Recruit Educational Center

While English-language fluency had been a prerequisite for enlistment in the US Armed Forces since the late nineteenth century, Congress suspended this restriction during the emergency of the Great War.

[1] In practice, the Recruit Educational Center served as an "Americanization" program aimed at immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and their second-generation relatives.

[2] In addition to lessons in English grammar, vocabulary, and writing, the Recruit Educational Center also provided instruction in military protocol, U.S. history, geography, citizenship, and political economy.

The whole experience was designed to "influenc[e] a foreigner’s environment, military duty, education, amusements, athletics, and religious observances that all combined may favorably react upon his character".

[6] The Outlook printed letters written by formerly illiterate recruits who described, in perfect English, their newfound identity as patriotic Americans willing to fight for their adopted country.