Letters from a French Hospital
In October 1914, two-and-a-half months after Germany launched WWI in Europe, Dr. Mary M. Crawford, a graduate of Cornell University (’04) and Cornell Medical College (’07), set sail for France—one of six American surgeons journeying to Paris to assist in medical treatment of combatants at the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine. In Line of Flight,
In Their Words
For anything I’ve ever written, be it fiction or non-fiction, my favorite research is always sifting through primary sources. There is something about reading materials that are unfiltered by someone else’s editorial judgment, in their original form, that gives me chills, as if I’m connecting across time and space to another person’s soul. My research
Read more
Men Weren’t the Only Literary Legends to Drive Ambulances in WWI
Literary giants Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, W. Somerset Maugham, Dashiell Hammett—all were aspiring writers when they volunteered as ambulance drivers during World War I. But Hemingway, perhaps the most celebrated for his experience, which he immortalized in A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, actually drove an ambulance only once,
Read more
Angels in Waiting
Uniforms are cultural artifacts. They encapsulate social values, priorities, gender biases, romanticized ideals, and more. Practicality factors in, too. During WWI, for example, combat soldiers stopped wearing bright colors that had characterized European military uniforms for centuries, in order to make themselves less visible to the enemy in trench warfare. As I built the world
Read more
