Miss Morgan's Book Brigade

The novel highlights the significant yet overlooked contributions of women during WWI, including the American Committee for Devastated France, called CARD as an acronym for its French translation: le Comité américain pour les régions dévastées. CARD was a volunteer civilian relief organization founded by philanthropist Anne Morgan, the daughter of J. P. Morgan, and physician Anne Murray Dike. Anne Morgan used her wealth and position to campaign for women’s rights, as Jessie narrates in the novel:

Instead [of features in the society pages], front-page profile pieces described her advocacy for working women—pushing for better salaries, safer conditions in factories, and paid vacation. She and her high-society friends picketed the streets of Manhattan with impoverished garment workers, knowing that where the well-heeled went, newspapermen and cameras would follow (12).

Using these lessons, Morgan used photography to document the suffering of the people in war-torn France and bring attention to it in the United States. As a trained physician, Anne Murray Dike organized field work and kept records, including the budget, for CARD. Both women received the Croix de Guerre for courage under fire and were appointed to the French Legion of Honor. As in the novel, Anne Morgan and Anne Murray Dike set up CARD headquarters in the 17th-century Château de Blérancourt, fewer than 40 miles from the front and close to what became known as the Red Zone, an area so contaminated with unexploded ordnance, human and animal remains, and toxic chemicals that it is still unfit for human habitation.

So close to the front, CARD members faced dangerous and difficult work; as described in the novel, most volunteers paid their own way, right down to purchasing the required blue uniform, and were expected to work long hours in devastated communities. CARD members helped families who had fled to other areas of France return to their homes by providing provisions, medical care, and jobs. The work of the novel’s characters, including their courage under fire during the German offensive of 1918, illustrates these efforts. As with Anne Morgan and Anne Murray Dike, the novel’s Jessie “Kit” Carson and Mary Breckinridge were real-life CARD members committed to service in Europe. Breckinridge, whom Skeslien Charles calls “a driving force for healthcare in rural America as well as a leader in nurse-midwifery” (306), used her experience in post-war Europe to create the non-profit Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, later known as the Frontier Nursing Service.

Carson, the novel’s main character and primary narrator, was an American librarian and chair of the businesswomen’s unit of the National League for Women’s Service, recruited to CARD by Morgan herself. “With Carson at the helm, CARD founded five libraries and created fifty circulating libraries in the North [of France]” (303); Carson herself is credited with making key changes to French libraries and extending library services to children. She refitted ambulances with specialized shelves to bring books to families throughout the Red Zone, helped rebuild the library at Blérancourt, and organized story hours to spread the love of reading to children whose parents could no longer afford the luxury of books. Under Carson, CARD also helped Frenchwomen gain a foothold in library science by sending students to school in the United States; the story of Marcelle Moreau, though fictional, depicts this achievement. In her Author’s Note, Skeslien Charles explains that “thanks to their curiosity, generosity, and open-mindedness, Cards accomplished great things during and after World War I, in France and at home” (306).