ABSTRACT
This chapter examines complexity of publications - their individual histories, overlapping development, and varied textual, visual and physical forms - to demonstrate how they are a rich resource for revealing more completely the American experience of the Great War. Hospital magazines registered multi-sensory experiences of sick and wounded American soldiers in a multiplicity of ways. Among the most prominent experiences to appear were those associated with contemporary influenza pandemic and quarantines imposed by authorities to help limit its spread. As the influenza pandemic subsided, authorities lifted quarantines and hospitals returned to regular schedules of community activities intended to connect men to each other and to reconnect them to life on the home front. No other activity drew out so distinctly the multi-sensory experiences of soldier-patients than eating, indeed the acts of smelling, tasting and touching food, not merely every day but especially during the holiday season and periods of rest that featured doughnuts provided by volunteers of the Salvation Army.
