World War I and II Periods
On October 1, 1918, nearly all of Alabama Polytechnic Institute's able-bodied male students 18 or older voluntarily joined the United States Army for short-lived military careers on campus. The student-soldiers numbered 878, according to API President Charles Thach, and formed the academic section of the Student Army Training Corps. The vocational section was composed of enlisted men sent to Auburn for training in radio and mechanics. The students received honorable discharges two months later following the Armistice that ended World War I. API struggled through the great depression, having scrapped an extensive expansion program by then-President Bradford Knapp. Faculty salaries were cut drastically, and enrollment decreased along with State appropriations to the college. By the end of the 1930s, Auburn had essentially recovered, but then faced new conditions caused by World War II.
As war approached in 1940, there was a great shortage of engineers and scientists needed for the defense industries. The U.S. Office of Education asked all American engineering schools to join in a ‘crash’ program to produce what was often called ‘instant engineers.’ API became an early participant in an activity that eventually became Engineering, Science, and Management War Training (ESMWT). Fully funded by the government and coordinated by Auburn’s Dean of Engineering, college-level courses were given in concentrated, mainly evening classes at sites across Alabama. Taken by thousands of adults – including many women – these courses were highly beneficial in filling the wartime ranks of civilian engineers, chemists, and other technical professionals. The ESMWT also benefited API by providing employment for faculty members when the student body was significantly diminished by the draft and patriotic volunteers.
During the war, API also trained U.S. military personnel on campus; between 1941 and 1945, Auburn produced over 32,000 troops for the war effort.
Read more about this topic: History Of Auburn University
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or periods:
“Life is crazy. Now, maybe you knew this all along. But before I had children, I actually held on to the illusion that there was some sense of order to the universe.... I am now convinced that we are all living in a Chagall painting—a world where brides and grooms and cows and chickens and angels and sneakers are all mixed up together, sometimes floating in the air, sometimes upside down and everywhere.”
—Susan Lapinski (20th century)
“Come Vitus, are we men, or are we children? Of what use are all these melodramatic gestures? You say your soul was killed, and that you have been dead all these years. And what of me? Did we not both die here in Marmaros fifteen years ago? Are we any the less victims of the war than those whose bodies were torn asunder? Are we not both the living dead?”
—Peter Ruric, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff)
“It has no future but itself—
Its infinite contain
Its past—enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)