Categorie: Blog English

The decorated flour sacks resonate the conflict that created them. They are trench art made in occupied Belgium. They are: “items made by civilians, from war material directly as they are associated temporally and spatial with the consequences of armed conflict”.
Decorated flour sacks are sacks full of discomfort and paradox. The huge and exaggerated “Tribute to America” is one of them – it contributed to the morale of the population in occupied Belgium.*)

USA and Canada
75% of the decorated flour sacks I have found are flour sacks originating from the United States, from 10% the origin is unknown.

15% originated from Canada. Examples include: “Flour. Canada’s Gift; Flour Canada’s Gift, Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd., Keewatin, Canada; Belgian Relief County of Perth, Canada; Farine offerte par les Citoyens de Valleyfield (prov. Quebec, Canada) aux habitants de l’Héroique Belgique”, and so on: see table.

 

In Belgium: American flour sacks/ “sacs américains”
Yet all flour sacks are in common parlance known in Belgium as “American flour sacks” and “sacs américains”, regardless of their origin being the United States or Canada.

What is striking is that donations from Canada have been embroidered and painted by the Belgians with USA symbols, the flag, the coat of arms and the portrait of the American plenipotentiary minister in Brussels, Brand Whitlock. The texts pay tribute to “America”:
– Merci à l’Amérique
– Merci aux Etats-Unis!
– Vive l’Amérique
– A la noble Amérique si bienfaisante, la Belgique reconnaissante. Amour à notre Reine. Mère des soldats. Gloire à notre Roi. Chef de nos héros.

Some flour sacks pay tribute to Canada.

 

Hidden identity of Canadian flour sacks
When doing research on the flour sacks I expected the Canadian flour sacks  to have been decorated in Belgium with a “Tribute to Canada”. But they are not.
Was my assumption incorrect?
Why would the Canadian identity of the sacks be hidden under USA symbolism? Six motives occur to me.

1. Were the young Belgian embroiderers and the Belgian artists unfamiliar with the distinction between the countries USA and Canada? This is unlikely because they belonged to the wealthy part of the population and were well educated. Furthermore, they knew that Canadian soldiers were fighting on the side of the Allies.

2. Or, a practical consideration: did the Belgian food committees prefer to keep the real, original, American flour sacks for themselves? Did they therefore make a surplus of the Canadian flour sacks available to be transformed into war souvenirs destined for America?!

3. Would the import of Canadian foodstuffs have raised questions with the German occupier? Canada had joined the war following its mother country Great Britain; the United States was neutral and would not join the war until April 1917.

4. Could it have been the influence of American journalists and war photographers? They were allowed to move freely in occupied Belgium. Their Canadian, British and French colleagues were gone. The American newspapers had been involved in extensive relief campaigns for “Poor Little Belgium”. Their journalists in Belgium were encouraged to send proof of receipt of provisions in convincing, visible expressions of gratitude.
Were the Canadian benefactors not interested in Belgian thanks?

5. Or does it emphasize that for citizens in occupied Belgium, the tribute to America was all-encompassing propaganda through which they fulfilled their patriotic duty as they could express themselves in patriotism? Was it the counterpart of the general propaganda abroad shaping a dramatic “Poor Little Belgium” image of a devastated country? At the beginning of the conflict, such exaggerations helped to arouse public sympathy for the Belgian cause.**)

6. Did the ambiguous attitude of the British play a role?
Great Britain, in control of Canada’s foreign affairs, had militarily put itself on the front line as protector of the nation of Belgium, welcomed Belgian refugees, but abandoned the population of occupied Belgium. In fact, the mighty British nation prevented the much-needed access to food through a complete trade blockade and sea mines in front of all Belgian ports. Could the Canadian identity have been hidden due to the antipathy for its relationship to the United Kingdom?

Anyway, the sympathy of the citizens in occupied Belgium went to the nation they expected to rescue them: “America”.***)

“America would save us”
Belgium was occupied by Germany in August 1914, the borders were closed, the trade blockade of Great Britain made import of bread grain impossible. Diplomatic negotiations with neutral countries opened the borders for food supplies.

‘Mais non, le pays ne pouvait pas mourir, ne voulait pas mourir. (…)
l’Amérique avait donné l’espoir qu’elle nous sauverait…’[1]
(‘But no, the country could not die and would not die. (…)
America gave us hope that it would save us…’)

Cargoes of American and Canadian bread flour arrived in Belgium via the port of Rotterdam between November 1914 and May 1915. To protect the supplies from being seized by the German occupiers, the provisions were stored in Belgium under the protection of the neutral USA flag and American citizens were stationed in occupied Belgium to supervise.

The supplies of bread flour were delivered successively to Belgian bakeries, they emptied the flour sacks and baked bread.
The emptied, attractively printed “American” sacks caught the attention of the public. The conviction was that the senders of the sacks – the benefactors in “America” – had guaranteed the survival of the Belgian people.

Background to the food imports
In October 1914, the Belgian Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation (CNSA) had found itself in London to enable the import of food in occupied Belgium. Their partner in the effort became the international, private, purchasing agency, the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), based in London, Great Britain, but staffed by European-based “neutral” Americans. [1A]

According to high-minded Belgian expectations, the CRB would perform a dual task:
(…) c’est lui qui provoquera l’esprit de solidarité et la générosité mondiale et amassera les trésors qu’on lui enverra; c’est lui qui dirigera vers la Belgique les dons en nature qu’il aura reçus et les vivres qu’il aura achetés pour elle.[2]

(1. “(…) the Commission will arouse the spirit of solidarity and universal generosity and gather the treasures that will be sent to it;
2. the Commission will remit to Belgium the donations in kind that it has received and the food that it will buy with them.”)

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‘Reconnaissance pour les Etats-Unis
Les délégués américains et espagnols de Londres et Bruxelles ont réussi de faire importer en Belgique, malgré la guerre des grains et autres produits alimentaires. Nous leur en sommes très reconnaissants et dans ce conflit européen, la diplomatie n’a executé de plus bel et plus noble ouvrage.’[3]

(Despite the war the American and Spanish delegates from London and Brussels have succeeded in importing grain and other food products into Belgium. We are very grateful and in this European conflict, diplomacy has been carried out in the most beautiful and noble way.)

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The world came to Belgium’s aid
The world came to help, causing occupied Belgium to expect yet another useful task from the CRB.
“La Commission for Relief in Belgium avait encore, en Belgique, une autre charge dont les effets étaient utiles au pays.
Lorsqu’on nous fait une faveur, lorsqu’on nous accorde une grâce, ou que nous jouissons d’un bienfait, n’est-il pas d’une âme bien née de montrer à celui qui nous a assistés que nous sommes dignes des égards qu’il a manifestés pour nous? Comment le lui prouver autrement qu’en l’associant jusqu’aux plus petits faits de notre existence.
Le monde nous secourait, il fallait qu’il sut ce que nous faisions de ses secours et la Commission for Relief devait être là pour le dire.”[4]

(“The CRB performed another useful task for Belgium.
When someone grants you a favor, a privilege, or a benefit, it is fitting that you, as a well-mannered person, let the person who gave the support know that you deserve the attention you are receiving.
What better way to show the benefactor that you are worthy than by connecting him with the smallest events of your existence? The world came to our aid, so the people of the world had to know what we were doing with its aid, and the Commission for Relief had to be there to tell them.”)

Reuse of the flour sacks – propaganda
The reuse, transformation and decoration of the flour sacks offered the makers – the schoolgirls, young women and artists – the opportunity to connect the benefactors “with the smallest events in their existence” and to let the world know what the Belgian population had done with the relief. For a second time, the flour sacks were used for charity.

In an organized manner, the makers were able to translate their strong patriotism into heroic images and symbolism. It enabled them to fulfill their charitable duty as well as to conduct patriotic propaganda.[4A] The censorship of the German occupier and the blockade by the British navy led to a strong link of Belgian patriotism with American symbolism. A few individual cases showing Canadian symbolism formed the exception to the rule.

The tribute to America thoroughly exaggerated
The “Tribute to America” on the flour sacks was thus thoroughly exaggerated in February, March 1915. After all, the sacks would all be sent back to the USA to be sold for new food relief.

“American flour sacks.
All over Belgium, ladies and painters are now working hard to decorate hundreds and hundreds of empty flour sacks from the American Relief Fund by needlework or painting. (…) All this is being prepared, (…) to be sent to America as a tribute from the Belgians for the relief provided by America, and it promises to be a worthy tribute, because it will include work by first masters.”[5]

“While all kinds of supplies are coming to us from the billion-dollar country to help the Belgian population in distress and need, our female element has sought and found a way with such fine tact and generous feeling to show the Americans a token of deep gratitude.”[6]

“We are still well supplied with food: America provides everything. Long live America! We receive flour and patent flour every week (…) We now, to show our gratitude to our benefactors, embroider empty flour sacks with three-coloured drawings and the inscription: «Het dankbaar Opwijck aan de Vereenigde Staten» (grateful Opwijck to the United States), and others. (…) This is how they work in all villages and it seems that our work will sell in dollars to the billionaires who want memorials of deeply ravaged Belgium. The proceeds are for us.”[7]

The paradox of gratitude – frugal donations from America
Now the paradox of gratitude, the “Tribute to America” on the flour sacks, comes in.
The promise that the decorated sacks would be sent back and would yield a large return for new relief was not fulfilled.

• The intention to ship the decorated flour sacks to the US, – announced with great enthusiasm – only took place after the Armistice, with the exception of a shipment that was sent to New York in 1915 for propaganda purposes.[8] The sacks raised a minor amount of dollars for the relief work.
• The people of the United States donated only a few percent of the food imports.[9]
  The Canadian population contributed more on average per capita.[9A]

“Sadly far from true”
The American CRB representatives have explicitly told the world time and again that the American contributions were frugal.

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Laurence Wellington – Province of Luxembourg:
‘Mr. Wellington (…) brought with him many interesting souvenirs of his work in Belgium, including several American flour sacks artistically painted by women and children in that province.

“Americans are the real people in Belgium,” said Mr. Wellington. “They do not seem to be able to sufficiently show their gratitude for what the American people, through the Commission, have done for them. The commonest expression to be heard everywhere by the Americans in Belgium is:- “Sauf par vous, nous serons morts de faim”;- “But for you we would have starved to death.”[10]

Samuel Seward jr.-Province of Limburg:
To the Belgians the relief that has come to them is a very simple thing – the practical expression of your providential, generous sympathy. And their response is as simple and direct. What matter that the complex significance of the Commission escapes them – its wide international scope, its unique diplomatic problems, its efficient engineering methods of administration?
(…) for the average notary in his village, the peasant on his farm, or the nun in her convent, the one great fact is enough, – that actual hunger threatened them- when a great, friendly nation stepped in, in time, to save. (…)
One of my occupations at times of leisure was to say “Thank you” for some of the presents that came pouring into the office- not personal presents, but expressions of gratitude to you in America and elsewhere, friends whom those in Belgium had never seen. The favorite form was to take a flour sack, preferably one that had been specially stamped as gift flour from a certain town or mill, and to ornament it variously, with embroidery, drawn work, painting, in symbols of friendly “reconnaissance.” Sofa pillows were made in this way, table covers, workbags, tea-cosies, little dresses, even, and quaintly shaped caps.’[10A]

Edward Eyre Hunt, province of Antwerp:
‘There was something almost ritualistic in the reiteration of their gratitude.’[11]

Charlotte Kellogg, née Hoffman:
‘Mrs. Kellogg said that there is great gratitude in Belgium towards the United States. “The mass of people in Belgium believe that we are doing everything, even though this is sadly far from true,” she said. “In money the United States has taken care of Belgium about one month of the two and one quarter years of the war.”[12]

Frederic Chatfield, Province of Liège:
‘The country is given credit far beyond its merits. ‘I felt a sense of shame. It seemed as if I were receiving this extraordinary tribute of which I was not worthy. (…) The Belgians give America all the credit for the relief that is saving their lives. The work is carried on by Americans, our stores are known as American stores, $150.000.000 worth of foodstuffs have been purchased in the US and bear the American label.
France and England notwithstanding the heavy expenses of the war are providing the CRB with $10.000.000 a month, more than the US has contributed in nearly two years and a half. Knowing this it is no wonder I felt that I was the unworthy recipient of a great honor.
(…) he presented me with a large bouquet of roses, and this is what he said as he pressed the flowers into my hand: “If we had known that one day these roses would come into the hands of an American, we would have cultivated them with greater care.”
That was the sentiment. It was not for Fred Chatfield that the good wishes, the admiration, the eternal gratitude of this people was expressed, but for an American, typifying the regard of the Belgians for America and all Americans.’[13]

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Food shortages and famine
The propaganda for the food supply of occupied Belgium has always been so strong that to this day the reality is hard to face. The preserved tributes on the “American flour sacks/sacs américains” contribute to the continued formation of the myth.

