second officer's clothing and into his spinal column. He was dead before midnight.
This is probably the same publication listed on the WorldCat website: http://www.worldcat.org/title/edgewood-arsenal-edgewood-md/oclc/14935731 The following link is to an OCR (Optical Character Reading) of Born of Germany's Breach of the Hague Convention: A Huge Chemical Industry for Making Poison-Gas that contains at least one pic found in your publication. What ever OCR software they used was the pits! You need to scroll down the page to see the pic(s). Select the "Web Version" tab because the "Original" tab has nothing: http://www.illustratedfirstworldwar...tion-a-huge-chemical-iln0-1919-0830-0004-001/ --- Susan
I found this entry in WorldCat. It sounds like it might be the same publication: http://www.worldcat.org/title/edgewood-arsenal-edgewood-md/oclc/14935731 There are five holding libraries listed, and most are specialized ones. Susan and I were posting at the same time! --- Update: I also found this Worthpoint entry with a sale from 2009. http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/edgewood-arsenal-history-1918-wwi-77699872
Wow that's neat! WW1 is a big deal these days with the 100th Anniversary. It is almost a forgotten war, but so many young lives lost in such harsh conditions.
Thanks for the links everyone - I always forget worldcat - have some kind of mental block on it I guess. The one on worthpoint looks like the same one I have, but mine lacks the 50 pages of local advertising it mentions. Mine has the original staples, so perhaps they printed one version for sending to family, etc. that left out the local ads as irrelevant to non-locals and wasteful of postage? Anyway - Thanks!
