Texas AMC and WWI
College Station, Brazos County, Texas
Marker Inscription
World War I allowed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas to expand beyond military training and directly contribute to the war effort with staff and students volunteering for service in large numbers. Students first served for other countries before the U.S. entered the war. As early as Sept. 1914, Georges Pierre Ferdinand Jouine, class of 1907, enlisted as a private in the French army. In Mar. 1917, the school offered their programs and facilities for use during the war. By Dec. 1917, TAMC was designated a U.S. Army training base. Along with the normal instruction of its college students, the college became a base for three lines of intensive military training. In Dec. 1917, soldiers reported to train as radio mechanics. They were assigned to Goodwin Hall as their barracks, and received technical instruction from the Department of Electrical Engineering. The service training detachment of auto mechanics and carpenters was in operation by summer 1918. The third area of training was in the Signal Corps School of Meteorology, established in May 1918 to train men for aviation, gas and flame attacks, bombing expeditions and many other military and naval operations. The school operated out of the Civil Engineering building and was the only one of its kind among allied nations during the war. With the U.S. Calling on the male faculty to serve, for the first time in the college’s history women served on the faculty, teaching botany and French. Despite an influenza outbreak in Sept. 1918, the college and community continued their support through liberty bond drives and increasing agricultural production until the war ended. More than 2,200 Aggies served, with at least 62 making the supreme sacrifice from a dedicated community of students, faculty and citizens during a time of war.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas — the ancestor of today's Texas A&M — threw itself into the war effort with remarkable intensity. More than 2,200 Aggies served, some enlisting with Allied armies even before America joined, and the campus was designated a U.S. Army training base where soldiers learned radio mechanics, auto and carpentry trades, and meteorology for aviation and gas warfare. The Signal Corps meteorology school here was the only one of its kind among the Allied nations, and as male faculty left for service, women joined the teaching staff for the first time in the college's history.
Why it matters
The marker captures how a land-grant college mobilized an entire community for a modern industrial war, foreshadowing the vast partnership between American universities and the military that would define the twentieth century.
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Related people
- · Georges Pierre Ferdinand Jouine
Related events
- · World War I
- · 1918 influenza pandemic
Themes & tags
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