For decades, Horn & Hardart’s Automats served as a singular social crossroads within the urban fabric of New York and Philadelphia. It was a regional restaurant business beloved by the locals who frequented it, yet mythologized by a national media that saw the restaurants as unique and powerful social equalizers. Any customer who had a nickel could come in and enjoy a cup of coffee or a piece of pie. 

After a humble start with a single lunchroom in Philadelphia in 1888, Joe Horn and Frank Hardart went on to build a chain of restaurants that featured quality food at affordable prices.  To Frank Hardart’s great pride, they also served a French drip coffee that Hardart had long dreamed of introducing nationwide.  Hardart’s New Orleans brew was a great improvement over the boiled coffee that was the staple of most American restaurants. 

How They Grew

Both Joe Horn and Frank Hardart dreamed of running their own restaurants. When they initially teamed up and began with a small lunchroom, they were perfectly happy. After that beginning, they envisioned success as a chain of Philadelphia lunchrooms for working people.

But then a call from a European restaurant equipment salesman changed everything.  The fellow was representing a company that made an ornate brass-trimmed wall of glass that partitioned a restaurant’s front of the house from the kitchen. The partition featured small windows showing actual dishes that could be purchased (a sandwich, pie, macaroni and cheese).

The system worked like a vending machine. The customer inserted a coin in the slot by the dish he or she wanted. The coin triggered the opening of the small door, and the customer could reach in and remove the plate and take to the table. Behind the scenes much work was involved with making this happen, but to a customer it seemed magical—automatic.  The restaurants became known as “The Automat.”

It was clever; it was unique; and it meant that (almost) no waiters were needed.

The memory of Horn & Hardart’s Automat lies in the great coffee, good comfort food, and the pseudo-technology of waiter-less restaurants. But the true wonder of the restaurant chain begins with the two men who founded it.

The Men: Joe Horn and Frank Hardart

Joe Horn (1861-1941) was born into a big family in Philadelphia. His father died while Joe was young, leaving the children’s mother to manage the family’s successful surgical supply business.

Catharine Horn wanted her sons to go into their own businesses, but her grounding was in manufacturing. When Joe asked his mother to stake him in a restaurant, she responded with a firm no. She wanted him focused on a business that seemed more reliable than food service. Instead, she sent him to California (and eventually Boston) to look for other ideas.

But Joe was deeply interested in food. No matter where he went, all he could talk about afterward were the fascinating restaurants he visited. Horn found his greatest inspiration at Thompson’s Spa in Boston. He admired how the simple restaurant served quality food to working people quickly—a model he aspired to replicate.

His mother finally believed him, giving him $1000 in seed money. He was elated, but he was wise. His travels showed him that there was a lot he still didn’t know—he didn’t want to make a mistake.

Elsewhere: Frank Hardart

About 1200 miles away in New Orleans, another fellow was wrestling with his plans for the future. Frank Hardart’s family emigrated from Bavaria when Frank was 8. They had no money, so when the ship docked in New Orleans, they stayed.

By the time he was 13, Frank Hardart (1850-1918) was washing dishes in a small restaurant in the French Quarter. Because the owner was rarely there, Frank also cooked, served, and closed up at night. It was a big job with little pay ($3 per week). Frank soon realized it was the best education he could have ever gotten.

Loved the Coffee

As Frank learned the business, he saw that New Orleans residents, from upper-class families to the working class, shared a deep devotion to their coffee. The city’s preferred method was the French drip, where hot water was poured over freshly ground beans held in a cloth bag. This produced a smooth, aromatic cup of coffee that stood in sharp contrast to the bitter “boiled coffee” common in the rest of America. That process often scorched the grounds or reused them until they were tasteless.

Hardart experimented constantly with different beans and grind levels, but he never strayed from the New Orleans method. By the time he was twenty, he had worked in several restaurants and gained a solid understanding of the industry, yet his true obsession remained the coffee. He was convinced that Americans would love this better coffee if they just knew about it.

