Jewish Welfare Board Postcards
by John G Sayers
jasayers@saybuck.com

There's a series of postcards that is an interesting cross-collectible for those interested in one or more of (i) postcards (ii) Judaica, (iii) military history, (iv) First World War, or (v) ocean liners.

When the United States entered the First War in 1917, she seized several German liners which had been interned in the U.S. during the early days of the war, when the U.S. was neutral. When the U.S. declared war, those liners were converted into troopships, and were reportedly one of the principal reasons that the U.S. was able to put so many soldiers on the field in Europe so quickly.

Needless to say, there are postcards of these ships pre-internment, and postcards of them as troop transports. Of the latter, there is a series of cards which are specially printed with the name of the Jewish Welfare Board ("JWB"), which was apparently established early in 1917, when the U.S. entered the war. The front of the card carries the image and name of the ship and the caption "Greetings from the Jewish Welfare Board to Soldiers and Sailors of the U.S. Army and Navy" (Figure 1). On the back of the card, below the area for the message, is space for "Co." "Reg." and "Div." Some of the cards say, above this, "Going to Camp___" (Figure 2).

Some of the cards carry the mark on the front "©Ed. Levick, N.Y". The Huron card says " © N. Y. Herald". The SS Troy and SS Orizaba cards show as ©Int. News Service. Some carry no publisher reference. Only one example is postally used. Some others carry messages, and addresses, and were without stamps because they were postage free.

I have no knowledge of how many ex-German ships are represented on these Jewish Welfare Board cards. I have several. The Allied liners are easy to spot, since something like the Mauretania shows as Mauretania. So all the Allied ships are straightforward, but for the German ships, renamed by the Americans, the task can be more challenging. That's why I was so pleased to find this information tabulated in a recently-acquired book ( NorddeutscherLloyd Bremen by Edwin Drechsel). Here's the 'translation' -

The Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm seems to be in a different category – not renamed, and the card carries the original name of this German liner.

Although the Navy commissioned them as 'USS' the JWB Cards that I have caption them as 'S.S.' Further, some are in a vertical as well as horizontal format. In addition to these ex-German liners (those I have are marked with *), I have the following other Jewish Welfare Board ocean liner cards that were not former German liners:

• S.S. Matsonia
• S.S. Mauretania
• S.S. Olympic (Figure 3)        
• S.S. Orizaba
• S.S. Troy
• S.S. Nansemond
• S.S. Finland
• S. S. Kroonland
• S.S. Plattsburg (ex-New York)

Initially I wondered whether the cards were provided during or at the end of the war. The message on the Kroonland card, with a U.S. Army cancellation and no stamp ("Soldier's Mail, No postage necessary if mailed on boat or dock"), has a message addressed to a person in Elmira, NY, that says, "Dear Folks – A little view of the boat we came over on. Will write letter later. Love to all." The card also carries the information: "Going to Camp: Mills Long I. Co: B; Reg: 1st Div. 1st U.S. Engrs."

So where were the censors? Wouldn't this qualify as sensitive military information? 

More scarce than the JWB cards, are the ones without the JWB information (Figure 4). So far the only ones that I have been able to find are:

• SS President Grant
• SS George Washington
• SS Leviathan
• SS Agamemnon

There are other JWB cards that aren't ocean liner related. At a recent show in the U.S., I encountered a card with an image of the interior of a JWB dance hall, and others of pictures of JWB buildings at military camps (Figure 5). Yet another was a composite of a number of buildings at various camps.

Clearly this was the First War predecessor to the USO program in the Second World War. Was the USO consciously modeled on the JWB activities? This is really interesting historically and militarily. So what do you do when an avenue of research – such as this one - is leading you away from your primary interest – in this case, ocean liners in war service? The answer is that you buy what you think is a representative card from that avenue, and then close it off to return to the primary search! So that's why there's a JWB camp building among my JWB ocean liner cards!

Like so many other postcard projects, by its nature this one has to be a 'Work in Progress' as more cards are found and more variations encountered.

Figure 1: SS Agamemnon (ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II) JWB vertical card

Figure 2: Back of JWB card showing Camp reference

Figure 3: SS Olympic (White Star Line) horizontal JWB card

Figure 4: Same image as Figure 1, but no JWB reference

Figure 5: Jewish Welfare Board building