Now Available - "First to Film: Leon H. Caverly and the U.S. Marine Corps"

As previewed in this weblog, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television recently published an article on Leon H. Caverly, the first cinematographer who accompanied the American Expeditionary Force to France in 1917 to film the Great War. The article by authors Cooper C. Graham and Ron van Dopperen has been published online on the website of Taylor & Francis. The story will be available in print next year.

Marine Corps Publicity Bureau, New York, May 1917. From left to right: Captain Ross E. Rowell, Quartermaster Sergeant Leon H. Caverly and still photographer Private Lester E. T. Woodward. Signal Corps colorized photograph from the National Archives. Courtesy Harry Kidd

Link to high res image

Abstract

Here is a short summary of our article:

On June 14, 1917, the Fifth Regiment of the U.S  Marine Corps left New York. True to their reputation the Marines were in the first wave of American soldiers sailing to Europe. On board was official cameraman Leon H. Caverly. With the centennial of America's entry into World War I, Caverly's pictures take on a new significance. Months before the U.S. Government  set up a policy on how to deal with pictures covering the war the Marines had already sent Caverly to Europe. He was by all accounts the first official cinematographer to film the Great War with the American forces. The story is also significant because it is so well documented. We were extremely fortunate in having found Caverly's personal papers. Reading his letters from the frontline it becomes clear what sort of challenges a cameraman had to face  to film the Great War. Apart from his own account much of Caverly's  work has survived.  At the New Jersey Historical Society the authors located about 500 World War I pictures taken by Caverly.  The History Division of the U.S. Marine Corps also kindly shared  with us a collection of Caverly's photographs.  In addition the authors were able to locate and identify much of his war films. All of this makes it possible to reconstruct Caverly's extraordinary experiences as a war cameraman in remarkable detail.

While researching Caverly we compiled numerous pictures that he took during his military service in France. A selection of these photographs is available for download here.

In the National Archives at Washington, D.C., we also located Caverly's films taken with the Marines and the 2nd Division. Caverly's films have a remarkable wide scope and cover the period from the arrival of the first American soldiers in France until the occupation of Germany in 1919.

Caverly's films are listed in this Appendix that accompanies our article.

Free ePrints Available Here!

Taylor & Francis offers 50 free ePrints of the article, available by clicking on this link.

Also, here is a selection of footage from the National Archives with Caverly's World War I films that we uploaded on our YouTube channel.

In 2018, Richard Pelster-Wiebe - who had been very helpful with our research on Caverly, wrote his dissertation on Caverly's film work during World War I. Here is a link to his publication.