World War I

When the GI Bill became law in 1944, it included a home loan program for Veterans. After several changes to update the law to reflect current market prices and challenges, one area still needed addressed: support for Veterans who were dependent on wheelchairs for mobility. The answer was the Specially Adapted Housing program, and one of the earliest homes built with the grant money was designed by acclaimed builder Frank Lloyd Wright.

U.S. participation in the First World War produced a shift away from relying on long-term institutional care for Veterans in need to a model of Veteran welfare centered around short-term hospitalization. During the war, the War Department assumed responsibility for tending to the sick and wounded. Afterwards, when the Army dismantled its hospital system, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) stepped in to fill the breach, acquiring numerous facilities the Army and Navy no longer wanted as well as other properties that could be used for medical purposes.

The North’s victory in the Civil War came at an enormous cost to the more than two million men who fought for the Union cause. Over 350,000 lost their lives due to battle or disease. Almost as many were wounded in action. According to Northern medical records, Union surgeons performed just under 30,000 amputations during the war. For these disabled Union Veterans, Congress made provisions to provide monetary compensation. In July 1861, lawmakers hastily passed a law for Union recruits making them eligible for the same pension allowances as soldiers in the Regular Army. Later in 1862, for the first time, a pension law explicitly granted benefits not just for men wounded in battle but also to those suffering from “disease contracted while in the service of the United States.”

The Congressional Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest decoration for valor in the military. More than 1,000 have been awarded, and 98 of those recipients worked at VA. A wall display outside VA's Under Secretary for Benefits in Washington, D.C. pays tribute to each of those individuals, whose stories are tied to the legacy of Veterans serving Veterans.

Frank Hines was the longest tenured VA leader, from 1923 until 1945 and end of World War II. He led two different Veteran agencies, first the Veterans Bureau and then the Veterans Administration. Despite constant challenges and changes to the system, he was a stable leader for a new federal agency.

Edith Nourse Rogers was a trailblazing politician and prominent proponent for Veterans benefits. She accomplished much in her decades-long career - to include admitting women into military service and creating a G.I. Bill of Rights.

At the start of the Great War in 1914, only about half of the 300,000 Native Americans in the United States were citizens. Although the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all “persons born or naturalized in the United States,” it did not apply to Native Americans because they fell under the jurisdiction of tribal authorities rather than the U.S. government

When World War I erupted in Europe in August 1914, the United States stayed neutral but the nation quickly became a major supplier of industrial and agricultural goods to France and England. To protect this valuable trade, Congress established the Bureau of War Risk Insurance (BWRI) within the Treasury Department to insure American ships and cargo “against loss or damage by the risks of war.”

Women have been a vital part of the nation’s military from the very beginning. Although they were not able to serve in an official capacity until the twentieth century, women have always found ways to assist war efforts. In a new podcast series "Reflections from the Front", VA History Office interns Parker Beverly and Hannah Nelson take interviews from women Veterans and brings to life the stories of incredible resolve and adversity.

VA History Exhibit - Postcards were used frequently in the late 19th and early 20th century to capture Veterans' daily life at the 11 different National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers branches, which were early VA campuses. Check out the artwork and photographs from that era in this exhibit by VA History Office intern Kara Wheeler.

More than 4.7 million Americans served in the U.S. armed forces in World War I and almost all became eligible after the war for burial in a national cemetery or to receive a government headstone in a private cemetery.

While women have served in nearly all of America’s wars, it wasn’t until after World War One that female Veterans achieved access to government health care.