“The idea that (American) philantropy spared Belgian children from going hungry is blatantly untrue.” (Nel de Mûelenaere, 2021). [14a]

In total, the relief for occupied Belgium failed in food aid, local food production and distribution. The import of food covered a maximum of 25% of the needs; in 1915 it helped to control prices; in the years 1916-1918 there were major shortages and famine.[14b]

Has Canada been thanked?
In September 1914, Belgians living in Canada had taken the initiative to collect relief supplies for Belgium via the Œuvre de Secours pour les Victimes de la Guerre en Belgique established in Ottawa and Montreal.[15] The Canadian population, already involved in the war, responded enthusiastically and collected many relief supplies and money. The Canadian ships with relief supplies were among the first to arrive in Rotterdam.

As a result, Emile Francqui, director of the CNSA in Brussels, wrote a letter of thanks to the treasurer of the Œuvre de Secours pour les Victimes de la Guerre en Belgique, H. Prud’homme in Montreal, on 15 December 1914. He addressed Prud’homme as a Belgian and fellow countryman, he thanked him for the goods that were so welcome in “your unfortunate country”:
“C’est à vous que nous devons cet heureux résultat et nous ne pourrons jamais assez dire combien nous vous en sommes reconnaissants et jusqu’à quel point vous avez là servi les intérêts de votre malheureux pays.
(…) avec nos remerciements et ceux de milliers de gens que vous avez ainsi secourus (…)”[16]
(“It is to you that we owe this happy result and we can never express sufficiently how grateful we are to you and to what extent you have served the interests of your unfortunate country. (…) with our thanks and those of thousands of people whom you have thus helped (…)”)

A surprising insight: the Canadian identity of the sacks might also be hidden under USA symbolism, because the Canadian benefactors and/or the organizers of Canadian relief for Belgium were Belgians living overseas…

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Table of contents: blogs on the Canadian flour sacks:
Lake of the Woods Milling Company, Keewatin, Kenora, Canada

Canadese bloemzakken met Belgische dank aan het ‘Moederland’

One million bags of flour from Canada to Great Britain

Dank van Puers/Flour Canada’s Gift

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Footnotes:
*) Sophie de Schaepdrijver used the expression “gigantisch opgeblazen” (“thoroughly exaggerated”) for the authority of American plenipotentiary minister Brand Whitlock in Belgium. The idea was that American protection contributed to the morale in occupied Belgium.
“Whitlock was attributed greater power than he actually possessed; his title of “ministre protecteur” of the food relief was gigantically blown-up to the “protector of the entire country against the greed and arbitrariness of the occupier”.”
DE SCHAEPDRIJVER, S., De Groote Oorlog. Het koninkrijk België tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog, 1998, p. 114-115

**)JAUMAIN, S., Un regard original sur la Belgique en guerre. Le Devoir de Montréal (1914-1918). In: Michael Amara et al., Une Guerre total? La Belgique dans la Première Guerre mondiale. Nouvelles tendances de la recherche historique. Bruxelles, 2005 p. 343-365. 5.3.  « Un pays dévasté? », p. 357

***) PROCTOR, T.M., “U.S. Food Aid and the Expectation of Gratitude, 1914-1950“, 2011. The validation of American aid to foreign countries became dependent on the gratitude of aid recipients. It determined the relationship between the US and European countries. “American leaders called for assistance for war victims with the understanding and expectation that Europeans would not only understand and welcome the aid, but would also show appropriate gratitude.”
Proctor’s newest book was recently published: PROCTOR, T.M., Saving Europe. First World War Relief and American Identity. Oxford University Press, 2025. She also wrote a blog about the current American foreign aid policy: “The end of the “American Century”?”, Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World, 16 February 16, 2025.

[1] PICARD, E., Heures de Détresse. L’Œuvre du Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation et de la Commission for Relief in Belgium. Belgique 1914 – 1915. Bruxelles: CNSA, L’ Imprimerie J -E Goossens SA, 1915, p. 17

[1A] PROCTOR, T.M., London & the Making of Herbert Hoover. Blog on the website North American Conference on British Studies, January 17, 2025

[2] Heures de Détresse, p. 20

[3] Lloyd anversois: journal maritime emanant des courtiers de navires, December 25, 1914

[4] Heures de Détresse, p. 21

[4A] DE SCHAEPDRIJVER, S., Shaping the Experience of Military Occupation: Ten Images. In: Rossi-Schrimpf, Inga, Kollwelter, Laura, 14/18 – Rupture or Continuity. Belgian Art around World War I. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018, p. 43-58.

[5] De Vlaamsche Stem: algemeen Belgisch dagblad, June 12, 1915

[6] De Kempenaar, March 21, 1915

[7] Brief van Celine Geeurickx-Moens in Opwijk, 5 april 1915. Geciteerd in De Belgische Standaard, May 7, 1915

^[8] America Feeding Belgian Children, Literary Digest, February 12, 1916.

[9] WILLIAMS, JEFFERSON and MAYFAIR, The Voluntary Aid of America. New York, London: 1918

[9A] PRINCE, B., Le Canada et la solidarité internationale à la Belgique (1914-1921). L’Œuvre de Secours pour les Victimes de la Guerre en Belgique. In: Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine, LIV, 2024, 1-4.

[10] CRB Press Department, New York, August 9, 1915. HILA 22003 box 324 NY Office PR file 1915-1919

[10A] SEWARD, S.S. Jr., Delegate for Limbourg, Belgium, June – Dec 1915. Professor Samuel Swayze Seward (1876-1932) – HILA Seward (Samuel Swayze) papers 1915-1932; collection nr. 40005

[11] HUNT E.E., War Bread. A Personal Narrative of the War and Relief in Belgium. New York: Henry Holt & Company 1916

[12] The San Francisco Examiner, January 21, 1917

[13] Cincinnati, March 21, 1917. HILA, Frederick H. Chatfield papers 53008 Box 2

[14a] DE MÛELENAERE, N., Still Poor, Still Little, Still Hungry? The Diet and Health of Belgian Children after World War I. In J. Nordstrom (Ed), The Provisions of War: Expanding the Boundaries of Food and Conflict, 1840-1990 (pp.207-217) Article 12 (Food and Foodways). The University of Arkansas Press, 2021

[14b] SCHOLLIERS, P., Oorlog en voeding: de invloed van de Eerste Wereldoorlog op het Belgische voedingspatroon, 1890-1940. Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 11^de jg., nr. 1, February 1985;
NATH, GISELLE, Brood willen we hebben! Honger, sociale politiek en protest tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog in België. Antwerpen: Manteau, 2013

[15] PRUD’HOMME, H., Relief Work for the Victims of the War in Belgium. Report on donations received and shipments made to Belgium since the Work was started up to February 5th, 1915. Montréal, February 5th, 1915

[16] FRANCQUI, E., Letter to H. Prud’homme, Montreal, December 15, 1915. Carbon copy letter in the Belgian State Archives, Brussels.

On August 22nd, 1914, because of the war hundreds of buildings in the center of Charleroi were destroyed in a fire. Les Magasins Raphaël went up in flames. The owner of the department store, the Raphaël Gugenheim-Aaron family, scrambled from the ruins. Within a year they would sell the decorated Belgian relief flour sacks with great dedication for the benefit of the Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation (CNSA).

The elements of this story are purely Belgian, although they have reached me through contacts with multiple American institutions.
The history is fascinating, but by no means complete; hence I have written this blog.

Department store with embroidery thread
In September 2018 I found an online source about a Belgian department store with embroidery thread owned by the Gugenheim family in Charleroi, province Hainaut. [1]

‘In Charleroi, Belgium, Alice Gugenheim’s family had a warehouse of embroidery thread which had been used by the embroidery workers prior to the war. Because of the war there was no material to embroider, and the workers were out of business.
She could find no bleach to remove the writing on the flour sacks, but the fabric was good and strong. Women began enhancing the designs which were used to cover lampshades, waste baskets, tea cozies, pillow covers and even school smocks. The items were sold on a prominent street in Brussels and yielded tens of thousands of gold-standard francs to the Belgium Relief.’

Remarkably, Alice Gugenheim had tried to bleach the Belgian relief flour sacks to remove the printing but was unsuccessful. Then the women had used the prints as patterns.
To know more I contacted the author of the article and asked “who was/is Alice Gugenheim and family who had the warehouse of embroidery thread in Charleroi? Where can I find more information about her?!”

The author, Polly Horn from Sunbury, Ohio, only remembered that the information came from the Hoover Institution in California.
Occupied with other priorities I dropped the subject.

Gugenheim (Alice Aron) Papers [2]
On June 1st, 2022, I was doing research at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives (HILA) in California and received a message with photo included from Samira Bozorgi [3] : “One other reference photo of mine from the Alice Gugenheim Papers”.

An interesting photo featuring ladies, apparently saleswomen, a display of decorated flour sacks and some scribbled names. Where did the photo come from and when was it taken? I was supposed to meet Samira in the Reading Room, but we missed each other.

June Sanders
I then looked up what the Alice Gugenheim Papers were. It turned out to be a box with diary notes, photos, maps, etc. in the French language. The papers had been donated to HILA by Miss June Sanders [3a] in 1961. Unfortunately, it was impossible to request the box due to lack of time.
Again occupied with other priorities I dropped the subject.

Monsieur le Président Hoover
On June 18th, 2022, I was doing research at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library & Museum (HHPLM) in Iowa. In the Reading Room I flipped through boxes and files and saw a photocopy of a postcard addressed to “Monsieur Le Président Hoover” with a photo of a Belgian shop window displaying decorated flour sacks. That looked interesting. Craig Wright, HHPLM’s Supervisory Archivist, searched for the original photo, scanned it, and sent me the digital file. [4]

I filed the photo among my research collection of thousands of digital documents and forgot about it.

The Hoovers and their flour sacks
In June 2023 I was working on the blog The Hoovers and their flour sacks. By chance I saw the scan of the Belgian shop window with display of flour sacks and realized it was a postcard sent by Madame Raphaël Gugenheim, Brussels, to Monsieur le Président Hoover.

Apparently, the Belgian lady had given Mr. Hoover a decorated flour sack as a gift because she asked Hoover to confirm he had received the decorated flour sack. The postcard had been written in 1938, at the time Hoover was in Brussels; the former American president received a royal reception in Belgium.
Anyway, I added the photo of the postcard to the blog and did not give it another thought.

Madame Raphaël GUGENHEIM is Alice AARON
Then Hubert Bovens, specialist in biographical research, read the blog The Hoovers and their flour sacks. He spontaneously started looking for the antecedents of Madame Raphaël Gugenheim. His finds came unexpected and surprised me. “Alice AARON is the wife of Raphaël GUGENHEIM,” Hubert texted, “Both were born in Lorraine, France. They lived in Brussels from 1938.” [5]

Telephone consultation with Hubert followed. Why would a lady of French birth in 1938 donate a decorated flour sack and send such a postcard to Hoover visiting Belgium? Would she have known him personally?

We considered everything, until Hubert revealed that the Gugenheim couple had a daughter, born in Charleroi. Charleroi?
But then, is the name written Gugenheim, or would it be Guggenheim? No, it was definitely Gugenheim.
Hubert continued his research, finding three children of the couple born in Charleroi: Ida, Nathan and Lise; the birth certificates stated their father was “négociant” (salesman).

Grand Magasins Raphaël, Charleroi
The second telephone consultation took place after Hubert had found photos of the Grands Magasins Raphaël on the website “charleroi-decouverte.be”.
The images showed the buildings radiant around 1900, they were prosperous and inviting. This was the department store of the Gugenheim-Aaron family!
This was the Alice Gugenheim from the department store with embroidery thread! The family had a large store in Charleroi, hence the postcards with photos of displayed decorated flour sacks. Everything seemed to come together.

Grand Magasins Raphaël destroyed

However, what followed were shocking photos of the destroyed storefront. That was a big downer. When war broke out and the German army invaded Belgium, the center of Charleroi was set on fire and buildings went up in flames on August 22nd, 1914. Les Magasins de Raphaël lay in ruins, proven by two desolate photos. [6]

Conflict resonance
The photos of the ruins echoed “conflict resonance” as described in Nicholas Saunders’ trench art articles.
‘Industrialised war creates and destroys on a larger scale than any other human activity.
Modern war has an unprecedented capacity to remake individuals, cities and nations, and thus to shape conceptions of individual and collective identity.’[7]

Until that moment I did not believe the history of the decorated Belgian relief flour sacks would be touching on the materiality and Great War landscapes, the material destruction and reconstruction of cities, streets and shops. The elements of Alice Gugenheim-Aaron’s story proved otherwise.

Evidently, the Raphael Gugenheim-Aaron family got back on their feet. Alice and her daughter Ida, together with fellow saleswomen, were confidently depicted on the postcard with decorated flour sacks. This would have been in 1915. Within a year they were eager to sell the decorated flour sacks for the benefit of the CNSA.

To be continued
After August 22nd, 1914, where did the family members rebuild their lives and business? What meaning did they assign to the decorated flour sacks? What international relationships did they have? How did the events of the 20th century shape their lives, leading Madame Raphaël Gugenheim’s box of Belgian WW I war documents to be included as “Alice Aron Gugenheim Papers” in the American Hoover Institution Library & Archives, repository of archival collections pertaining to war, revolution and peace?
That needs to be further investigated.

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Addition December 26, 2023
Evelyn McMillan managed to gain access to the Gugenheim (Alice Aron) Papers at HILA and photographed the album. A valuable document in the historiography of American flour sacks has emerged. You’ll read it in my blog: Rode Kerst, het oorlogsdagboek van Alice Gugenheim.

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Addition May 5, 2024
The war book by Aline Burls, né Bouquié – Les Arts de la Femme [8]

Aline Burls, né Bouquié, had been secretary of the board of “Les Arts de la Femme” in Brussels since 1908. Aline’s cousin was the American Frederic William Meert who lived in Brussels and devoted his best efforts to the Commission for Relief in Belgium from autumn 1914 to summer 1919. Aline and her family with two young sons also lived in Brussels until 1916. Because her eldest son was 15 years old at the time and the German occupier threatened to call up more and more Belgian boys and men for work in Germany, Aline’s family fled Belgium and eventually ended up in Paris. Aline decided to write a book about her experiences “in the Brussels prison, two years under the German yoke“. Her book was published in 1917, she wrote about the sale of the decorated flour sacks:

“Would you believe that several stores had exclusive sales of these sacks?
For example, the large building that the English Red Star Line shipping company had necessarily abandoned, was equipped for this purpose (the shop of Alice Gugenheim and her daughters on Boulevard Anspach – AvK). The cheapest sacks cost four or five francs – they sold them for charity – but there were some “originals” (I mean before they were embroidered or decorated) that were bought and fetched as much as twenty-five or thirty francs each!
When I asked one of the saleswomen (Alice Gugenheim-Aaron?!-AvK) about the sales successes, she told me that there were people who collected flour sacks, and that one amateur had now collected more than 700 different copies. The Cinquantenaire Museum had put together a beautiful collection of 300 artistically decorated specimens.”
(Burls, Aline, né Bouquié, Dans la Geôle Bruxelloise. Deux années sous le joug allemand. 1917, p. 176, 177)

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“Sacks are full of memories. Each sack cherishes a precious and fragile story.”

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Thanks to:
– Hubert Bovens in Wilsele, Belgium, for researching the biographical data, his initiatives and thinking along about the life story of the Gugenheim-A(a)ron family, making the story a purely Belgian decorated flour sacks history.
Hubert also discovered the book by Aline Burls, né Bouquié.
– the contacts in the American institutions who have provided me elements of the Alice Gugenheim history over the years: thanks to Polly Horn, Myers Inn Museum, Sunbury, Ohio; Samira Bozorgi, HILA, Palo Alto, California; Craig Wright, HHPLM, West Branch, Iowa.
– Evelyn McMillan for consultation and photography of the HILA Gugenheim (Alice Aron) Papers coll. no. 61012.

Footnotes:
[1] Polly Horn: ‘Burrer Mill’. Big Walnut Area History, Businesses. Mrs. Polly Horn, director of the Myers Inn Museum in Sunbury, Ohio, is the author of dozens of blogs on the website of the Big Walnut Area Historical Society.
In 2021 Polly Horn invited me to develop a program on the decorated Belgian relief flour sacks. The program is commissioned by the Big Walnut Area Historical Society, Ohio, and is available on YouTube “From Aid to Embroidery in Ohio, USA”.

[2] HILA Gugenheim (Alice Aron) Papers coll. nr. 61012.
Alice Aaron (°Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, F. 1872-02-29 +Paris 1955-03-25); on her birth certificate her maiden name is AARON; in her 1955 death certificate, made in Paris, 15th arrondissement, the name is written with one ‘a’, as ‘ARON’. Subsequently her maiden name is written “ARON” in the HILA archives.

[3] Samira Bozorgi is Assistant Archivist for Exhibitions, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Palo Alto, Ca. She conceived and curated the HILA exhibition Women and the Great War in 2015. See also: Hoover Digest, 2015, No. 2, Spring, p. 188-198

[3a] Miss June Sanders (°Drummond, Mont., VS, 1902 +Carmel, Ca., VS, 1963-07-29) has been Palo Alto High School French teacher, world traveler and a devoted supporter of local music affairs. (June Sanders obituary, The Peninsula Times Tribune, Palo Alto, California, 1963-08-01).

[4] HHPLM 31-1919-66. Postcard Madame Raphaël Gugenheim, Brussel, to Monsieur le Président Hoover, 1938.
In 1938 the Embassy of the USA in Brussels was located Rue de la Science 33 (instead of 38).

[5] Alice Aaron married Raphaël Gugenheim (°Kolbsheim, Bas Rhin, Alsace, F. 09-03-1863 +South of France 1946) in March 1893 in Toul, France. Their three children were all born in Charleroi: Ida °1894-06-06 +1946; Maurice Nathan Simon °1895-10-15 +Paris 1971-01-16 ; Lisa °1896-11-19 +Antibes, F. 1989. From 1938 they lived Rue Antoine Bréart 135, Brussels.
Maurice married Suzanne Galerne, °Bobital, Bretagne, F. 1912 -07-17 +Asnieres-sur-Seine, Ile de France F. 2008-03-04. Lise married a man named Helge sometime between 1939 and 1941.

[6] www.charleroi-decouverte.be: “Grands Magasins Raphaël’

[7] About trench art: Nicholas J. Saunders, Culture, conflict and materiality: the social lives of Great War objects.

[8] Loes Hubrechts, Les Arts de la Femme (1908-1918). Een Brusselse vereniging voor en door vrouwen. (“Woman’s Art (1908-1918). A Brussels association for and by women”). Ghent University, Master’s thesis, 2017

The modern view of the history of the decorated flour sacks in World War I is that they were transformed and decorated by Belgian girls, young women and artists in gratitude for food relief as gifts to the Americans, in particular hundreds of pieces of “artwork” were given as gifts to American former president Herbert Hoover. [1]

Uncertain if “artworks” were presents for Hoover
My first encounter with an embroidered flour sack immediately called this notion into question. My sensory, tactile experience was part of this process. I saw, felt and smelled a piece of cotton in which flour had been packed, holes had been punched, on which a pattern had been embroidered with various embroidery stitches in different colors -brand names and logos of aid organizations and mills-, a piece of lace had been attached, a ribbon had been threaded through a traditionally made buttonhole; the cotton smelled slightly musty and from time to time flour residue fell out.
The embroidered years “1914 – 1915” marked the early years of the fierce war, battles, roaring cannons, muddy trenches, executions, gas attacks, prisoners of war and refugees. The flags and national colors of Belgium, the USA and Canada showed a deeply felt patriottisme.

Would these flour sacks really have been worthy gifts for the Hoovers who would become President and First Lady of the United States a decade later?

My doubt grew stronger when I studied the collection list of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum (HHPLM), I got an impression of the quality of the work, the choice of sacks from the same origin (American Commission), the repetitions in embroidery and needlework, such as “good night bags”, tea cozies, tablecloths, aprons and book covers. How could the abundance of school projects be explained? Did the Hoovers indeed keep these as souvenirs at home?

The social life of the decorated flour sacks
The meaning I assign to the flour sacks will be different from what the Hoovers assigned to the sacks. In comparison to them I am alive a whole century later; I am of a generation that has not personally experienced war; I grew up in Dutch culture; I did not work – or partner with anyone – in a prominent position in international business and later in national politics; I have not lived outside my country of nationality for many years; I didn’t move or have multiple houses to decorate.
I realize that in 2023 I occupy a different position in history.

---

The decorated flour sacks of WWI are trench art, they are items made by civilians directly from materials associated in time and place with the consequences of armed conflict.
Decorated flour sacks have a “social life” as objects, we humans come into contact with them, they move with us in time and space. [2]

---

The Hoovers and the decorated flour sacks
During my American Sack Trip in 2022, I found a number of connections between the Hoovers and the decorated flour sacks. They follow chronologically.

During WWI
1915 – New York
Lou Hoover had interfered in the sale of decorated flour sacks in the US. She received a letter from a friend in New York who suggested selling “the touching flour sacks which could be used for porch pillow covers in the country and for laundry bags and various things” for $1.50 to $2. (1915) [3]

Herbert Hoover wrote a letter to William C. Edgar asking him to order more decorated flour sacks as the Belgian children were still “industriously embroidering” them. [4]

1916 – Antwerp, Belgium
Piet van Engelen’s “Rooster on an oak branch at dawn”, flour sack “A.B.C.” was presented to Herbert Hoover as director of the CRB in July 1916 in Antwerp. [5]

After WWI
1919/1920 – Victor Horta
Lou Hoover was decorating her new home in California. She had written letters to Belgian architect Victor Horta about the furnishing of her Stanford home on the university campus, wanting a separate room designed specifically for Belgian memorabilia with a display rack for decorated flour sacks. [6]

1924 – Brooklyn Scouts
In 1924 Lou Hoover established a connection of the Brooklyn Girl Scouts with the Friends of Belgium who donated a flour sack painted by Paul Jean Martel to the Girl Scouts in gratitude for their contribution to the food relief. A ceremony in New York was held with the Belgian ambassador, but Lou Hoover was not able to attend. [7]

1928 – Oostkamp, Belgium
Lou Hoover received an Oregon journalist at the Hoovers’ home in Washington. The journalist was shown an embroidered flour sack pillow from Portland, Oregon. The newspaper article described that the cushion was inside a dark, carved wooden box. On the pillow rested a Belgian acknowledgment written on parchment. The Belgian souvenirs were in Herbert Hoover’s study. [8]

During my research at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives (HILA), I photographed the pillow. The embroidered acknowledgment reads: “’t Dankbare Oostcamp aan hunne geliefde Weldoeners van Amerika.” ([From] The Grateful Oostcamp to their beloved Benefactors of America.) *)

It is a satin pillow embroidered with silk threads. The bottom is finished with a cotton flour sack of Oregon origin. The brand name is Cascadia from Portland Milling Co., Portland, Oregon.

