Excerpt from All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, part 1

The United States tried to stay out of the European conflict that started in 1914 but eventually joined the fray. Philadelphia, "The Workshop of the World," provided doughboys with blankets, footwear, and head gear. By the time the US Congress declared war in April, 1917, hundreds of Americans had already been fighting, and many had died, the first of more than 125,000 Americans to die, including 1400 Philadelphians, in what many thought would be the "war to end all wars."