| Doughboys of NYC A photo essay of the World War One Doughboy statues that are located in and around New York City. |
Welcome to my site - doughboysofnyc.com. The main purpose of the site was to create an online photo
essay of the many WW1 Doughboy Memorials that are located in and around the city of New York. WW1
is a largely forgotten war in the US today. I remember reading once that roughly 1 out of every 6 US
soldiers who served in WW1 was from the New York City area. That stands to reason because the city
and its surrounding boroughs were very heavily populated even back then. Many probably volunteered
for patriotic reasons while others who were recent immigrants, may have felt that by enlisting it would
help them to solidify US citizenship. When the war ended a number of communities in the New York City
area wished to honor those who served by collecting funds to commission a neighborhood war memorial.
Many of those memorials took the form of a Doughboy statue. During the years after the war it was
common when creating a public memorial to build a life size statue of the person being memorialized.
From looking at the collection of pictures on this site the sculptors designed the statues to invoke
different impressions. Some statues are somber, some unabashedly patriotic however they were all
created to primarily serve as a tribute to the WW1 soldier. All of the people who lived at that time are
now gone and many of the these communities have changed greatly over the last 90 plus years however
as long as the neighborhoods exist the Doughboy memorials will undoubtedly always be there.
How did this website come about ? Ill try to make it brief. Having grown up in Northern NJ and being
interested in history I was already aware of some of the Doughboy statues that are featured on this site
from just having traveled around the area over the years. It was the Fall of 2002 when I was searching
online for something when I came across a website hosted by a David Conrad in which he listed WW1
Memorials by state. I remember looking at the NJ section just to see if some of the ones that I knew of
were listed. I also noted that there were at least several others close by that I had never seen before.
Later when I happened to find myself in their area I stopped to take a look at one or two and
photographed them with a non-digital camera but nothing else came of it.
In early 2008 I was shopping in a Borders store in NJ when I noticed a book that I highly recommend by
author Cal Snyder called - Out Of Fire and Valor, The War Memorials of NYC from the Revolution to
9-11. The book seemed like an interesting read for someone like myself who has an interest in art and
history and lives close to NYC. Soon after purchasing the book I watched an A&E movie called "The Lost
Battalion" which is based on a true story about WW1 soldiers from the New York 77th Infantry Division
who are trapped behind enemy lines for several days during the battle of the Argonne Forest. Although
the movie gets faulted for not being historically accurate I think in one way it excels is that the actors did
such an impressionable job portraying guys who seemed like they just walked off a lower east side street
corner in 1918. Watching the movie increased my interest in the battle and this led me to purchase
another book by author Edward Lengel called - To Conquer Hell - which chronicles the US Army's fight
to clear the Germans out of the Argonne Forest in France during the closing months of WW1. One
interesting quote by the author that really had me thinking was when he stated the following - " Johny
Reb, Billy Yank and the WW2 GI live forever in the American psyche however the Doughboy has been
forgotten". I have to agree with that statement. In this country WW1 often serves only as a historical
footnote between the American Civil War and WW2. I think there are several reasons for this. First, the
war is generally misunderstood and the reasons why the US entered it only during its 11th hour are not
clear to most people. There are also no famous photos or battles which the average US citizen today
can recall such as a Gettysburg or Iwo Jima. I was surprised to find out after reading the book that the
largest battle the US Army ever fought was the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne in which over a million US
soldiers participated in and over 26 thousand died. The battle lasted for six weeks which means they
were averaging over 4 thousand dead per week! The Argonne campaign along with several other
battles that US forces participated in such as Cantigny, Belleau Wood and St. Mihiel are all largely
forgotten today. The war has also not been very marketable in the mainstream media. There have been
no Spielberg feature films or Ken Burns documentaries and one look in a the history section of a typical
bookstore and you will see that the WW2 section is usually very large while WW1 books are lucky
enough to occupy one shelf. So I guess another reason for creating the site was to generate some
awareness of WW1 and the huge contributions of the NYC and NJ based citizen-soldiers. Lastly, I have
had an ongoing interest for the past couple of years in creating a website of my own. Partly for just the
experience of having done it however I could never come up with an idea that I liked enough to follow
through with it. In mid 2008 all of the above mentioned explanations coalesced and I came up with the
idea to create this site which is the only resource that I know of that features all of the NYC Doughboys
in photos together in one place.
