American High School Life and World War I Training, Teacher’s Photograph Album of 112 photographs from California and South Carolina, 1917–1920

WWI Military Drills and Basketball

Photograph

Unidentified compiler. Photograph album, 1917–1920, documents high school life and World War I–era military activity in the United States, capturing both educational environments and wartime training as experienced within local communities. The album provides primary visual evidence of student athletics, teacher involvement, and organized military exercises during the First World War, supporting research into youth culture, physical education, and civilian engagement with wartime preparedness. The inclusion of both school-based and military imagery situates the material within the broader mobilization of American society during the war years.
Unidentified compiler. Photograph album. 1917–1920. Album containing 112 silver gelatin photographs, with an additional 50 loose images, taken in locations including San Jacinto, California and Charleston, South Carolina. The photographs depict a range of subjects, including high school environments where groups of students stand assembled outside a brick school building labeled “High School,” and organized athletic teams, including a basketball team posed with a “DHS” banner and a player holding a ball marked “DHS.” Individual athletic activity is represented through images such as a hurdler mid-jump. Military content includes labeled scenes from 1917 showing “Battery A, some Marines, and Infantry,” as well as an image of a blimp or Zeppelin in flight, indicating contemporary military technology. A portrait of a young man in uniform posed with older adults in front of a fence suggests familial connections to military service. Additional photographs document everyday life and leisure, including fishing scenes, early automobiles such as Model T vehicles, a woman cycling, a child playing violin, and a woman in a canoe. Informal captions provide commentary ranging from observational (“Jumping for what the robins left”) to humorous (“Who are you smiling at?”), reflecting the compiler’s personal engagement with the images.
The album emerges from the period of American participation in World War I, when military training and patriotic activity intersected with civilian institutions such as schools. Physical education and organized athletics were increasingly emphasized within secondary education, often linked to ideals of discipline and preparedness. The geographic spread between California and South Carolina suggests mobility or travel, possibly connected to professional or military contexts. Album of 44 pages, with first 28 pages detached; photographs range in size from approximately 1.75 x 2.5 inches to 5.5 x 3.5 inches. Edge wear and small chips to detached leaves; overall good condition. A substantial visual record of high school life and wartime culture in the United States during the late 1910s.

Item #16834

Price: $485.00