Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Richly-gowned folk’ at Davenport Hotel thrilled by World War I films

 (Jonathan Brunt / The Spokesman-Review)

Lt. ieutenant George Roeder of the American Ambulance Field Service thrilled and horrified a crowd in a Davenport Hotel ballroom with his war films and lecture.

“It was not picture book war he showed, either, but all the mud and plodding bravery; all the courage and bravado of it,” wrote society reporter Hannah Hinsdale.

“In the pictures, every sort of battle was shown,” she wrote. “They made the usual battle movie seem tawdry and insincere beside them. There were pictures of a review of 20,000 men after Verdun, and the audience cheered at the sight of the tattered French battle flags drawn up in a straight line in the front ranks.

“… Every means of transportation was shown, from the huge army trucks to the poor, tired little donkeys who climb the narrow places the huge cars cannot make. There were pictures of hand grenade work, bursting shells, and the huge craters left by them, also the care of the wounded and the final journey to the base hospital, down the long dreamy canals of France.”

The contrast was stark between the films and scene in the Marie Antoinette Ballroom, with its audience of “richly-gowned folk.” They were intensely moved by Roeder’s lecture. He raised $3,000 for the field service fund.

“No one who heard his lecture will feel the same about the European struggle,” wrote Hinsdale.