1918

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1918 in Clemson History

Events that occurred in 1918:

  • Mary Hart Evans becomes first woman faculty member when she takes position as assistant professor of botany. She will later marry Professor William Aull.
  • Rosamond Wolcott (spelt "Walcott" in Alan Schaffer's "Traditions" volume) arrives from Cornell to teach architecture as an assistant professor. She will only stay on the faculty a brief time before going into private practice.
  • Judge Keller's Store relocates from northwest corner to southwest corner on the Calhoun Road in downtown Clemson.
  • Automobiles begin to become more common. Said the 1918 TAPS:
"Sam Earle teaches Engineering,
He is the best by far;
He even has the genius to teach
One how to run a car."
  • Arthur Buist Bryan, English teacher, organizes an agricultural publications department at Clemson, where he was responsible for bulletins, news articles and newsletters in agriculture. http://www.aceweb.org/leadersh/bryan.html
  • May 11: The USS Clemson is laid down at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia. It is named for Henry A. Clemson, an officer in the United States Navy in the early 1800s, born in 1820, and lost on December 8, 1846 when the USS Somers capsized off Vera Cruz in a gale while chasing a blockade runner.
  • May 28: Commencement Hop is given by the Senior Dancing Club. (Dance book preserved in the Special Collections, Strom Thurmond Institute.)
  • July 23: While leading the 4th Infantry Regiment, 3d Division, Allied Expeditionary Force (A.E.F.), near Les Franquettes Farm, France, Capt. Frank Johnstone Jervey, although wounded five times when his company was suddenly fired upon by machine-guns while crossing an open field, remained in command of his company until he became unconscious. For this action, he will be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1919.
  • September 19: Walter Thompson Cox born in Belton, South Carolina. He will play many roles at Clemson, including becoming the tenth president.
  • September 27: Clemson opens football season on Riggs Field against Camp Sevier, blanking them, 65-0. Camp Sevier was a U.S. Army training cantonment located between Taylors and Greenville on old U.S. 29, Wade Hampton Boulevard. At the time of this game, the Army's 20th Division was training there so it can be presumed that members of that unit participated in the match. (Aheron, Piper Peters, "Images of America: Greenville", Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina, 1999, reissued 2003, Library of Congress card number 2003107138, ISBN 0-7385-1550-7, page 85.) The opponent for this game was originally slated as Presbyterian College, but the Blue Stockings revoked their schedule. (The Tiger, "Tigers Draw Their First Blood", October 2, 1918, Volume XIV, Number 1, page 1.)
  • October 1: The Students' Army Training Corps, a short-lived military training program, is set up by the War Department during the latter portion of the Great War after the United States had joined in the conflict. From The Tiger, October 9, 1918, Volume XIV, Number 2 (page 1): S. A. T. C. SOLDIERS HEAR GOV. MANNING
Very appropriate exercises were held at 12 noon on Tuesday, October 1st, the date set aside for the induction of men into the S. A. T. C. Governor Richard I. Manning was the speaker of the occasion.
The corps numbering between 900 and 1000 were brought together in mass formation around the stand where Governor Manning, President Riggs, Colonel McFeeley, aand [sic] two members of the Local Board of Oconee were seated. The corps stood at salute while the flag was raised and the buglers sounded "To the Colors." Colonel McFeeley administered the oath of allegiance to the flag and then read the following messages:
MESSAGE OF HON. BENEDICT CROWELL
ACTING SECRETARY OF WAR
As college students you are accustomed to contests of physical force. You are familiar with the tedious training and self-sacrificing discipline that are required to develop a team that can win the game. You know that the contest is won by team work, push, enthusiastic cooperation with one another and coordination of every individual talent to the single purpose of common success.
