Mobilizing for War: The Selective Service Act in World War I

  • Mobilizing for War: The Selective Service Act in World War I
Mobilizing for War: The Selective Service Act in World War I

On May 18, 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service. Under the act, approximately 24 million men registered for the draft. Of the total U.S. troops sent to Europe, 2.8 million men had been drafted, and 2 million men had volunteered. To commemorate this anniversary, the draft registration cards Irving Berlin, Al Capone, Duke Ellington, Marcus Garvey, Harry Houdini, Fiorello LaGuardia, Norman Rockwell, and Babe Ruth are on exhibit.

In commemoration, the World War I Draft Registration Card for George Herman Ruth was on display in the “Featured Documents” exhibit in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives in Washington, DC, from May 4 – June 7, 2017.

Past Featured Records
  • Black Wall Street: 100 Years Since the Tulsa Race Massacre
    Black Wall Street: 100 Years Since the Tulsa Race Massacre

    Thursday, April 1, 2021 – Thursday, June 17, 2021
    Online

    “— were dead. Figures are omitted [because] NO ONE KNOWS.” —Red Cross Report


    On Memorial Day 1921, a Black shoe shiner named Dick Rowland rode in an elevator with white operator Sarah Page. The next day,... Read more

  • Victory in Japan: 75th Anniversary of the End of WWII
    Victory in Japan: 75th Anniversary of the End of WWII

    Japan Surrenders

    World War II, the bloodiest conflict in history, came to an end in a 27-minute ceremony on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, six years and one day after the war erupted in Europe. On that September morning in 1945, Japanese officials signed a... Read more

  • National Inventors’ Day
    National Inventors’ Day

    To celebrate National Inventors’ Day, learn about Marjorie S. Joyner and her groundbreaking permanent wave machine, an innovation that revolutionized the time-intensive task of curling or straightening women’s hair. Over her 50-year career, Joyner trained thousands of students and helped write the first cosmetology laws in... Read more

  • Featured Document Display: Never Forget: Remembering the Holocaust
    Featured Document Display: Never Forget: Remembering the Holocaust

    Seventy-five years ago on January 27, 1945, Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in German-occupied Poland. Russian soldiers discovered thousands of sick, dying, and dead prisoners when they entered the complex of concentration camps, forced labor camps, and a killing center abandoned by the... Read more

  • 50 Years Ago: Government Stops Investigating UFOs
    50 Years Ago: Government Stops Investigating UFOs

    To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of Project Blue Book, the National Archives will display records from the Air Force’s unidentified flying objects (UFOs)  investigations.

    Report of a “flying saucer” over U.S. airspace in 1947 caused a wave of “UFO hysteria” and sparked... Read more