The American Medical Profession, Militarization, and the State in the First World War

FAIN: FT-254841-17

James Arthur Schafer, Jr
University of Houston (Houston, TX 77204-3067)

Research and writing of a book on the professional and social impact of the mobilization of physicians during World War I.

As the U.S. prepared for the First World War, editorials warned that thousands of civilian doctors would be needed to voluntarily enlist in the Army and Navy Medical Corps to support the war effort. These predictions proved accurate; in the nineteen months from declaration of war in April 1917 to Armistice in November 1918, roughly 32,000 American doctors enlisted as medical officers — what amounted to twenty-two percent of all licensed doctors nationwide. In my book project, “Mobilizing Doctors: The American Medical Profession, Militarization, and the State in the First World War,” I argue that this sudden, unprecedented mobilization of doctors transformed American medicine in the short- and long-term. Based in the medical humanities, my research uses archival sources to examine the wartime experiences of doctors, the rhetoric of medical leaders, and the evolution of medical careers and institutions. “Mobilizing Doctors” thereby demonstrates the lasting effects of war on American society.