In the military struggle in which you are about to enter, the same conditions prevail. In order to succeed, many weeks of thorough going training and drill are essential to develop the coordination of skill and imagination that is essential to achieve the vast and vital end to which the country has pledged its every effort. The fighting machine will come into effective working order more rapidly in proportion as each individual in it devotes his full attention to the particular service for which he is best qualified. In entering upon this training as student soldiers you have the opportunity of developing your abilities to the point where they wiill be most effective in the common struggle. I am sure that you will do this in the same spirit and with the same enthusiasm that you have always exhibited in the lesser struggles to which you have been accustomed to devote your energies. I am sure you will rise to this opportunity and show that America, the home of the pioneer, the inventor, and the master of machines, is ready and able to turn its every energy to the construction of an all powerful military machine, which will prove as effective in liberating men as have the reaper, the aeroplane, and the telephone.
MESSAGE OF GENERAL MARCH
CHIEF OF STAFF
The Students' Army Training Corps has been organized to aassist [sic] in training a body of men from whom the United States will draw officer material in large numbers. The need for these officers is one of the most imperative connected with our large army program, and patriotic young men will be given an apportunity [sic] to acquire this training with the knowledge that they will thus be enabled to better serve their Country in the great drive which is to come. Superior leadership spells success in war, and it is the duty of every member of the Student Officers' Training Corps to do his utmost to qualify as a leader of men.
PEYTON C. MARCH
General, Chief of Staff, U. S. A.
  • October 5: Clemson plays Georgia Tech in Atlanta, falling 0-28. Ouch. Senior Robert Lee Atkinson of Lowryville, South Carolina, dies of Pneumonia, which developed out of a case of Influenza, after a week of illness. TAPS 1919, Volume Twelve, dedicates page 6 of the annual to him. Further football games in October are prohibited by the War Department as no team is permitted to be gone from campus for more than 24 hours. The Auburn game on October 19 is cancelled, with no November date being found for rescheduling it, but the South Carolina match is moved back from October 31 to the first week of November. (The Tiger, "Football Apparently Cancelled During October", October 9, 1918, Volume XIV, Number 2, page 2.)
  • October 10: W. W. Routten, assistant professor of wood work since September 1913, dies this date.
  • October 12: Patrick Hues Mell dies while visiting a brother-in-law in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
  • October 19: Planned football game against Auburn is cancelled by the advent of wartime training and is not rescheduled.
  • November 2: During a 5-2 season, the Tigers administer 39-0 of spank to the Gamecocks in Columbia. South Carolina goes 2-1-1. This game was originally scheduled for Halloween but was moved back by the War Department edict against football trips in October.
  • November 9: In a homegame, Clemson is defeated by Camp Hancock, 13-66. This was a squad from the U.S. Army cantonment of that name located at Augusta, Georgia. As this is the only meeting with this team, the all-time record is 0-1-0.
  • November 11: A final Armistace goes into effect, ending the Great War. Amongst celebrations in Greenville, the band of the Thirtieth Infantry Division performs for a packed house of celebrants at Textile Hall in the evening. Greenville Mayor H. C. Harvley, Brigadier General Switzer (acting commander of the Twentieth Division, Camp Sevier), and Colonel Lewis VanShaick (commander of trains and the military police) speak to the crowd. Several thousand others revel outside the hall with fireworks, ringing bells, waving flags, and throwing talcum powder (in lieu of confetti, the local supply of which had already been exhausted). (Huff, Jr., Archie Vernon, "Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont", University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 1995, Library of Congress card number 95-4363, ISBN 1-57003-045-6, page 286.)
  • November 16: In a match played in Columbia, the Tigers defeat the Citadel, 7-0. Citadel will have a 0-2-1 season record.
  • November 23: The Tigers crush Furman on Riggs Field, 67-7.
  • November 29: Clemson concludes a 5-2 season with a 7-0 victory over Davidson on Riggs Field on Thanksgiving Day.
  • December 11: The Tiger prints article stating that with the rapid conclusion of the Great War on November 11, 1918, the need for the S. A. T. C. has come to an abrupt end, and although it had originally been envisioned that the program would continue through June 1919, the War Department has announced that all members of the Corps will be mustered out by December 20. (The Tiger, "S. A. T. C. To Be Mustered Out", December 11, 1918, Volume XIV, Number 10, pages 1, 3.)



1917 The 1910's 1919