American Field Service World War I Photographic Collection, 1910-1987
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs


The collection has been arranged at the box level, and has been partially processed into the following four series: Photographs and Negatives, Glass-plate Negatives, Lantern Slides, and Albums.
See the individual series descriptions for more information.


The American Field Service (AFS) originated as the Transportation Department in an auxiliary military hospital, located in the high school building of Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris. This volunteer-run, civilian-financed American Ambulance Hospital, an extension of the nearby American Hospital of Paris, opened its doors in September of 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I.
Abram Piatt Andrew (1873-1936), former assistant professor of economics at Harvard (1900-1909), Director of the U.S. Mint (1909-1910), and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President William H. Taft (1910-1912) drove an ambulance for the American Ambulance Hospital in January 1915, and was made Inspector General of the hospital’s ambulance section, (now called the American Ambulance Field Service) in March 1915. Working with Henry Sleeper, who was in a Boston office, Andrew did extensive fundraising to purchase ambulances and actively recruit volunteers from the Ivy League and other colleges for six month volunteer missions in France. He also advocated that the organization work directly with the French Army and more actively in the field.
In July 1916 the American Ambulance Field Service split from the American Ambulance Hospital and established separate headquarters at 21 rue Raynouard in Paris. In May 1917 Andrew worked with Commandant Doumenc, Head of the Automobile Service of the French Army, to establish a camion service where volunteers would haul munitions, troops, and supplies instead of treating the wounded. While somewhat controversial, sixteen Transport Matériel [Etats-] Unis (TMU) sections, also known as the Réserve Mallet, were created. The American Ambulance Field Service also shortened its name to the American Field Service at this time.
By the time the U.S. entered the war in late 1917, the 2,500 ambulance and camion drivers in the American Field Service had participated in every major French battle and carried more than 500,000 wounded. The U.S. Army Ambulance Service absorbed AFS, which ceased to exist as an independent ambulance and camion organization. Some AFS Sections Sanitaire [Etats-] Unis (SSU) became U.S. Army SSU units, while other AFS volunteers enlisted in different branches of the U.S. service. The Paris headquarters of AFS remained open after the U.S. entered the war, as the organization transitioned into becoming part of the U.S. Army. Beginning in July 1917, the AFS headquarters published a weekly bulletin containing news of drivers and the war, which was distributed to former AFS drivers. The Paris headquarters at 21 rue Raynouard closed in June 1919.

American Ambulance Hospital
American Field Service (American Ambulance Field Service)
American Field Service--Réserve Mallet
American Field Service--SSU 1
American Field Service--SSU 2
American Field Service--SSU 3
American Field Service--SSU 4
American Field Service--SSU 8
American Field Service--SSU 9
American Field Service--SSU 10
American Field Service--SSU 12
American Field Service--SSU 13
American Field Service--SSU 14
American Field Service--SSU 15
American Field Service--SSU 16
American Field Service--SSU 17
American Field Service--SSU 18
American Field Service--SSU 19
American Field Service--SSU 26
American Field Service--SSU 27
American Field Service--SSU 28
American Field Service--SSU 29
American Field Service--SSU 30
American Field Service--SSU 31
American Field Service--SSU 32
American Field Service--SSU 33
American Field Service--SSU 64
American Field Service--SSU 65
American Field Service--SSU 66
American Field Service--SSU 67
American Field Service--SSU 68
American Field Service--SSU 69
American Field Service--SSU 70
American Field Service--SSU 71
American Field Service--SSU 72
American Field Service--TMU 133
American Field Service--TMU 184
American Field Service--TMU 526
American Field Service--TMU 527
American Field Service--TMU 537
American Field Service--Transport Matériel [États-] Unis (TMU)
American Hospital of Paris
Andrew, A. Piatt (Abram Piatt), 1873-1936
Camion drivers
Mehun-sur-Yèvre (France)
Section Sanitaire [États-] Unis (SSU)
U.S. Army Ambulance Service--SSU 502
World War, 1914-1918

The American Field Service World War I Photographic Collection consists of photographs and negatives, glass-plate negatives, lantern slides, and albums depicting activities of the American Field Service (AFS), and to a lesser degree of the French and United States militaries, during World War I. Some of the photographic material appears to have been used by the organization in press releases and publications to increase awareness of the cause and to recruit volunteers, and also in fundraising efforts to encourage donation of ambulances. Examples of public relations use include a published book entitled Friends of France (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1916), and postcards of headquarters (as seen in Series 1, Subseries 1A.) Some photographs were also used in post-war AFS commemorative publications, such as the three-volume The History of the American Field Service in France (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1920). The photographic material was created by professional photographers or individual AFS ambulance and camion drivers, and donated to AFS headquarters either during or after the war. It is not always possible to determine what was donated versus what was commissioned or created by AFS during the war.
The photographic records of the American Field Service’s ambulance and camion service in World War I are useful in the study of American involvement prior to the United States’ Declaration of War in 1917. The collection depicts the voluntary activities of AFS (including assisting injured soldiers and transporting supplies), local landscapes and civilians (including images of Paris), major events and battles in the war (including Verdun), and groups and individuals involved in the war (including ambulance and camion drivers, and members of the French military.) While the majority of the photographic material depicts AFS activities from 1915 to 1917, there are also some images of the pre-AFS American Ambulance Hospital and of the post-AFS U.S. Army Ambulance Service, which absorbed AFS after the United States entered the war in 1917. Other later materials include an album featuring American Expeditionary Forces World War I photographs (ca. 1917-1919), with a particularly large number of photographs of heavy artillery and of the ordinance repair shops and salvage depots in Mehun-sur-Yevre. There are also color photographs of a restored AFS World War I ambulance, which were taken in 1987 by the Fondation de l’Automobile Marius Berliet.
See the individual series descriptions for more information.