Disabled Veterans’ Care and Reconstruction Policy from the Civil War to World War I, 1866 to 1921

Carry On: A. Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors

Archive

Disabled veterans’ care from the Civil War through the post World War I period documented through three periodicals and one pamphlet showing a clear shift from municipal and household relief toward organized rehabilitation, vocational retraining, supervised recreation, and contested compensation. The 1866 Massachusetts pamphlet records state aid in the language of direct payment to disabled soldiers, sailors, and bereaved families, while the two issues of Carry On, issued for the Office of the Surgeon General and published by the American Red Cross, define disability as a problem to be managed through reconstruction, employability, and social reentry. The 1921 issue of The American Legion Weekly then marks a later phase in which the promises of wartime rehabilitation met unresolved claims and public pressure from disabled veterans themselves.

Archive of 4 printed items consisting of 2 issues of Carry On, 1 issue of The American Legion Weekly, and 1 Massachusetts state aid pamphlet.

[1] An Act to Provide State Aid for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors, and for the Families of the Slain, in the Service of the United States. Boston: Wright & Potter, State Printers, 1866. Massachusetts state aid pamphlet setting out postwar support for disabled veterans and for families whose provider had died or contracted fatal sickness in service. Its language is administrative and specific, establishing municipal payments and defining eligibility at the household level, including support to qualifying families at four dollars per month per household.

[2] Samuels, Arthur H., managing ed. Carry On. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, published by the American Red Cross, September 1918. Vol. 1, No. 3. Early wartime issue whose subtitle, “A Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors,” states its institutional purpose directly. Contents including “Invisible Wounds,” “Seeing Is Hearing,” “Labor Stands Ready,” and “Guiding the Disabled to a New Job” show that military care had expanded beyond surgery and pension into a coordinated program linking medicine, deaf education, labor placement, and psychological adjustment to civilian usefulness.

[3] Samuels, Arthur H., managing ed. Carry On. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army, published by the American Red Cross, July 1919. Vol. 1, No. 10. Postwar issue extending the same reconstruction model into peacetime reintegration, with “The Creed of the Disabled Soldier” and articles on mental injury, hospital recreation, and reconstruction at Fort McHenry. This issue is the clearest statement in the group that disabled veterans were being directed toward renewed wage earning and household responsibility rather than left within a static pension framework.

[4] The American Legion Weekly. New York, January 1921. Vol. 3, No. 2. The cover image shows veterans using canes or crutches beneath the caption, “What About Us?” and the interior article “Disabled Veterans” presses the question of compensation and delay. In relation to Carry On, it documents the point at which rehabilitation language gave way to organized pressure over unsettled claims and the gap between programmatic promises and veterans’ lived outcomes.

Disabled servicemen move from being recipients of state and municipal relief after the Civil War to subjects of a more elaborate administrative regime that joined medicine, labor discipline, morale, and family economy during and after World War I. The magazines shows that reconstruction did not settle the problem of veterans’ care: by 1921, the language of training and reentry had already been challenged by veterans demanding compensation and recognition on different terms. Edge wear, creasing, and toning throughout; the July 1919 Carry On more worn at wrappers, the American Legion Weekly delicate and prone to chipping, and the 1866 pamphlet comparatively clean with light age wear. Overall good condition. The archive preserves the transition from postwar aid to rehabilitation bureaucracy and then to veterans’ protest over the limits of that system.

Item #23174

Price: $750.00