On this page we will look back at life in the city during the war years. Here we will provide the visitor with the stories making the news, what was happening in sports and entertainment, city politics, the social scene and the prominent people at the time. We will also recount the events occurring in the war on that day. So, check back each day for new editions.
To share your family or neighborhood stories, please email PhillyWWIyears@gmail.com
TODAY IN PHILADELPHIA – FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1915
The forecast calls for continued fair skies with slightly cooler temperatures tonight. The high today will only reach 68° with the low tonight near 43°. Perhaps Indian Summer is coming to an end.
Philadelphia’s suffragettes will stage a brilliant parade tonight on Broad Street. The pageant entitled “The Festival of Light” begins at Broad & Mifflin Streets and proceeds north and around City Hall then back again down Broad Street to the Academy of Music for a mass meeting. The parade will be led by the “woman’s liberty bell” (shown below) covered with electric lights on a float drawn by 50 of the prettiest ladies of the movement.
All the ladies in the parade will be carrying yellow Japanese lanterns. Over 8,000 people are expected to march. The organizations in the line of march include: The Equal Franchise Society, the College League, the Catholic Equal Suffrage League, The Pennsylvania Men’s League for Women Suffrage, the Ladies Shirtwaist Makers’ Union and the Socialist led by Eugene V. Debs. The marchers will be accompanied by a number of bands including The First Regiment Band and The Accordion Band.
Yesterday afternoon word was received by the Bell Telephone Company that a wireless telephone message sent from the Naval Base in Arlington, Virginia was received across the Ocean at the wireless station in the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Transatlantic wireless telephony is now an accomplished fact.
Today Secretary of War Lindley Garrison ordered the 28th and 23rd Infantry regiments to Galveston, Texas to reinforce General Funston’s forces. Also, President Wilson ordered the Department of Justice to increase its force of Special Agents along the border to prevent the smuggling of arms across the Rio Grande. Secretary Garrison said the Federal government was open to establishing a military zone along the border if the Governor of Texas requests it.
WAR NEWS
More information is coming to light regarding the execution of the British nurse Edith Cavell. Reports are that she went to her death calmly in her nursing uniform. She refused a blindfold saying “I am not afraid to die”. Dispatches from Amsterdam state that some of the German soldiers in the firing squad wept as they carried out their orders. The British population is incensed over the execution especially since the American Minister in Belgium was assured it would not occur.
On the western front last night the Germans launched a series of attacks in the Arras region near Givenchy and Souchez. The French War Office claims both attacks were repulsed. In the Balkans the Bulgarian and Teuton armies continue to advance through Servia. However, reports are that the combined invaders have so far lost up to 60,000 killed, wounded or taken prisoners.
GET YOUR COPY OF PHILADELPHIA: THE WORLD WAR I YEARS BY JUST CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW.