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Dimly Remembered, Largely Forgotten: the Mitchell Hall Tablet As a Mirror to American Great War Memory

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Dimly Remembered, Largely Forgotten: the Mitchell Hall Tablet As a Mirror to American Great War Memory University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations May 2021 Dimly Remembered, Largely Forgotten: The Mitchell Hall Tablet as a Mirror to American Great War Memory Stephen Mark Baldwin University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Military History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Baldwin, Stephen Mark, "Dimly Remembered, Largely Forgotten: The Mitchell Hall Tablet as a Mirror to American Great War Memory" (2021). Theses and Dissertations. 2644. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2644 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DIMLY REMEMBERED, LARGELY FORGOTTEN: THE MITCHELL HALL TABLET AS A MIRROR TO AMERICAN GREAT WAR MEMORY by Stephen M. Baldwin A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History at The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee May 2021 ABSTRACT DIMLY REMEMBERED, LARGELY FORGOTTEN: THE MITCHELL HALL TABLET AS A MIRROR TO AMERICAN GREAT WAR MEMORY by Stephen Baldwin The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2021 Under the Supervision of Professor Neal Pease War thrusts men and women, communities and nations into unfamiliar and otherwise unlikely situations and associations. And it is war in general, and twentieth-century warfare in particular, that has engendered widespread commemoration and remembrance of its combatants and victims. This thesis recounts the story of ten men who share at least three things in common: they all attended the Milwaukee Normal School sometime during the early years of the twentieth century; they all perished in the service of the United States Armed Forces during the First World War; and they are all commemorated on a simple and somewhat forlorn bronze tablet in Mitchell Hall, now the administrative center of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. This thesis has a primary and a secondary purpose. The primary goal is a simple exercise in research. A person or persons felt the need to commemorate these men in a material and public way. The tablet was commissioned, paid for, and erected. And what of those commemorated? Who were they? What did they do? What happened to them? Does anyone remember them now? Answering these questions comprises the bulk of this document. ii The secondary goal of the thesis is a brief consideration of the tablet in its historical context, both as a historical artefact in its own right, and in its subsequent history, a testimony to the resilience (or otherwise) of American Great War historical memory. iii © Copyright by Stephen Mark Baldwin, 2021 All Rights Reserved iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................. ii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................... viii DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .....................................................................................ix Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 History, Remembrance, and the Great War ....................................................................... 3 Chapter 3 Normal Education ............................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 4 Raising the Army: Drafts, Training Corps, and Camps .................................................. 30 Chapter 5 Ten Names on a Tablet ........................................................................................................ 37 THE MITCHELL HALL TABLET .................................................................................................................. 39 INTRODUCTION TO THE BIOGRAPHIES ....................................................................................................... 44 MORGAN MACDONALD ANDERSON (22 AUGUST, 1891 – OCTOBER 5, 1918) ........................................... 46 CHARLES WALKER BALDWIN (DECEMBER 5, 1896 – AUGUST 1, 1918) .................................................... 56 CARL HERMAN BERGER (17 MAY, 1891 – 31 DECEMBER, 1918) .............................................................. 64 JACOB GUY DREWS (NOVEMBER 8, 1894 – JANUARY 8, 1918) ................................................................. 73 ALFRED HENRY ISRAEL (27 OCTOBER, 1893 – MARCH 15, 1918) ............................................................. 77 HENRY KLEINHESSELINK (28 JULY, 1886 – 3 OCTOBER, 1918) ................................................................. 81 MARK CHARLES MALONE (21 AUGUST, 1893 – 28 MARCH, 1919) ........................................................... 87 KENNETH LAVALLE MCHUGH (JULY 3, 1896 – OCTOBER 4, 1918) ........................................................... 96 JOHN GORDON MITCHELL (5 AUGUST 1895 – 4 JANUARY, 1919) ........................................................... 104 PRESTON EDDY TUPPER (12 MAY, 1892–10 NOVEMBER, 1918) ............................................................. 110 Chapter 6 Summary of Research Findings ....................................................................................... 119 Chapter 7 Conclusions and Future Work ......................................................................................... 125 v Bibliography of Archival Primary Sources ............................................................................................. 129 Bibliography of Secondary Sources ......................................................................................................... 131 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 - The Mitchell Hall Tablet ......................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 2- Transcription of Mitchell Hall Tablet ..................................................................................................... 43 Figure 3 - The Veterans: Top (left to right): Anderson, McHugh, Berger. Middle: Israel, Drews, Kleinhesselink. Bottom: Mitchell, Tupper, Baldwin. Not pictured: Malone. Source: Milwaukee Normal School Yearbook, 1919, UWM Archives. ....................................................................................................... 45 Figure 4 - Morgan MacDonald Anderson. Source: Milwaukee Public Library Digital Image Collections, World War I Military Portraits, WWI_0063.jpg .......................................................................................... 46 Figure 5 - Charles Walker Baldwin, unknown date. Source: West Allis Historical Society. .............................. 56 Figure 6 - Charles Walker Baldwin, unknown date. Source: West Allis Historical Society. .............................. 56 Figure 7 - Carl Herman Berger. Source: Lynn Cupelli Collection ....................................................................... 64 Figure 8 - Carl Herman Berger. Source: Lynn Cupelli Collection ....................................................................... 64 Figure 9 - Adele Thielke, Berger's Wife, later (and probably in this picture) Adele Ringle. Source: Lynn Cupelli Collection ............................................................................................................................................. 66 Figure 10 - Alfred Henry Israel. Source: Milwaukee Public Library Digital Image Collections, World War I Military Portraits, WWI_1660.jpg. ................................................................................................................ 77 Figure 11 - Mark Charles Malone (right) in 1904. Heber is on the left, Andrew is center. Source: Waukesha County Historical Society and Museum ......................................................................................................... 87 Figure 12 - A youthful-looking Kenneth McHugh. Source: Carl Penner, The 120th Field Artillery Diary 1880- 1919 (Milwaukee, WI: Hammersmith-Kortmeyer Co., 1928), 77. ............................................................... 96 Figure 13-John Gordon Mitchell. Source: Milwaukee Public Library Digital Image Collections, World War I Military Portraits, WWI_1857.jpg. .............................................................................................................. 104 Figure 14-Preston Eddy Tupper. Source: Milwaukee Public Library Digital Image Collections, World War I Military Portraits, WWI_11_00298.jpg. ...................................................................................................... 110 Figure 15 - Letter dated April 23, 1919 from Howard Curry to Mrs. Welty on Welty-Tupper Accident. Tupper is identified in the letter. Source: Welty papers, Wright University, Dayton OH. ..................... 118 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 - Wisconsin Normal School Chronology to University Status. All the normal schools listed above transitioned to new institutions according to the Milwaukee timeline and institution name. ................... 28 Table 2 – The Ten Veterans at the Wisconsin State Normal
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