I have broken down the Doughboys into sections based on their location. There are two pages on this
site named the Palisades Doughboys because they are situated in towns in New Jersey that are
adjacent to NYC along the Jersey Palisades. I have also included two pages called Guns of the Great
War. These pages feature WW1 artillery pieces and mortars that I have located while driving around NJ,
NY and NE. If you have an interest in these old guns I would recommend two resources. The first one is
www.landships.freeservers.com which is about guns and tanks used during the great war. I used their
excellent site to try and determine the origin and type of the guns I photographed and featured on this
site. Another resource is a list maintained by a gentleman by the name of Dick Pope in Huntsville
Alabama called the - The Great WW1 Memorial Survey. The survey is not comprised of concrete
memorials but rather the location of all known existing WW1 guns in the USA and Canada. I have a list in
front of me from 2004 and there are over 1200 entries! Dick does not have a computer so you have to
write to him with a self addressed envelope and he will send you his most recent list. His address is 1705
Greenwyche Road S.E. Huntsville AL 35801. Another page I created called Museums features an array
of photos I took in US based museums of various WW1 items. Most of the photos features items from the
WW1 NY based divisions.
If you are interested in a larger format .jpg of one of my pictures I can email them out to you. The
pictures become a little pixelated when they are shrunk down to a smaller size for use on this site so if
you have a sincere interest then let me know. If you enjoyed the site or have any comments or questions
feel free to drop me a line at michael63672 at yahoo dot com. *** Check back for more updates ***
For more NY and NJ history check out - www.geocities/nycforts/
essay of the many WW1 Doughboy Memorials that are located in and around the city of New York. WW1
is a largely forgotten war in the US today. I remember reading once that roughly 1 out of every 6 US
soldiers who served in WW1 was from the New York City area. That stands to reason because the city
and its surrounding boroughs were very heavily populated even back then. Many probably volunteered
for patriotic reasons while others who were recent immigrants, may have felt that by enlisting it would
help them to solidify US citizenship. When the war ended a number of communities in the New York City
area wished to honor those who served by collecting funds to commission a neighborhood war memorial.
Many of those memorials took the form of a Doughboy statue. During the years after the war it was
common when creating a public memorial to build a life size statue of the person being memorialized.
From looking at the collection of pictures on this site the sculptors designed the statues to invoke
different impressions. Some statues are somber, some unabashedly patriotic however they were all
created to primarily serve as a tribute to the WW1 soldier. All of the people who lived at that time are
now gone and many of the these communities have changed greatly over the last 90 plus years however
as long as the neighborhoods exist the Doughboy memorials will undoubtedly always be there.
How did this website come about ? Ill try to make it brief. Having grown up in Northern NJ and being
interested in history I was already aware of some of the Doughboy statues that are featured on this site
from just having traveled around the area over the years. It was the Fall of 2002 when I was searching
online for something when I came across a website hosted by a David Conrad in which he listed WW1
Memorials by state. I remember looking at the NJ section just to see if some of the ones that I knew of
were listed. I also noted that there were at least several others close by that I had never seen before.
Later when I happened to find myself in their area I stopped to take a look at one or two and
photographed them with a non-digital camera but nothing else came of it.
In early 2008 I was shopping in a Borders store in NJ when I noticed a book that I highly recommend by
author Cal Snyder called - Out Of Fire and Valor, The War Memorials of NYC from the Revolution to
9-11. The book seemed like an interesting read for someone like myself who has an interest in art and
history and lives close to NYC. Soon after purchasing the book I watched an A&E movie called "The Lost
Battalion" which is based on a true story about WW1 soldiers from the New York 77th Infantry Division
who are trapped behind enemy lines for several days during the battle of the Argonne Forest. Although
the movie gets faulted for not being historically accurate I think in one way it excels is that the actors did
such an impressionable job portraying guys who seemed like they just walked off a lower east side street
corner in 1918. Watching the movie increased my interest in the battle and this led me to purchase
another book by author Edward Lengel called - To Conquer Hell - which chronicles the US Army's fight
to clear the Germans out of the Argonne Forest in France during the closing months of WW1. One
interesting quote by the author that really had me thinking was when he stated the following - " Johny
Reb, Billy Yank and the WW2 GI live forever in the American psyche however the Doughboy has been
forgotten". I have to agree with that statement. In this country WW1 often serves only as a historical
footnote between the American Civil War and WW2. I think there are several reasons for this. First, the
war is generally misunderstood and the reasons why the US entered it only during its 11th hour are not
clear to most people. There are also no famous photos or battles which the average US citizen today
can recall such as a Gettysburg or Iwo Jima. I was surprised to find out after reading the book that the
largest battle the US Army ever fought was the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne in which over a million US
soldiers participated in and over 26 thousand died. The battle lasted for six weeks which means they
were averaging over 4 thousand dead per week! The Argonne campaign along with several other
battles that US forces participated in such as Cantigny, Belleau Wood and St. Mihiel are all largely
forgotten today. The war has also not been very marketable in the mainstream media. There have been
no Spielberg feature films or Ken Burns documentaries and one look in a the history section of a typical
bookstore and you will see that the WW2 section is usually very large while WW1 books are lucky
enough to occupy one shelf. So I guess another reason for creating the site was to generate some
awareness of WW1 and the huge contributions of the NYC and NJ based citizen-soldiers. Lastly, I have
had an ongoing interest for the past couple of years in creating a website of my own. Partly for just the
experience of having done it however I could never come up with an idea that I liked enough to follow
through with it. In mid 2008 all of the above mentioned explanations coalesced and I came up with the
idea to create this site which is the only resource that I know of that features all of the NYC Doughboys
in photos together in one place.
I have broken down the Doughboys into sections based on their location. There are two pages on this
site named the Palisades Doughboys because they are situated in towns in New Jersey that are
adjacent to NYC along the Jersey Palisades. I have also included two pages called Guns of the Great
War. These pages feature WW1 artillery pieces and mortars that I have located while driving around NJ,
NY and NE. If you have an interest in these old guns I would recommend two resources. The first one is
www.landships.freeservers.com which is about guns and tanks used during the great war. I used their
excellent site to try and determine the origin and type of the guns I photographed and featured on this
site. Another resource is a list maintained by a gentleman by the name of Dick Pope in Huntsville
Alabama called the - The Great WW1 Memorial Survey. The survey is not comprised of concrete
memorials but rather the location of all known existing WW1 guns in the USA and Canada. I have a list in
front of me from 2004 and there are over 1200 entries! Dick does not have a computer so you have to
write to him with a self addressed envelope and he will send you his most recent list. His address is 1705
Greenwyche Road S.E. Huntsville AL 35801. Another page I created called Museums features an array
of photos I took in US based museums of various WW1 items. Most of the photos features items from the
WW1 NY based divisions.
If you are interested in a larger format .jpg of one of my pictures I can email them out to you. The
pictures become a little pixelated when they are shrunk down to a smaller size for use on this site so if
you have a sincere interest then let me know. If you enjoyed the site or have any comments or questions
feel free to drop me a line at michael63672 at yahoo dot com. *** Check back for more updates ***
For more NY and NJ history check out - www.geocities/nycforts/
The two photos above are of the author in front of the Paterson NJ Doughboy Memorial
holding a WW1 US 78th Division helmet. The author works as a Systems Analyst on a data
network for a British based telecom and also works part time as a Respiratory Therapist in
a Bergen County NJ hospital. He has an MBA in finance, is single and lives in Paterson NJ.
holding a WW1 US 78th Division helmet. The author works as a Systems Analyst on a data
network for a British based telecom and also works part time as a Respiratory Therapist in
a Bergen County NJ hospital. He has an MBA in finance, is single and lives in Paterson NJ.