The silk cushion was embroidered by the Sisters Maricolen on behalf of the Oostkamp municipal council, which paid 300 francs for the piece. The cushion was gifted to Mr. Brand Whitlock, American minister plenipotentiary in Belgium!
Apparently, the pillow later ended up in the Hoover household and was combined with the gilden, carved box and the parchment. [9]

The beautiful Belgian souvenir from Oostkamp, given as a gift to America, has led a life of its own over the past hundred years. It is a showpiece that likes to be displayed. On TV footage, the pillow and gilded box were shown by Dare Stark McMullin, Hoover’s secretary. [9c]

1938 – Pierre Beeckmans, Antwerp, Belgium

In 1938, Herbert Hoover travelled to Brussels and received a painted Chicago Evening Post flour sack as a gift from Pierre (Petrus) Beeckmans, Antwerp. Beeckmans writes in his covering letter to Hoover dated February 22, 1938, that the flour sack “remembers excellently the remarkable philanthropic work you accomplished during the tragical years of the Belgian people”. [10]

In his letter, Beekmans refers to the year 1915 and to the original flour sack which had been in his family since that year. But still, there is something very strange about this flour sack.
I think is likely that the painting and a stamp of the “Orphans of the War” were only designed and applied in 1937/38 at Beeckmans’s request.
First, the flour sack was not painted in 1915 but is certainly painted after the Armistice as the years 1914-1918 are depicted.
Secondly the painting of the nine Belgian provincial flags is suggestive. The Belgian flag is missing; during the war years, the flag and/or the colors black, yellow, and red were always part of the decorated sacks’ iconography.
In third place a stamp on the reverse side of the sack mentions the “Orphans of the War”. The stamp’s design, the drawing and the font, is modern and businesslike, with a distinguished appearance. During the war years of 1914-1918, such a stamp did not appear on any flour sack.

Beekmans donated the painted flour sack to Mr. Hoover on his own behalf, not at the behest of the Antwerp authorities. Beeckmans had an “Agency that prepares and carries out all publicity” and likely sought attention for himself and his work in 1938.

Beeckmans responsible for the Persecution of Jews in WWII
Pierre (Petrus) Beeckmans (born in Gooik, Belgium, on August 10, 1894) was a front-line soldier in WWI and got wounded. He rose through the ranks of reserve cadre to lieutenant in the infantry and, after the war, served in the Belgian occupation forces in Germany.
Pierre Beeckmans was an outspoken, far-right Belgian nationalist and anti-Jewish. During WWII, he worked for the Anti-Jewish Central for Flanders and Wallonia, which he led from 1943. Upon liberation, Beeckmans fled to Germany but was arrested in May 1945. During the Volksverwering (People’s Defense) trial, he was sentenced to death; the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1952; he was released in April 1960, at the age of 75. [10a]

1938 – Brussels, Alice Gugenheim 

A postcard has been preserved addressed to Monsieur le Président Hoover, Ambassade d’Amérique, rue de la Science 38, Bruxelles, sender Madame Raphaël Gugenheim, in which she asks him if he has received an embroidered flour sack “en symbole de temps de guerre et de la reconnaissance présente et durable.” (as a symbol of wartime and present and enduring recognition.) [11]

1941 – Stanford University
On the occasion of the opening of Hoover Tower at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Ca., in June 1941, Herbert Hoover visited the Hoover Institution’s Flour Sack Exhibit. [12]

60’s (?) – New York
The embroidered flour sack “Comet” by Globe Mills, Los Angeles, California, graced the couch in Mr. Hoover’s apartment at the Waldorf Astoria, New York.[13]

Conclusion as follows from this chronology:
The Hoovers came into contact with the decorated flour sacks and the objects moved with them in time and space.
During the war, both Lou and Herbert Hoover helped to distribute the decorated flour sacks; Herbert Hoover was gifted one decorated flour sack.
After the war, Lou Hoover decorated her home with Belgian memorabilia, consciously showing it to her guests; she helped distribute remaining sacks from the CRB archive.
Herbert Hoover has received decorated flour sacks from Belgian admirers. He once visited an exhibition of the decorated flour sacks in the basement of Hoover Tower.

What did the war memorabilia mean to the Hoovers, what did the flour sacks remind them of?

The Hoovers during the War
The Hoovers, both 40 years old in 1914, were a prominent couple in the international business world. Herbert Hoover was born in Iowa but grew up in Oregon. Lou Henry Hoover was born in Iowa and grew up in California. They were both Stanford mining engineers, he led major global mining projects for raw materials and minerals for industry, she was his sounding board and he hers, they were a team. She created the conditions that made it possible for them to live and work, her task consisted of the home(s), the social networks, the schooling of their two sons. Their wealth was considerable; the Hoovers had the American nationality, but from 1899 they had been living and working outside the American continent, they had settled in London. Their network mainly consisted of American (mining) engineers, who just like them were both internationally active and established.

When Herbert Hoover was asked in October 1914 by the American ambassador Page to dedicate himself from London as director of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) to the supply of food to occupied Belgium, he agreed.
At the time Lou Henry Hoover was with their two sons Herbert Jr, age 11, and Allan, age 7, in California; she had brought the sons to safety from the dangers of the war in Europe. [14]

In California, Lou Henry Hoover worked tirelessly to get relief work for the population of occupied Belgium and the Belgian refugees.

Lou intended to stay in California with her sons. Herbert wanted his wife as a teammate next to him in London: “want you here mightily”. [15]
Lou gave in. She reluctantly left their sons in the hands of family and friends. Aware of the danger of war, she wrote farewell letters to her children in New York in case she would not survive the ocean crossing to the UK. [16] She departed New York on November 25, 1914.

Lou Hoover traveled back to America
Six months later Lou Hoover traveled back to New York in early June 1915. An unimaginable event had happened.

Their dear friend Lindon W. Bates Jr., son of Lindon W. Bates, Vice President of the CRB in New York, and Josephine White Bates, President of the CRB’s Woman’s Section, had not survived the Lusitania ship disaster. The German submarine U-Boat 20 had attacked the British passenger ship with torpedoes. Lindon Bates Jr. helped rescue his fellow passengers to the end but did not survive himself. Weeks later his body was found on the coast of Ireland. Bates Jr. was on his way to the Hoovers in London to receive instructions about the CRB work he was to undertake in Europe.

Lou Hoover gave an impressive speech at the memorial service in New York in which she said, among other things:
“I speak in the name of womanhood and of childhood (…) For woman and for children he laid down his life and over his sacrifice we reach the sacred hands of maternity in benediction. He remained until the end, helping and comforting. Only as the ship gave her final plunge did he dive, but the suction had become too great for mortal combat.” [17]

Lou Hoover traveled on to California and reunited with her sons; from then on, she would not leave the boys alone during the war.

1919 – After the war – Belgian possessions
Lou Hoover was not the woman to refer to the personal war memories described above in relation to the flour sacks.

In December 1919, a year after the war Lou Hoover was focused on the design and furnishing of her new Stanford home: “the grouping and arrangement of various Belgian possessions.” She asked Belgian architect Victor Horta for advice and wrote him a letter. [18]

“I have many pieces of the most beautiful Belgian lace of the war period, many of them being of large table size. (…) On the other wall or at some point a panel might open to show a loop recess in which were many thin hinged panels, like those in art exhibitions mentioned, on which hung a selection of the quaint embroidered flour sacks presented by the Belgian girls.”

In her description of a painting by Baer of a Belgian peasant girl I read – mutatis mutandis – the significance of Belgian lace and embroidered flour sacks and the memories they evoke for her.
“For instance, there is a very wonderful thing of a peasant girl done by Baer. (…) There is really nothing to describe but the repressed sadness of her face with its downcast eyes and the unutterable pathos of her peasant hand crushing a tear stained handkerchief. (…) we see her with the indefinite background of a ruined village.”

She continued: “But in those old days of before 1918, we used to say she was simply Belgium, sturdy in her sorrow, and even though with unutterable sadness in her heart, ready to look up and meet the problems before her when a turn of fate should come.”

Four months later Lou wrote again to Victor Horta. [19]
“Of course we have such happy memories of Belgium, although we saw her at her saddest. She was so wonderfully brave and marvelously in every way, that we could not be but lost in admiration for her and her people.”

Lou Hoover desired a Flemish interior for war memories
In the continuation of her letter to Victor Horta an illustration can be seen of Lou Hoover’s attachment and preference to making and including physical memories of Belgium during the war.

For her new house she preferred to furnish a room completely in Belgian style. The best way to accomplish this would be to acquire old Flemish wood-carved panelling from one or more destroyed houses and ship it to California.
“And of course, we have some very lovely Belgian things which have been given my husband as souvenirs of war days. My idea was to gather these all together in one room, and to have it decorated in purely Belgian style.
I could think of nothing better than some old Flemish panelling and carving. To me that would be lovely.
Would it be possible to find a room of appropriate decoration, which would be for sale? There must be a goodly number of old houses partly demolished by the war, where owners will wish to sell what is left, – and of them some one ought to be of suitable size and type for possible readjustment.”

She added in her letter that it would have to fit within her budget.

Conclusion
The story of the Hoovers and the decorated flour sacks shows that for them the flour sacks were symbols of gratitude, souvenirs of the war and occupation of Belgium. In view of Hoover’s presidency, the decorated flour sacks even became status symbols of humanitarian aid.

But bringing together the social lives of the sacks and the Hoovers in words and images adds another dimension. The Belgian possessions, including a few decorated flour sacks belonging to the Hoovers were, above all, artifacts that embodied their intense, human experiences during and after the war.

 

NB. The hundreds of pieces of “artwork” were not a gift to the American president-to-be, Herbert Hoover. Thousands of thanks, including decorated flour sacks, were sent from Belgium and gifted to “the American people”.

 

*) Read my article in the Oostkamp Historical Society’s Newsletter:
Van Kempen, Annelien, Een Oostkamps borduurwerk gekoesterd door Amerika’s first lady (An Oostkamp embroidery cherished by America’s first lady). Oostkamp, Nieuwsbrief Heemkring Oostkamp, jrg 24, nr. 1, september 2023

Thanks
– Thanks to Matt Schaeffer, archivist of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, West Branch, Iowa. Matt wrote the Hoover Head “What You Learn After You Know it all is What Matters”, after we visited the exhibition at the museum together on June 22, 2022. He then extracted Lou Henry Hoover’s letters to Victor Horta, 1919/1920 from the archives. He realized after all these years that Lou Hoover definitely didn’t prioritize the decorated flour sacks in the decorative decor of her Stanford home.

– Thanks to Hubert Bovens in Wilsele, Belgium, for his searches of biographical data.

– Thanks to Wim Deneweth, author of the book “Oostkamp en Hertsberge in de Eerste Wereldoorlog, Heemkring Oostkamp, 2017”, (Oostkamp and Hertsberge in the First World War, Historical Society Oostkamp, 2017), for his information about the embroidered, silk pillow/flour sack ‘Cascadia’, Portland, Oregon, of the municipality of Oostkamp.

 

Footnotes
[1] Montgomery, Marian Ann J., Cotton & Thrift. Feed Sacks and the Fabric of American Households. Lubbock, Texas: Museum of Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Press, 2019.

[2] Saunders, Nicholas J., Culture, conflict and materiality: the social lives of Great War objects.

[3] HHPLM 31-Ihh-sub-b082-08 Belgian Flour Sacks undated letter to Lou Henry Hoover from New York (appr. 1915).

[4] Letter Herbert Hoover, CRB London, to William C. Edgar, Northwestern Miller, Minneapolis, Minn. December 13, 1915. HHPLM curator files.

[5] HHPLM 62.4.447. L’Indépendance Belge, parut en Angleterre, August 22, 1916.

[6] Letters from Lou Henry Hoover, Palo Alto, Ca. to Victor Horta, Brussels, Belgium, December 13, 1919, and April 30, 1920. HHPLM Lou Hoover Subject File box 145 Stanford house 1920.

[7] The Friends of Belgium: Whether the Brooklyn Girl Scouts still own the flour sack, painted by Paul Jean Martel, I have not been able to find out.

[8] Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon) April 22, 1928. Lou Henry Hoover was in Washington, wanting to avoid journalist’s questions about her husband’s candidacy for president, so she suggested checking out Herbert Hoover’s study and “Belgium’s unique gift” but left this to an assisting friend.

[9]
9a) HILA 62008 box 20.1.
Oostcamp (now: Oostkamp) is located in the province of West Flanders, south of Bruges. Wim Deneweth of the Historical Society Oostkamp provided information on the embroidered silk pillow. The chronicle of Georges Claeys “Oostkamp onder de oorlog (Oostkamp under the war) 1914-1918”, (early 1970s, own limited edition, stencilled) is stating that the pillow was embroidered by the Sisters Maricolen, commissioned by the municipal council. The Sisters asked for a contribution of 300 francs, which the city council approved.
(Today the Sisters Maricolen live with 18 sisters in four communities in Bruges and the surrounding area.)

9b) The handwritten note “Document, on parchment in gilt wood box with embroidered satin pillow. Flour sack back – Oregon- embroidery Oostcamp. Handmade by City of Antwerp.”) is on a document in the HHPLM-curator files.
It is the photocopied statement to grant Herbert Hoover, director of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, “le droit de cite” (the city rights) by Mayor and Aldermen of the City of Antwerp, according to a decree of November 18, 1918. (Letter written on parchment from the Mayor and Aldermen of Antwerp, December 5, 1918.)
The HILA staff sent me a photo of the gilded box. This turned out to be a gift from the City of Antwerp to Herbert Hoover, director of the Commission for Relief in Belgium.

Note: the pillow/flour sack (HILA 62008 box 20.1), the gilded wood-carved box and the parchment are in HILA’s collections.

9c) Dare Stark McMullin (1896-1974). Dare Stark McMullin papers, HILA, Palo Alto, Ca.

[10] HHPLM 65.27.13. Pierre Beeckmans, Antwerp, letter February 22, 1938. HHPLM curator files.

[10a] Saerens, Lieven, HET ARCHIEF PIERRE BEECKMANS, een nieuw licht op de Joodse gemaanschap en de Jodenvervolging in België. (THE PIERRE BEECKMANS ARCHIVES, a new light on the Jewish community and the persecution of Jews in Belgium). SOMA Berichtenblad 40 – June 2007, p. 26-31.

[11] HILA Gugenheim (Alice Aron) Papers coll. nr. 61012.
HHPLM 31-1919-66. Postcard Madame Raphaël Gugenheim, Brussels, to Monsieur le Président Hoover, 1938.
In 1938 the Embassy of the United States of America in Brussels was located Rue de la Science 33 (instead of 38).
Alice Aaron (°Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, F. 1872-02-29 +Paris 1955-03-25) married Raphaël Gugenheim (ºKolbsheim, Bas Rhin, Alsace, F. 1863-03-09 +1946) in Toul, France, March 1893. From 1938 they lived rue Antoine Bréart 135, Brussels.

[12] Photo HHPLM 1941-68A [Allan Hoover 1980]

[13] HHPLM 65.2.3. Foto Drucker – Hilbert Co., Inc. New York, 4393#10. HILA Herbert Hoover Subject Collection 62008 envelope BBB.

[14] Durlap, Annette B., A Woman of Adventure. The Life and Times of First Lady Lou Henry Hoover’. Potomac Books, 2022, p.74.

[15] Telegram Herbert Hoover to Lou Hoover, November 18, 1914. HHPLM Lou Henry Hoover Papers, box 082.

[16] Durlap, p. 76.

[17] Lou Henry Hoover: “Womanhood pays tribute to Bates”, speech at the memorial service for Lindon W. Bates jr. in New York on the evening of June 10, 1915, New York Tribune, 1915-06-11. HHPLM: BAEF: CRB London Office News Cuttings, 1915 May-August (Box 24).

[18] Lou Henry Hoover to Victor Horta, December 13, 1919. HHPLM Lou Hoover Subject File box 145 Stanford house 1920.

[19] Lou Henry Hoover to Victor Horta, April 30, 1920. HHPLM Lou Hoover Subject File box 145 Stanford house 1920.
I am unaware if any of Lou Henry Hoover’s plans were actually realized.

 

My previous blog about the German occupiers and the Belgian Relief flour sacks generated several responses that made me reflect on my findings. In particular, this response from Nick Saunders: “Fantastic example of trench art, at the other extreme from the shell cases, but still full of conflict resonance”!? [1]

Far from trench art
Wow, including the decorated flour sacks from WWI within the category of “trench art”? That felt strange… So far, I have followed my own path with the research into the decorated flour sacks. I spontaneously listed seven reasons why the flour sacks do not belong to trench art.

1 Death and destruction
The word “trench art” did not appeal to me. Simply because the colorful, carefully embroidered, delicate textiles that have been preserved did not have to be dragged through the mud of the trenches a hundred years later, let alone the mire of the earth that had been stained red by the blood of the hundreds of thousands of young men who died on the battlefields.

2 Girls and women
What had been their role? Women were nurses at the war front, they cared for wounded soldiers, assisted them in their dying days. In Great Britain, women in the munitions factories took over the tasks from men who had left for the front.
The decorated flour sacks formed the other extreme. Their hidden story was revealed; finally, the contribution of hundreds of Belgian girls and women emerged, their works as part of a charitable effort under the German occupation.
I wanted their stories to stand on their own and not be grounded in the horrors of military conflict.

3 Well-to-do bourgeoisie
Ladies of good standing and nuns in convents and parishes organized charitable works. They propagated gratitude, expressed in many words in Flemish, French and English. Under their leadership, industrious girls and young ladies from the well-to-do bourgeoisie made a hype out of the decorated flour sacks in 1915; after that it was over (quite suddenly).

4 Royal lace, folksy sacks
Attempting to associate between the decorated flour sacks with the “war lace”, coming from their backgrounds in textile material and production period, was seen to be impertinent. Historically, Belgian lace has centuries-old traditions, it was intended for queens and kings, the rich and powerful of the earth. War lace and the thousands of Belgian lacemakers had patron saints in the highest Western European, aristocratic and American circles.
In contrast, sacks belonged to the people, to bakers and millers, to industry.

5 Marginal
Moreover, the story was about sacks, a marginalized piece of cloth, associated with poverty when reused, after all, in the industrialized Western world it was only intended for temporary use as packaging for the storage and transport of food, after which it could be discarded or if necessary reused

6 Art?

Charitably, it could be said that the decorated flour sacks were works of art, but in reality this notion could not be sustained. The makers showed goodwill, expressed their feelings in a way that their work is best classified as folk art.

7 Art!
Well-known Belgian artists have painted the flour sacks in a communal expression of gratitude to the suppliers of the food relief. However, the “real” art went as unnoticed as the embroideries. Only once did the German occupier censor exhibited sacks.
In 1919 the artists’ association held a sale of the painted sacks with the announcement “strictly speaking not an art exhibition”, “these are far from masterpieces”; they were sold for unit prices. [2]
Besides, serious art history seems to prefer to skip the years 1914-1918 in general.

Seven reasons to create my own path with my research, which allowed me – without delving into the subject – to stay away from the term “trench art”.

Feed back
Now that my research and the presentation of the results are generating reactions and positive feedback, it dawns on me that the meaning of my stories about the decorated flour sacks naturally resonates with the stories and field of activity of others.

Nicholas J. Saunders is the founder of the contemporary vision on trench art. He saw the resonance of the conflict in my blog about the German occupier and the flour sacks, he recognized the flour sacks as trench art, as part of the material culture. To make it clear to me what he meant, he sent me four of his articles to read.
At first reading I at once understood what Saunders recognized in the sack stories. The articles opened my eyes: the knowledge of the decorated flour sacks will deepen by exploring the interfaces they have with trench art and their place in material culture, as described by him.
To me it feels like a paradigm shift, it demands that I take a different position when considering the flour sacks.
That’s quite a job, which I decided to tackle while blogging. It allows others to share in the process. Hence this blog.

‘Trench Art and the Great War Recycled’
In 2000, Saunders formulated as the definition of trench art: “Any item made by soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilians, from war matériel directly, or any other material, as long as it and they are associated temporally and/or spatially with armed conflict or its consequences.” [3]

This definition certainly applies to the flour sacks, as they are “items made by civilians directly from material associated in time and place with the consequences of armed conflict”.

“Trench art is war art, sensory and tactile, it evokes memories,” said Saunders.
That fits seamlessly with my adage: “Sacks are full of memories. Each sack cherishes a precious and fragile story.”

Are the sacks trench art?
Let me reconsider my seven reasons for forging my own path and keeping my distance from the concept of trench art, in a first attempt to bring the decorated flour sacks under this heading.

1 Death and destruction
One flour sack immediately came into my mind’s eye: “De Koene Held” (The Valiant Hero), 1914-1916.
Previously I blogged about the sack decoration in amazement.
“It is a Belgian war souvenir with comforting words and images for men who threatened to lose their lives on the battlefield, while they worried whether their wives and children would be cared for. The answer was yes, America takes care of women and children. In a way the text seemed naive to me, I would not embroider this if I had, as a married woman, a husband or son, fighting in the trenches, let alone, as a girl in school with a father or brother on the battlefield. The only way I could imagine it was that this cloth had been embroidered by nuns in a convent, skilled embroiderers and bringers of care and comforting, edifying words.”

An alienating embroidery, it is uncomfortable, evoking a feeling of disbelief.
Saunders denominates this as the power of trench art: the embroidery contains tension, capturing the paradox of war – it destroys and creates at the same time.

2 Girls and women
Some of the decorated flour sacks bear characteristics of the identity of the maker, her name, her school, her town or village, the craft group. The sacks and decorations can be traced, the objects can be personalized. Families have kept sacks as war souvenirs, as memories of the maker. They live on through the stories.

The story of a nurse and the embroidered flour sack (1915-11-9) that she kept, comes together in the life of Emilie Gerard, it is similarly uncomfortable.

“A flour sack from California belonged to grandmother, Emilie Gerard. It is not known who embroidered the sack. Emilie was a nurse during World War I. She lived in Brussels. She gave birth to her baby in Antwerp, but the son was placed elsewhere after three days. The father of the son has always remained unknown. She never revealed the father’s identity. Her son has often asked who he was. It was a great disgrace at the time, which Emilie suffered greatly from. Emilie Gerard has worked for Dr. Delporte.” [4]

3 Well-to-do bourgeoisie
The creative reuse of the empty flour sacks was conceived by institutions, schools, parishes, women’s organizations, sewing workshops and committees, it was institutionalized within the existing social organizations and networks of the well-to-do bourgeoisie. In particular higher-class women were active in charitable work.

They considered it their moral duty to employ girls and young women from the lower classes.
“It was our duty to encourage the young girls to come and work in our workshop, because we are sure to keep them there in a moral and happy atmosphere, saving them from the dangers of the street, because we allow these who live alone to save light and fire and because we are confident our workshop is more to them than the daily bread earning.” [5]

For their own class-based morality, the driving force was as well to enthuse young women about sack decorating “since the holidays this year will be completely stripped of their attractive country residences and will therefore provide most of them with free hours, which they could certainly not use for any nobler purpose.” [6]

The Belgian ladies were very well aware that the flour that arrived in occupied Belgium had been sent thanks to appeals to and donations by their female counterparts in American society. However, those donations were short-lived – four to six weeks in November/December 1914 at the most, after which the enthusiasm cooled down. [7]

The reuse of flour sacks by the Belgian girls took longer, a year was spent decorating the flour sacks, exhibitions were organized, and raffles were held. At the beginning of 1916 the enthusiasm waned, other impulses were needed to raise money for charity.
By the middle of 1915, the organization of international food supply to the population of occupied Belgium functioned on a large scale and was commercially viable. For the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation grain transports and transshipments via elevators had been the industrial approach from the beginning. Charity was part of marketing and propaganda; it was just no longer materially visible.

4 Folk sacks
Sacks or bags represented business. They were functional, used by farmers, millers and bread bakers. Food production was industrialized to feed the growing population, workers in factories, in urban environments.

The size of a bag made it functional for individual handling by the artisan baker, but bags in 1914 were industrial products, produced by the thousands.
Large American and Canadian mills supplied the bulk of the flour to occupied Belgium. They had a ‘Bag Department’. Other mills bought their bags from bag factories, Bemis Bag Company was a leading supplier.

If bags were deployed for local use, they remained the property of the mill, the bags were cleaned, reused and administratively the mill used a deposit system.
American food supplies went overseas, so the flour was packaged for export, printed with millers’ logos and names. The sacks had to be strong enough to withstand transport in trains, ocean liners, barges, carts and transshipment in ports.

The printing provided the sender with an identity, confirmed his or her charitable works. However, the millers were not unfamiliar with direct or derived commercial interest in the name on the bags. The Sperry Flour Co. designed a special brand and logo to print on the cotton sacks: “We are putting out an especial brand. Our factory is working on the sacks which bear an Indian head imprint with the word “California” across the front.” The flour sack is printed in the Belgian colors black, yellow and red.

Once in Belgium, they became the property of the bakeries, the companies that bought the flour, including the sacks. But then what? Where did the sacks go then? The bakers who wanted to get rid of the sacks sought financial gain and found willing customers in Belgian souvenir hunters, among other things.

5 Marginal
The American relief workers showed great opportunism regarding the flour sack reuse. That can feel alienating.
In November 1914 they chose American cotton as the packaging for the flour, so that the cloth of the solid cotton sacks could be reused for undergarments and home textiles. They positioned their choice for their American audience as a win-win situation: they donated food and clothing.
“Instructions were issued at the same time for packing the flour. These stipulated that a strong forty-nine-pound cotton sack be used…. Most important, after the flour was eaten, the empty cotton sack could be used by the housewife for an undergarment, the package thus providing both food and clothing.” [8]

The suggestion has been followed in Belgium. In Heverlee, for example, 80 children, mostly girls from about 4 to 6 years old, had their picture taken, dressed in flour sack dresses with the “American Commission” logo. [9]

One year later, money was needed for clothing and the American relief workers changed their strategy. The Belgian re-use of sacks was marginalized, it was precisely the argument to show the American public how bad it was seeing as the Belgians could not even procure children’s clothing.
P. H. Chadbourn brought Belgian gifts to U.S. President Wilson in Washington, including decorated flour sacks. Acting on behalf of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), Chadbourn used the publicity he received to call on Americans to donate money for clothing for the Belgians.
Chadbourn said that many Belgian children wore no shirts other than those made from flour sacks with holes cut for the head and arms. There was therefore the greatest need for clothing!
“Mr. Chadbourn told the President clothing was now the greatest need of the Belgians. He described how flour bags, with holes cut for the head and arms, were being used as shirts by many children”. [10]

The CRB provided the newspapers with a press release, along with a photo of a girl in a flour sack dress, to underline the statement.

6 Art?
Is trench art art, as the word says? Art historians generally reject this, as trench art fails to conform to aesthetic principles. They group it under the heading of primitive art or folk art. Another approach to art emphasizes the function-oriented nature, in combination with the social component that connects the creator of the object. [11]

Girls’ schools’ students in Brussels decorated flour sacks in class. Young women in Antwerp were invited in groups to decorate flour sacks. “The most special aim is to make use of the American Flour Sack, thus immediately becoming a memorial and an object of art. Experience has proven that it lends itself to the most artful arrangements …
It would, however, be desirable that every performance should include a reflection on the circumstances of the times.” [12]

The creativity shown by children to express the conditions of 1915 in the purest form often gives me the feeling of holding a “work of art” when studying the flour sacks.

7 Art!
The painting of the flour sacks was a fundraiser held by the Belgian artists’ associations to raise money for those artists and their families who desperately needed support because of the occupation and war conditions.

On the sacks they have decorated, references to the circumstances of 1915 are diverse, often food related. The academically trained painters did not yet seem to be fully aware of their misery, or at least in June 1915 they painted the picture of a better time that now lay behind them. With lovely images they “marketed” their country to the Americans for whom the sacks were intended as a sign of gratitude. They reprinted their own popular works, previously made on paper, on flour sacks. Also, they literally copied the photos of (American) war photographers in paint.
In that sense their work seemed easy, barely innovative or original. Although this conclusion also evokes some discomfort. Unless the artists really felt the threatening power and censorship of the German occupier and kept their paintings rather superficial.

Conclusion
That concludes my ideas so far about where the decorated flour sacks touch on the definition of trench art and can be placed in material culture. The paradigm shift offers me a guideline.

The definition of trench art explicates the association with armed conflict. For me it was obvious that the flour sacks were decorated during war and occupation, that was self-evident and did not have to be explicitly mentioned.

The suggestion to start from the consideration of flour sacks and their decorations from the perspective of the tension of the conflict, to examine their makers from the perspective of discomfort, to see the paradox imprisoned in the objects, can offer me additional focus.

In any case, these sacks, these colorful, carefully embroidered and painted textiles are associated with death, loss and mourning; with the mud of the trenches and the mire of the earth stained red by the blood of the hundreds of thousands of young men who died on the battlefields.

Sacks are full of memories. Each sack cherishes a precious and fragile story.

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Continued July 21, 2024
Recycled flour sacks from WWI – a Belgian field of tension
In my blog “Recyclede meelzakken in WO I – het Belgische spanningsveld” (Recycled flour sacks in WWI – a Belgian field of tension) I further elaborate my vision on “trench art and the decorated flour sacks”.
The blog is written in Dutch. For English, French, Italian or Spanish, please use the orange “Translate” button, bottom left on the page.

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Thanks to
– Nicholas J. Saunders for his intervention and the wealth of articles he sent me.

– Georgina Kuipers for her attentive corrections to the English translations of my blogs.

Footnotes
[1] Comment Nick Saunders to my post of June 16, 2023, Lizerne Trench Art Facebook group

[2]  L’Indépendance Belge, April 21, 1919, La Libre Belgique, May 3, 1919 / La Nation Belge, May 5, 1919

[3] Saunders, Nicholas J., Bodies of Metal, Shells of Memory: ‘Trench Art’, and the Great War Re-cycled. SAGE Publications, Journal of Material Culture, 2000; 5; 43-67.

[4] Europeana Collections

[5] Letter from Anna Osterrieth-Lippens to Edward Hunt, Antwerp, August 17, 1915. HILA CRB records 22003, box 324.2

[6] Letter Antwerp Committee for Aid to families ravaged by the war – Middenkomiteit, Antwerp, July 22, 1915. FelixArchief

[7] Letters American Belgian Relief committees to Lindon W. Bates, CRB New York office, December 1914, coll. HILA

[8]The Millers’ Belgian Relief Movement 1914-15 conducted by The Northwestern Miller. Final Report of its director William C. Edgar, Editor of the Northwestern Miller, MCMXV

[9] Europeana Collections

[10] St. Joseph News Press (St. Joseph, Missouri), January 19, 1916

[11] Nicholas J. Saunders ‘Trench art: Objects and people in conflict’. War & Art: A visual history of modern conflict. Ed. Joanna Bourke, 2017

[12] Letter Antwerp Committee for Aid to families ravaged by the war – Middenkomiteit, Antwerp, July 22, 1915. FelixArchief

Online I discovered a remarkable portrait of German soldier Ludwig Jacobi, painted on a flour sack in 1916.
I’ve come across another flour sack which was in German possession; a beautifully painted Sperry Flour – American Indian flour sack has been in the collection of German physician Leo Jacobsohn.

What do I know about the German occupiers in Belgium and the Belgian relief flour sacks?
I am collating it in this blog.

1) Ludwig Jacobi, soldier, portrait on flour sack [1]

An artist painted the portrait of the German soldier Ludwig Jacobi on flour sack in 1916. On the back is written: ‘Offr.-Stellv. gef. June 19, 1915, Res. Feldart. Reg. 51’. It is an oil painting; dimensions 36×29 inches (91×74 cm). The portrait is preserved in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives (HILA) collection. I have no further information. Is it a flour sack? A German one? Could it be a Belgian relief flour sack?

Until now I have seen portraits of dignitaries painted on Belgian relief flour sacks: a few Belgians, namely King Albert, Queen Elisabeth and Minister of State Emile Vandervelde, as well as the American Minister Brand Whitlock. These are portraits painted from photographs. Artists also painted using models, with women and children modeling.
But here on a flour sack the portrait of an ordinary person whose identity is to be established. And again, a German soldier!?!

2) Dr. Leo Jacobsohn, doctor, flour sack painted by P. Jean Velghe [2]

The origin of the painted flour sack of Dr. Leo Jacobsohn is the miller “Sperry Mills American Indian – California”, the sack bears the stamp “Secours au Prisonniers, Rue Lamir, Mons”. [3] An intriguing painting. A crowd of happy people (Native Americans?) are dancing around in an open field, tipis sticking out above the crowd, an airplane in the sky. A Belgian and American flag is waving above exuberant flower garlands with cornflowers, poppies and violets. The feathers on the Native American’s head have been colorfully painted.

It is difficult to read the painter’s signature, but Hubert Bovens, Belgian specialist in researching artists’ biographical data, has succeeded in deciphering the name: P. Jean Velghe. Who was he?

One possibility is: Pierre Jean Aimé Velghe (°Neuilly-sur-Seine 1889-03-22 +Paris (9e Arr.) 1939-11-10). Velghe was an antiquarian, two uncles were painters. He was married to Louis Benoite Antoinette Camous.
P. Jean Velghe’s name does not appear in databases of Belgian artists. Online we believe to have found one other painting by him: Echarpe de la Reine, 1929.

Dr. Leo Jacobsohn (°Putzig, Germany, 1881-05-21) obtained his doctor’s degree from the University of Freiburg in 1905. He traveled to New York and Brazil in 1907. From 1914 on he worked in a hospital in Berlin; during World War I he was part of the Berlin Health Commission. Jacobsohn frantically collected printed matter and newspaper clippings. Through connections in higher circles, he had access to printed matter that was not publicly available. Even after the war he continued to expand his collection of posters, leaflets, and newspaper articles. When Hitler came to power in 1933, collecting stagnated. Jacobsohn was Jewish, he left Germany in 1938 and moved to Los Angeles; he worked as a doctor in a hospital and died in 1944.

Where and when did Jacobsohn come into possession of the flour sack? During the German occupation of Belgium, Jacobsohn traveled through Belgium by train; his archive contains train tickets from Charleroi to Brussels and Charleroi to Antwerp between July 27, 1915, and October 25, 1917. He may have bought the painted flour sack at that time. Had he been in contact with American delegates of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB)? Did he meet William Sperry, descendant of the Sperry Mills family?

3) German propaganda about food distribution to the Belgian population

Germany worked hard on its image in the neutral countries. The population in occupied Belgium is being supplied with food, was the message in November and December 1914 as conveyed through photos in the authoritative American newspaper New York Times.

The Dutch newspaper Haagsche Courant published a photograph as well.

German regulations and censorship
In spring 1915, the German occupier issued decrees throughout Belgium, which would have influenced the decorations applied to the flour sacks. An example of the Ghent region.
In Ghent, the German commander first made an “Announcement”: the sales and offering of photographs and images of the Belgian royal family in warehouses or on the street was prohibited. Persons preparing printed matter or images ‘which allegedly contained an insult to Germans‘ were threatened with prison and fines (Ghent, April 21, 1915).
Next an Ordinance of the “Etappen-Kommandant” came into effect: the sales and wearing of signs in French, Russian, English and Japanese colors, in particular together with the Belgian colors, was prohibited for the area of the “Etappen-Kommandatur” (Ghent, 25 April 1915).
Three months later the Belgian national holiday was enthusiastically celebrated on July 21.  A new Ordinance of the Etappen-Kommandantur followed, which banned: the wearing, display and sales of the Belgian colors, of statues and portraits of the royal family, of green leaves with and without inscription and of all signs and color combinations “which are suitable to display a political inclination” (Ghent, July 23, 1915).

Almost all flour sacks bear patterns and tokens of patriotic symbols. Were most flour sacks decorated before the German bans came into effect? Or did the schoolgirls, young women and artists consider the decoration of the Belgian relief flour sacks an eminently suitable project to willfully ignore the occupier’s prohibitions? Did they feel protected by the local relief committees and the American delegates of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB)?

