“Petra DeWitt, using an impressive array of primary sources, has written an exquisite and engaging account of how and why Missouri men and women joined and supported Missouri’s Home Guard during World War I. Furthermore, she evaluates the organization and accomplishments of the Missouri Home Guard within the historical context of the development of other state Home Guards across the nation.”—Jon Taylor, University of Central Missouri, author of A President, A Church, and Trails West: Competing Histories in Independence, Missouri
“Historians of America’s wars have repeatedly called for local studies that would help to give a more nuanced understanding of the different ways Americans experienced the nation’s wars. DeWitt’s [work] on the Missouri Home Guard offers much potential to expand our knowledge of the home front during World War I.”—Lynn Dumenil, Occidental College, author of The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I
“The Missouri Home Guard is much more than a standard organizational history. In DeWitt’s deft hands, this study of Missouri citizens’ response to World War I becomes a lens through which to examine the larger political, social, and cultural forces that shaped early twentieth-century US and Missouri history. Diverse Missourians—businessmen, workers, African Americans, German Americans, and women—all believed that public displays of their patriotism through service in the Home Guard demonstrated their loyalty to the US while at the same time promoted their personal interests as they worked toward a brighter future."—Diane Mutti Burke, University of Missouri, Kansas City, author of On Slavery’s Border: Missouri’s Small-Slaveholding Households, 1815-1865