Patriotism on the Home Front
Three-fourths of the wartime organizations in Virginia were women’s groups. These included the YWCA, Equal Suffrage League, Working Force of Negro Women, Council of Jewish Women, and the Virginia Federation of Women’s Clubs, as well as 115 Woman’s Liberty Loan committees and innumerable church groups. Such organizations conducted drives to raise funds to finance the war and to benefit the Red Cross. Male fraternal organizations did the same. Citizens were urged to recognize “Heatless, Meatless, Wheatless Days” and to donate food, clothes, and even aluminum, all in support of the war effort.
This article was featured in the Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Vol. 126, No. 1 in connection with the The Commonwealth and the Great War exhibition.