Centennial Exposition

In the 19th century, people in Europe and the United States loved attending expositions (also called World’s Fairs) with displays from all over the world. For the public, it was an opportunity to learn about different countries at a time when few people could afford to travel. For vendors, it was the perfect showcase for their products.

Frank Hardart aspired to attend Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition in 1876. The trip would be expensive for him, but he wanted to see whether he could make any connections for selling his drip coffee. 

Unfortunately, Hardart had no luck with his offering. He loved the energy of Philadelphia and was fascinated by all the items displayed at the exposition, but he went home with no buyers. 

After returning to New Orleans, Frank took another restaurant job and married. Soon, he and his wife were raising a young child. Despite these new roots, Frank convinced his wife that their future lay in Philadelphia, where he could finally realize his dream of introducing his superior coffee in a major city.

Philidelphia Restaurant World

By 1888, both future partners were living in Philadelphia, but they had not yet met.

 Frank Hardart arrived early in 1888 and took up residence in a rooming house. (His family followed a bit later.) Hardart took a job in a local restaurant, but he still wanted a way to introduce his coffee.

Joe Horn now had the financial backing of his mother, but he was cautious. He knew the stakes were high, and he didn’t want to goof up at this stage. Horn decided to advertise for a partner, specifying in the ad that the person he was looking for “should be someone who knew and loved the nuts and bolts of the restaurant business.”

To Horn’s disappointment, his advertisement received no response. Then two weeks later, an envelope arrived from a local rooming house. Inside was a note scrawled on the torn-off top of a sugar bag: “I’m your man!” It was signed F. Hardart.

While the presentation wasn’t exactly promising, it offered possibility. The two men met and agreed their goals could align. On the strength of a simple handshake, Joe Horn, 27, and Frank Hardart, 38, became partners.

Their first weeks together involved a street-by-street search of downtown Philadelphia. They found a tiny, 11-by-17-foot lunchroom at 39 South 13th Street, directly opposite Wanamaker’s Department Store. That would be their first location.

First Horn and Hardart Restaurant

On December 22, 1888, the first Horn & Hardart restaurant opened. There were no tables—just a long counter, and 15 stools.  The two men worked with pride. It was the beginning of their plan to serve good food for the working class.

On opening day, Joe Horn took the front of the restaurant while Frank Hardart was in the kitchen, cooking the food and preparing his special coffee.

Later in the week, people stopped in saying, “You have the best cup of coffee in town!” Soon enough, they had lines around the corner at lunchtime.

Adding new restaurants was the next priority.  They began picking up land or renting space in old buildings where they could establish new lunchrooms.

Sales Call Changes Plan

In the early 1900s, a European salesman heard about the duo that was setting up lunchrooms in Philadelphia and paid them a call. He wanted to introduce Joe Horn & Frank Hardart to a restaurant feature that was becoming popular in Europe.

The device was a mechanized partition that created a “waiter-less” restaurant. The mechanism wasn’t a machine in the modern sense—there were no motors or electrical belts, but it was interesting. The salesman presented them with drawings of the “machine,” which depicted a brass and nickel divider with many small compartments with glass doors. When a customer inserted a coin (or a token), the door popped open and a prepared dish could be removed.  While staff had to monitor and maintain the food in each slot, the customers could serve themselves. To restaurant patrons, it seemed instant and “automatic.”

Both Horn and Hardart were intrigued, but this would mean a huge investment. Frank Hardart worked out plans for a trip to Europe to see exactly how these things worked.

The European Version

The highly ornate devices used in Europe were beautiful and reduced staffing needs in the dining room, but for the kitchen staff, the work was about the same—only it had to be done faster. In the original European models, the glass compartments displayed only inedible samples rather than actual portions of food.

When a customer inserted the first coin, a bell rang to alert the kitchen staff as to the dish that needed to be readied. A few minutes later, the dish was available. Many kitchens were located on the floor below, so the food was brought up by a dumbwaiter, and the employee tending the back of the partition made it available to the customer.

