The Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A. is a voluntary, fraternal organization of the men who served in the United States military during the First World War. Unlike many veterans organizations that formed immediately following a war, the Veterans of World War I took root more than thirty years after the conflict.
The major veterans organization to form following World War I was the American Legion. In addition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) opened its membership to the men returning from France and Germany. These two organizations took the forefront in fighting for veterans' rights and benefits. The surviving Civil War veterans remained in the Grand Army of the Republic and the Spanish-American War veterans constituted a very small number compared to veterans of World War I. Thus the returned doughboys were able to control, to a large extent, the focus and aim of American Legion and VFW. After World War II, a fresh and large influx of new veterans joined these organizations and took an active role in their pursuits.
When the Korean War ended in 1953 and a new batch of veterans returned to take part in the veterans organizations, the veterans of World War I began to feel outnumbered and ignored. Many thought the younger veterans had forgotten them and their needs, and they began to look into forming a group of their own. As early as 1949, World War I veterans had begun forming their own small groups. In 1953, representatives from many of those small groups met in Baltimore to discuss forming a larger national organization. The Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A. were formed from that meeting and an official charter from Congress was granted in 1958. The group charged itself with protecting the rights of World War I veterans and in procuring proper benefits and pensions for them. Local groups called barracks were formed in cities with large numbers of barracks banding together to form departments.
In July 1958, five barracks in the state of Wisconsin formed the Department of Wisconsin. The group grew rapidly and the national organization reached a membership of over 200,000 in 1960. The Department of Wisconsin grew as well and had more than eighty barracks at its peak. However, the membership was in its late fifties and sixties at the birth of the organization and the number of deceased members increased dramatically in the 1960's. While the organization continued into the 1980's, its time of power and influence ended very soon after it began in the 1960's.
