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> Exhibitions > Elsie Janis > Sweetheart of the A.E.F.
Elsie
Janis, Sweetheart of the A.E.F.
Janis’s
involvement in World War I
began in 1914 in London where she watched England’s young men
march off singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Back in the
States, she created a vaudeville act that doubled as a recruiting
tool – she created imitations of stars who were all singing
patriotic songs – Eddie Foy, Sarah Bernhardt, Will Rogers, Ethel
Barrymore, ending with George M. Cohan doing “Over There.”
Following the U.S. entry into the war, Janis left for France where
she entertained American, British, French, and Canadian troops from
truck backs and table tops, on the road, in camps and hospitals, in
mud and rain. She sang multiple shows a day, always trying to reach
more men far from home with her customary greeting, “Are we
downhearted? No!” A highlight for Janis was finding troops from
Ohio who welcomed her with the Ohio State University yell “Wah hoo,
Wah hoo, Rip, Zip, Bazoo, I yell like Hell, O.S.U.” The men of the
American Expeditionary Forces, from privates to generals including
Pershing, were indeed heartened by Janis’s funny, gutsy, touching,
patriotic act, and named her “Sweetheart of the A.E.F.”
She wrote about her wartime experiences in The Big Show:
My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces.
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Title
page. Janis,
Elsie. The
Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces.
New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1919. |
| Janis’s
dedication to the A.E.F.
Janis, Elsie. The
Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary
Forces. New
York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1919. |
Click to Enlarge
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Janis
entertaining the troops: “’Poor Minnie Letourrr! Look at her now and before the Yanks came!’”
Janis, Elsie. The Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary
Forces. New
York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1919. |
| Janis
on the road: “At Verdun.”
Janis, Elsie. The Big Show: My Six Months with the American
Expeditionary Forces.
New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1919, [132a] |
Click to Enlarge
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Janis
entertaining the troops: “I Gave the Show on a Couple of Tables
in Front of Headquarters.”
Janis, Elsie. The
Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces.
New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1919, [190a]. |
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