Laurence V. Benet Collection, 1914-1934
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs
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Laurence Benet, son of General Stephen and Laura (née Walker) Benet and uncle of poet Stephen Vincent Benet, was born in West Point, NY, in 1863. He graduated from Yale in 1884, and the next year moved to France as director of the Hotchkiss Company, manufacturers of the Hotchkiss machine gun, which Benet helped engineer. In 1898 he served as an ensign with the U.S. Navy in the Spanish-American War, and then returned to France.
When World War I broke out in 1914, the American expatriate community in France mobilized in a humanitarian effort to serve their adopted country well before the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917. In August 1914, the French Army turned over the building and grounds of the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, to the Americans in France, and the property became the American Ambulance Hospital. The American Ambulance Field Service (later the American Field Service or AFS), a volunteer organization that was led by A. Piatt Andrew beginning in March 1915, was headquartered at the Hospital. Laurence Benet served on the Board of Governors and the Transportation Committee of the American Ambulance Hospital from its inception until it was dissolved in July 1917. Benet initially worked closely with Andrew and AFS, but ended his involvement with AFS after it became independent from the American Ambulance Hospital in July 1916. Benet remained with the American Ambulance Committee of the American Hospital of Paris, however, until the United States entered the war in July 1917. He was later made a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honor and awarded the French Medal of Honor, and received commendations from the governments of Portugal, Romania and Turkey.
Benet’s wife, Margaret, was born in 1863 to Thomas Campbell Cox of Washington, D.C. During the war she served on the Hospital’s Women’s Committee and volunteered as a nurse, a fundraiser, and a spokesperson. Margaret also worked for refugees in the devastated regions of war-torn France until 1919. In 1917 she received the Gold Medal of Honor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and after the war she was bestowed with the rank of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. Margaret continued her volunteer work in France, dedicating time to organizations such as L'Heure Joyeuse (the first children's library in France), and as vice president of the Ligue Française contre le Cancer, and also activities of the American Legion abroad, including conventions in Bucharest and Belgrade.
Laurence and Margaret lived in France for many years after the war as active members of the "American Colony." Margaret Cox Benet passed away in 1941, and Laurence Vincent Benet in 1948. Laurence is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Benet's nephew, Thomas Carr Benet, later served with AFS when it was reestablished as an ambulance service during World War II.
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The Laurence V. Benet Collection contains newspaper clippings about the ambulance service (dated 1915, 1931, and 1934), a French document attesting to his service (1927), four photographic prints (depicting Benet, his wife, and ambulances), and photocopied correspondence from 1914-1919, which was written in French and English and included commendations of his service with the American Ambulance Hospital (including letters of appreciation from General Pershing and American President Woodrow Wilson.) This collection does not contain administrative correspondence reflecting Benet’s work at the American Ambulance Hospital.
The collection also contains memorabilia, including his American Ambulance cap badge, and a commemorative medal inscribed with his name, affirming his service as an American volunteer with the French Army from 1914 to 1917.