A Century Ago

Find me on Facebook: Carol Coley Taylor

Next month will mark the third anniversary of my “A Century Ago” segment posted daily on Facebook. Many of you read it, send a comment, and like it. When someone tells me he reads something I wrote, I am thrilled. I am well aware that with all that is online and in print, to have something I created and is then acknowledged is indeed an honor.

When the first post went online, it was actually historical research and is still research I do to this day. My whole reason was to determine how the residents of rural Northeast Texas assessed the impending war in Europe. Were they aware of the horrors of that particular war? What were the sentiments of citizens in this part of Texas? Were the people of Northeast Texas affected economically?

In my research, as in most historical research, there was no full-blown article in a newspaper or a blunt statement about the war. I was well aware it would take reading countless articles in a wide variety of newspapers over a number of years. The answer lay in editorials, in obituaries of victims, of agricultural market reports, and surprisingly women’s club news.

At first, only editors mentioned the war with brief humorous and sarcastic remarks. Because newspapers in rural areas had small staffs, much of the news, especially editorials, were taken from other papers throughout the country. To a certain extent the custom carries on today.

But gradually church groups, women’s clubs, and students began to form relief campaigns. The price of cotton dropped with European textile mills converted to armament factories, and newspapers encouraged farmers to diversify their crops.

At the same time the revolution in Mexico was increasingly moving northward to the Rio Grande and the US border. National Guard units from every state were sent to outlying sites from Matamoras to San Diego. They rode trains through Northeast Texas. Young men from our area were sent to the border. Recruiters worked all the small towns and large cities. But were the two events, the Mexican Revolution and the Great War in Europe connected? Only time would tell.

Over the last few months in 1916 more and more news of the conflicts made the local newspapers. I will tell you that beginning in December 1916, more items in “A Century Ago” will be war related.

I have relied on newspapers from 1914-1916 published in Greenville, Dallas, and Commerce with a few items from the Fort Worth Star Tele-gram and the Paris (Texas) newspaper. Starting this month I will branch out further, but probably won’t look outside Texas. There will be a major change in U. S. foreign policy. But how will the average person react? That will be my new approach in “A Century Ago.”

You may already know what happened. For some of you it will be a surprise. I have found World War I similar to a novel by Charles Dickens. Every event is very subtlely linked to every other event. It will be sad, glorious, and even a few bits of humor. I hope you continue to follow “A Century Ago.”