Flour sack sales and censorship
In my research I have established the intervention of Germans at an Antwerp flour sack exhibition once before.
Allegedly, the Germans did dare to interfere with the flour sacks, despite the protection of committees and the CRB, although I have found only one true example in January 1916 at an exhibition in Antwerp: “… the Germans came on inspection in the halls of the “Harmonie Maatschappij”. They naturally are not liking the fact that the starvation of Belgium under German rule and the protective action of a neutral country are thus made public. They practice “censorship” on the sacks and several copies that they thought were too patriotic were taken away. Including those on which the Antwerp painter Hagge (note: should be Halle*) had depicted King Albert and Queen Elisabeth at the front.” [4]

5) Keep the flour sacks out of the hands of the German occupiers?

Over the years, both in Belgium and the USA, a public perception has emerged that the flour sacks have been decorated because they “should stay out of the hands of the German occupiers”. The story goes that the Germans would like to use the flour sacks for war purposes. To prevent this, the sacks were handed over to Belgian women and had to be transformed into clothing and decorative objects.
The Lace Center in Bruges refers to keeping it out of the hands of the Germans.
At another instance, visiting an exhibition, I read the remark that the Germans wanted to use the cotton flour sacks as sandbags – meaning the use of sacks for military defense.
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library – Museum (HHPLM), West Branch, Iowa, mentions another military use – the intention to use the cotton of the flour sacks for military assault. It states on display boards that the Germans could produce ammunition from the flour sacks: “Since the Germans needed cotton to manufacture ammunition, the Commission for Relief in Belgium carefully monitored who received the flour sacks”.

Looking for resources

For years I have been intrigued by the concept that the Belgian relief flour sacks were decorated because they had to stay out of the hands of the Germans.
Honestly, after five years of intensive research, I have never come across a primary source (a file or document from 1914/1915), mentioning this reason for decorating the flour sacks.

Neither in Belgium nor in the USA have I found any indication that in 1914 and early 1915 – the period when the sacks with Belgian relief flour were sent to Belgium – concerns were raised about how to care for the empty sacks, as they would be of interest to the German army. Nor have I found it as a motive or precaution to therefore hand over the flour sacks to girls’ schools and sewing workshops.

An awkward paradox: how do I refute a belief that presumably has never existed at the time?
Let’s discuss possible sources which may have given rise to the conception of this idea.

Abuse and financial gain in Belgium

“Loot
Curious case: two men accused of theft of flour. They were detained while driving a cart loaded with sacks. “German soldiers have claimed the sacks,” they declared, “for the transport of goods intended for the supply of the army”. When they had accomplished this task, the soldiers rewarded the two men by encouraging them to take sacks for themselves.”
The judge did not believe their story and convicted them of theft.

Another primary source on apparent abuse and financial gain of flour sacks is a newspaper article that mentioned the attitude of local bakeries and Belgian individuals. The Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation (CNSA) in Brussels decided that they wanted control over the empty Belgian relief flour sacks. The Committee wanted these to be distributed because the proceeds had to benefit their relief work. [5]
This CNSA decision came late, at the end of May 1915 – to be carried out in June 1915. At that time, decorating the flour sacks had been a craze throughout Belgium for months. Moreover, the provincial committees did not spontaneously cooperate in the desire for centralization. [6]

“Flour sacks as sandbags”?

Would the German military have intended to use the empty Belgian relief flour sacks as sandbags in early 1915? Were the cotton sacks suitable as sandbags in the trenches? Who supplied the regular sandbags for the German military? What specifications did the sandbags have to meet, material strength, dimensions, volume? Under what conditions could the empty Belgian relief flour sacks be reprocessed for use as sandbags? Would the German soldiers have dared to offend the neutral Americans by claiming their empty Belgian relief flour sacks?

I have traced two sources – from after World War II – with stories of two people who played an active, prominent role in Belgian relief in 1914-1918.
Indeed, they both stated that the flour sacks were given for reuse to the Belgian girls and artists, as a precaution because German soldiers had used the empty flour sacks incidentally or were intending to use them as sandbags.
However, are their memories reliable, over thirty years after the war efforts? What would have been the influence of having lived through two subsequent world wars, famines, and German occupations?

An American source – Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover (ºWest Branch, Iowa, 1874-08-10 +New York, NY, 1964-10-20), was director of the Commission for Relief in Belgium from October 1914, based in London In one of his many books he mentioned the reuse of sacks as sandbags by the Germans. It happened in northern France in the third year of the war, 1916. According to the story, the flour sacks – although on a deposit – were resold and used as sandbags. Hoover would then have ordered the empty flour sacks to be sent to clothing workshops in Lille and Brussels. Hoover recalled the event in a book that was published in 1959 [7].

“The British had discovered on captured German trenches sandbags made from C.R.B. flour sacks. The British indignation was only a little less violent than the French when they imagined our condensed milk tins were being used for hand grenades. The French Committee for “benevolence” in the Communes had been making a little money for their charities by selling the empty sacks to dealers who, in turn, sold them to the Germans. After the discovery of this practice, I had stopped it by requiring every maire to deposit 10 francs for each sack to be repaid when the empties were returned. We put the sacks into the clothing workrooms at Lille and Brussels and saw that they were turned into children’s clothes, although the indelible words “Belgian Commission” appeared on many a youngster’s front or back.”

Comments on Hoover’s story
I comment on Hoover’s story based on my research results.
1. Relatively few cotton Belgian relief flour sacks entered occupied Belgium and northern France in 1914-1918. The period of entrance was short, late 1914 to April 1915, and it was only the packaging of the Belgian relief flour that had been collected as charity by the American citizens and mills. The Belgian relief flour sacks were never on deposit; the Americans had intended the sacks to be reused in Belgium. Hence the Belgian “flour sack hype” took place in 1915.
Hoover’s story refers to an event in 1916 in Northern France.

2. The CRB, with a focus on efficiency, bought wheat in bulk, which was transshipped from the ocean steamers into Belgian barges by grain elevators in the port of Rotterdam. In Belgium, the wheat was ground by local mills. The mills used local deposit flour sacks of 100 kg to distribute the flour to the bakers.
3. In December 1915, the CNSA, co-operating with the CRB, introduced a strict system of deposits on all packaging imported by the CRB. This was strictly supervised. [8]
4. The sacks of Belgian relief “charity” flour, in general made of cotton, exceptionally of jute, of 49 LBS and 98 LBS have been recognized as such by the Belgian population and therefore used by them for charity in return.
5. There are no Belgian relief flour sacks with the printing “Belgian Commission”. The sacks were printed with: “Belgian Relief Flour” or “American Commission”.

6. The only “C.R.B. flour sack” I have encountered – once, among the almost thousand WW I flour sacks I have seen – is in the collection of Scott Kraska. Where and when will the red stamp C.R.B. have been put on the back of the flour sack?

It is interesting to read how Hoover played with his neutral American role between the British, French and Belgians on the one hand and the Germans on the other.

Due to my research, I view the entertaining book “An American Epic” by Herbert Hoover as an American epic story. Although elements are recognizable, the epic does not offer a historically reliable document about the German occupier and the Belgian Relief flour sacks.

A Belgian source – Marthe Boël

Marthe Boël, né de Kerchove de Denterghem (°Ghent 1877-07-03 +Brussels 1956-01-18), prominent Belgian politician for the liberal party and feminist, wrote her undated story “Story of the American Flour Sacks” in a letter which is attached to a decorated flour sack, preserved by HHPLM since 2015.

According to the museum’s data, the flour sack in question was purchased in Belgium after World War II by an American soldier, commander of the “US district”, who had been stationed in Belgium. He took the flour sack and Boël’s story back home. After his death, the flour sack passed to an American family who framed the flour sack and hung it in their daughter’s room. Years later, they donated the flour sack with Boël’s story to the museum. The story is typed on thin sheets of yellow paper, it looks like a carbon copy.
The paper and the story give the impression that Marthe Boël wrote down her story after WWII, in 1945 or later.

Her story is as follows:
“The Germans seeing all that could be done with these sacks even when emptied of their contents had bought through means of third persons and use them as trench sand bags.
….
It was then secretly forbidden to the Belgians to sell the sacks then on the market except for such high prices as would make them prohibitive for the Germans.  It was then that people began to decorate and embroider the sacks.
…
These special “painted sacks” were started at the beginning of 1915.  It was the moment where it was most important to prevent the Germans from seizing the sacks.  People made large hordes of them in their private homes where the Germans could not get at them, buying them up under the pretext of collecting them.
….
Then I was arrested and sent to Germany. The work being started it was continued without me until the moment of America’s entering the war. The Germans then forbade to continue selling or exposing or fabricating objects made out of American flour sacks.”

Comments on Boël’s story
Boël’s memories about the flour sacks understandably bear witness to a strong bias against the German occupier; she wrote down the story about the WWI Belgian relief flour sacks for an American soldier who had fought successfully in WWII for the liberation of Belgium, thirty years later.
For Marthe Boël, the main point was that the enemy had to be thwarted by all means, literally at all costs; according to her, the Belgians were only allowed to sell the sacks at such high prices that they became inaccessible to the Germans. However, this was a secret.

The entire reasoning in Boël’s story is so at odds with my research findings that I repeat: elements are recognizable, but it does not offer a historically reliable document about the German occupier and the Belgian relief flour sacks.

In his blog Subversive Flour Sacks of Thanks, Thomas Schwartz, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, discusses Boël’s letter. He describes decorating the flour sacks as proof of “the act of subversion and defiance against German occupation”. [9]

A Belgian primary source – Virginie Loveling
About sandbags in Ghent and the embroidery of flour sacks in Belgian cities

The war diary of Virginie Loveling mentions the sewing of sandbags and the embroidery of flour sacks within a span of nine days.

Virginie Loveling (°Nevele, 1836-05-17 +Ghent, 1923-12-01) was a Belgian poet and novelist. She mentioned in her War Diary [1914-1918] the production of sandbags for the Germans in Ghent. [10] Her notes of May 12, 1915: For “the German army administration”, a manufacturer in Ghent “weaves a kind of linen, which later coated with a certain greenish mixture, forms an impenetrable oilcloth. It serves for sacks filled with sand or cement that are used as shelter in the trenches. There are working women who sew such sacks.”

On May 21, 1915, Loveling reported “the embroidering of the sacks which America graciously sent here filled with flour. All will be returned as a token of gratitude. Not only ladies, but also talented painters and fabric designers selflessly offered their help.”
Loveling does not refer to any German interference.

Cotton in 1914/15 – ammunition?
In newspaper reports, I read about the collapse of the world cotton market. But I also read about American ships with cotton freight for Germany, ships which were brought in by the British navy and later released, enabling the ships to supply German customers with cotton.
On August 21, 1915, Britain declared cotton contraband, ie. raw cotton, cotton linters, cotton waste and cotton yarns. The Netherlands no longer received British raw materials for their Twente cotton industry all of a sudden and noted “Cotton was the most important war material!” [11].

How and when could the German military industry have used empty cotton flour sacks from occupied Belgium in their arms production during WWI? In the production of ammunition? Were the references intended to indicate gun cotton?

An American source – Phyllis Foster Danks
Phyllis Foster Danks, HHPLM curator from 1977 to 1986, did research on the flour sack history in the year 1979. She reportedly discovered this intriguing information: “the Germans could use the cotton for gun wadding”. [12]

Therefore, signs in the museum display at West Branch read: “Because cotton was in high demand from the German munitions manufacturers, the CRB carefully counted all emptied flour sacks.”
I am unaware of the sources on which Danks based her information.

What specifications did this cotton have to meet? Was it possible to upgrade the cotton of the flour sacks to this specification on an industrial scale? Were there no alternatives?

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Addition August 2, 2023
I submitted the “cotton-ammunition questions” to the staff of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum and received the following response from them:
“Annelien, This is what our Archivist uncovered.  It doesn’t answer your questions definitely but, like you, casts doubt on the existing explanations.”

 

Conclusion
In this blog I have assembled what I know about the German occupier and the Belgian relief flour sacks. At issue were:
1) the portrait of the fallen German officer Jacobi has been painted on a flour sack.
2) the Belgian relief flour sack in the collection of German physician Dr. Jacobsohn.
3) the German propaganda about food distribution to the Belgian population.
4) a German ban on images of members of the Belgian royal family, flags, arms and national colors of Belgium and the Allies; censorship on a sales exhibition of flour sacks.
5) the modern conception that the flour sacks were decorated to keep the sacks out of the hands of the Germans, because they could be used for military defense, and worse, for military attack, seems to have no basis in the actual events in 1914/1915.

I wonder if we are no longer able to imagine that in 1914-1918, the starting point for the flour sack decorating was charitable work and the expression of gratitude for humanitarian food relief? Do the decorated flour sacks have to be seen in a military context, do they need the creation of an enemy, to get attention nowadays?

In any case, we have proof that one decorated flour sack fell into the hands of a German!

 

Thanks to:
– Evelyn McMillan for the discussions on this topic and for pointing out the secondary sources on the flour sacks-sandbags issue.
Evelyn’s flour sack collection contains the English version of the flour sack with the two children in pajamas in front of the open doors: “God bless America”. Marthe Boël described that she asked some necessitous artists to paint the sacks on the condition that the images would express gratitude to the American people.

– Marcus Eckhardt for the information about the flour sack “Béni soit l’Amérique! Brussels 1916” / Belgian Relief Flour, Russell – Miller Milling Co., Minneapolis, Minn., USA. Coll HHPLM 2015.3.1 including Marthe Boël’s explanation.
– Hubert Bovens for deciphering the name of painter P. Jean Velghe, researching the artist’s life and biographical data on artists.
– Jacques Laperre for the correction of the artist name “Hagge” to Halle, Oscar, and his biographical data; also, Gregory Boite, Mu.ZEE Ostend.
– F. Brenders for his research in the FelixArchief, Antwerp.
– Kris Vandenbussche, via Facebook group Lizerne Trench Art, for the information about Ludwig Jacobi and the Jacobi and Blum families.

*) Oscar Halle (°Bärwalde, Pommern (D), 1857-08-19 +1921?). Decided to become an artist at the age of 21. Took drawing classes in Berlin, took courses at Dresden’s Art Academy, left for Antwerp and became a student of the Belgian artist Verlat. From 1885 he participated in exhibitions in Antwerp and Brussels.

Footnotes:

[1] Hoover Institution Library and Archives website: ‘Unframed unsigned portrait on a flour sack Ludwig Jacobi, 1916’, nr. 19001.126, accessed June 10, 2023

[2] The ‘Jacobsohn collection on Germany between the Wars’ is in the archives of the University of Southern California – Special Collections, Los Angeles, Ca., coll. no. 0080.

[3] USC coll. nr. 0080, Box 29, File 1.
P. Jean Velghe lived in Paris. His parents were married in Paris but were both born in Belgium, resp. in Courtrai and Tielt (West Flanders). One of P. Jean Velghe’s two uncles may have been his teacher: Auguste VELGHE (1831-1912), who lived in Paris for a long time.

[4]
– Text posters and wall messages Etappen-Kommandantur Ghent 1915
– L’Indépendance Belge (Edité en Angeleterre), March 4, 1916; De Stem uit België, March 31, 1916 (published in London from 1916 to 1919)

[5] Het Vlaamsche Nieuws, May 29, 1915

[6] Antwerp Provincial Committee, correspondence of June 28, July 7 and 10, 1915. FelixArchief, Antwerp.

[7] Herbert Hoover, An American Epic. The Relief of Belgium and Northern France 1914-1930. Volume I. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959, p. 316.

[8] Amara, M., Inventaire des archives du Comité national de Secours et d’Alimentation. Rapport général sur le fonctionnement et les opérations du Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation. Deuxième partie. Le Département Alimentation. Tome II: Appendice: Le Service Stock général et Fabrications, 1921. Brussels: The State Archives in Belgium, General State Archives, 2009

[9] Schwartz, Thomas, Subversive Flour Sacks of Thanks. West Branch, Iowa, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum. Blog: Hoover Heads, January 6, 2016

[10] Van Raemsdonck, Bert,  Virginie Loveling’s War Diary [1914-1918]. Ghent, KANTL and University Library, electronic version, 2005; diary May 12, 1915, and May 21, 1915.

[11] ‘Proclamation, dated august 20th, 1915, specifying various forms of cotton to be treated as contraband’. (Van Manen, Dr. Charlotte A., De Nederlandsche Overzee Trustmaatschappij. “Middelpunt van het verkeer van onzijdig Nederland met het buitenland tijdens den wereldoorlog 1914-1919” (Center of the relations of neutral Netherlands with foreign countries during World War 1914-1919)).

[12] Florman, Jean C., ‘Out of War, A Legacy of Art‘. Artikel in: Hemingway, Joanne, Hinkhouse, Belle, Out of War. A Legacy of Art. West-Branch, Iowa: The Iowa City Questers Reciprocity Committee, 1995

On May 19th, 2022, I left Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to go to the United States for my six-week American sack trip. First stop was Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, to do research at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives (HILA).

Exactly one year later, on social media, I reported daily on my journey via retrospectives and updates on my Instagram account @floursacksww1 en Facebook pagina Annelien van Kempen.

My wish was to examine all decorated flour sacks from WWI on site. But would that work? What would it result in?
Since 2019 I have been in contact with the archivists to discover which collection HILA is keeping. One thing became clear to me: there were no exact data. The online archive information was limited, but they sent me some photographs.
Through contact with Evelyn McMillan, expert in war lace and great connoisseur of the decorated flour sacks, retired staff member at Stanford University, I received extremely detailed and useful information.
In collaboration with Evelyn, I prepared my American Sack Trip, specifically the research in HILA.

New constructions and Covid in Palo Alto

The problem for the HILA employees, working at the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, was that part of their archives had been temporarily moved to large warehouses across the San Francisco Bay due to reconstruction. Trucks with trailers drove up and down daily to deliver archive boxes to researchers in the HILA Reading Room. Decorated flour sacks would only be brought with the trucks if the archive boxes were requested in good time.
And due to Covid, the Reading Room was still closed to outside researchers at the time I submitted my research request.
In addition, the Herbert Hoover Subject Collection, Box 392, which houses the decorated flour sacks, was and is closed to researchers. Fortunately, the HILA staff were willing to make an exception for me, a researcher from the Netherlands. However, it was uncertain whether there would be enough staff available to give me the necessary assistance in examining the flour sacks, I would probably only have access to three or four boxes.
I decided to take the risk and went to California.

My motivation for researching all flour sacks
Once in the Reading Room of the Hoover Institution, the HILA staff invited me to present my project. I motivated my request to examine all flour sacks in the HILA collection:

*) in my research I consider both the HILA flour sack collection and the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum (HHPLM) flour sack collection to be one large American “Hoover collection”. HHPLM has invited me to examine their entire collection, I had been awarded with a Travel Grant from the Hoover Presidential Foundation. The large “Hoover Collection” originated in HILA around 1920 when the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) archives were formed. Before traveling to HHPLM I wanted to research the HILA collection, where it all started, then take the results with me to Iowa.

*) In four years of research I have mapped all Belgian public collections in my Register of Flour Sacks. The purpose of my American Sack Trip is to add the American collections to this Register. They are a special part of the collection, as they consist of the sacks that have returned to North America, the continent from which they were initially shipped, filled with flour. My offer to HILA was to use my expertise to contribute to the knowledge about the collection, to make an inventory of the HILA collection and to put the data in a spreadsheet for various statistics.

*) With my research I want to highlight the importance of the role of girls and women in food aid for the Belgian population in 1914-1918. In the HILA collection, each decorated flour sack is handmade, a unique, individual piece of work by Belgian girls and young women. I want to know the names of the embroiderers; I work with Hubert Bovens in Wilsele, Belgium, to determine their identity based on their biographical data. If I only examine a few sacks, then I am missing out on all those Belgian girls who have worked to decorate the sacks.

 

A day and a half of flour sack research
My plea was successful. Rayan Ghazal, head of the Preservation Lab, invited me to start my research of the decorated flour sacks in the HILA collection in the Preservation Lab, the workshop under the Hoover Tower.

Together with two experienced and skilled staff members, Laurent Cruveillier, book and paper curator, and Kurtis Kekkonen, restoration specialist, we photographed forty flour sacks in one afternoon!
And I was invited to come back the next day.

On day two we continued our work. We wanted to study all the boxes of decorated flour sacks, but we didn’t know how many sacks they contained.

We were done at five o’clock, we appeared to have seen and photographed over 120 items. That, added to the previous day’s result, gave me a total of 167 decorated flour sacks in the collection of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. [1]

A unique flour sack survey in a day and a half! Now that these flour sacks have been photographed, I realize that it is unlikely they will reappear at the same time in the near future.

Statistics HILA flour sack collection
With all the data obtained, I set to work creating the HILA Inventory List, a spreadsheet listing all the characteristics of value to my research. The photos I had taken were very helpful. After one Saturday of intense work the spreadsheet was ready to be sent to the HILA archivist.

Conclusion
Some findings about the HILA collection of decorated flour sacks from WWI:

• All flour sacks are processed; I did not register any unprocessed sacks.
• The origin of the flour sacks is printed and traceable on 90% of the sacks, they originate from 22 states, several American relief organizations, and some Canadian provinces.

  

• The HILA collection includes flour sacks decorated in eight of Belgium’s nine provinces. More than 40% come from Brussels – from girls’ schools. The province of Liège is missing from the list, there may be specimens in “Belgium other”.

  

• Nearly 70 flour sacks have been processed in Belgian girls’ schools, mainly in Brussels. The school of the Sœurs de Notre-Dame in Anderlecht takes the crown with 38 sacks, which is 25% of the entire HILA collection.

  

• More than 50 flour sacks were decorated by young, sometimes professional, needleworkers for the benefit of the local relief committee or by order of the committee or the municipality.
• The name of the Belgian maker is mentioned on forty items. That is why I have created the new page ‘Embroiderers’ on my blog website. The names are listed. The biographical data are the result of research by Hubert Bovens in Wilsele, Belgium.

Class photos
The HILA archives revealed envelopes full of class photos of Belgian schoolgirls in 1915. Girls this age spent some of their time at school decorating the flour sacks.
That is why I use the class photos as an illustration to evoke the atmosphere of that time.[2]

Cuvelier, Ecole Morichar, Saint-Gilles. Flour sack American Commission, embroidered, painted, 1915. “L’Union Fait La Force”. With drawn portraits of Queen Elisabeth, King Albert, and the Belgian lion. HILA 62008 box 19.3. Photo: author

Thanks to:
– The HILA staff who made my research of the flour sack collection possible: Rayan Ghazal, Laurent Cruveillier, Kurtis Kekkonen, Jessica Lemieux, Chris Marino, Katherine Ramirez, Linda Bernard, Samira Bozorgi and many others!
– Evelyn McMillan for making my stay possible, her reflections, interventions, and above all her generous hospitality.
– Elena S. Danielson for sharing her expertise and giving moral support.
– Hubert Bovens in Wilsele, Belgium, for his research into the biographical data of the embroiderers.

More blogs on HILA’s flour sack collection
More blogs on the decorated flour sacks at Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California:

De Getelinie op bloemzak in de Warren Gregory collectie  (The Getelinie on flour sacks in the Warren Gregory collection)

Eight students in St-Gilles on American Commission flour sacks

Rassenfosse’s hiercheuse op meelzak in Hoover Institution (The Rassenfosse hiercheuse flour sack in the Hoover Institution)

Beschilderde meelzakken in de Hoover Institution (Painted flour sacks at the Hoover Institution)

De trouwdag van Maria Gauquie en Hector Impe en de kanten bloemzak van Tielt (The wedding day of Maria Gauquie x Hector Impe and the Tielt’s lace flour sack)

Footnotes:
[1] Without doubt, the HILA flour sack collection is larger than the 167 items I have seen and photographed. For instance, there are several very interesting painted flour sacks by Belgian well-known artists; there is the beautiful lace decorated “Zephyr” flour sack from the Belgian town of Tielt; and some more items.

[2] Hoover Institution Library and Archives – consulted archives:
– Frederick H. Chatfield Papers box 53008 envelope mB;
– Herbert Hoover Subject Collection 62008 envelope N;
– Commission for Relief in Belgium 1914-1930 22003-10.A-V box 632 enveloppe KK;
– CRB-records 22003 box 625.