As the system progressed, restaurant owners began to place simpler dishes (a cold sandwich or a piece of pie) directly into a compartment. That way customers could immediately access those selections. But in general, the European model was just a first step in what eventually was to become a more “automated” model.

Making the Evaluation

On his trip to Europe, Frank Hardart liked the new open feeling of the restaurant’s dining room. The primary person in the front of the house was a cashier who sat in a glass-enclosed box and made change for customers. No maitre’d was present.

Hardart saw that the customer-facing operation seemed smooth, but he noted how hard the employees in the kitchen worked to carry out the process. The staff had to keep close tabs on all the windowed compartments to assess which dishes were needed. Then the cooks needed to work quickly to live up to the idea that the food was available “automatically.” 

Overall, Hardart liked the concept and felt there were ways they could modify it for a Philadelphia restaurant. After consulting with Joe Horn, they decided to invest the $30,000 and have a unit sent to the United States.

The mechanized partitions were not easy to make, so after the order was placed Horn and Hardart knew it would take a full year for delivery. That gave them time to plan out what would be a new style of restaurant. 

Thinking Through Their Needs

Both Joe Horn and Frank Hardart believed in a refined atmosphere for regular customers. As they made their plans, they aspired to make their new restaurant elegant. They believed that high-quality food and beautiful architecture should belong to everyone, regardless of what was in any customer’s wallet.

Their lunchrooms had done well, so they could afford to furnish the restaurant nicely. They envisioned marble-topped tables and wooden chairs. Some tables would be eight-top for communal dining. Others would be for smaller group seatings.  

They also saw changes in the population in the city. Women were entering the work force as clerks, stenographers, and secretaries. They wanted a safe place to get a quick lunch that was efficient and made them feel respected. 

Their staffing needs would be different too. No maitre’d or waiters would be there, but every restaurant would need “nickel throwers”—women who could quickly knock off nickels from a roll of coins so that customers would quicky have in hand the coins they needed for the Automat.

The men saw from the European locations that black uniforms with gloves were the best choice. On both sides of the Atlantic, coins were dirty. Without gloves, the women’s hands were soon tinged with gray. 

As customers entered the restaurant and picked up their needed coins, they were free to sit wherever they wanted. A business executive who popped in for a bowl of soup might find himself at the same table as a secretary finishing a cup of coffee.  Everyone was equal.

Dispensing Drinks

The partners saw, too, that beverages also needed to be served from the vending wall. They knew from the start that they would need dedicated coin-operated dispensers for milk, tea, and coffee. By automating the drinks, they eliminated the need for waitstaff to weave through the dining room with heavy trays.

Initially the drink dispensers were simple and efficient. But on a scouting trip to Europe several years later, Joe Horn, became transfixed by the ornate fountains of Florence. He commissioned silver dolphin-head spouts for all the drink dispensers. These soon became an iconic part of the chain.

Waiting for Delivery

The partners were elated to hear that their partition was finally complete and en route to Liverpool to be sent by ship to America. However, their excitement was short-lived. Shortly after leaving port, the vessel carrying their order collided with another ship in a dense fog off the English coast and sank.

The entire shipment was lost to the bottom of the sea. Nothing was ever retrieved; While the equipment was insured, the disaster forced Horn and Hardart to wait another full year for a replacement set to be manufactured and shipped

The House that Nickels Built

Another year passed before Horn and Hardart could finally open their new restaurant.  Finally, the first Automat in the United States was established at 818 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. 

When the first customers arrived, they were amazed by the operation. If they wanted a piece of pie or a sandwich, then they dropped their nickel in the appropriate slot and turned the knob. When the door opened, they retrieved their desired dish. 

With hot food, the process was a little different.  A bell signaled to the kitchen staff that a customer wanted a hot dish—beef stew or macaroni and cheese, for example. The cooks heated up the dish and then it up to dining floor via a dumbwaiter. 

It was “slow” fast food, but for Philadelphians in 1902, watching their meal ascend from the basement was the height of technological magic.

More Automats

With the success of the first Automat in Philadelphia, Horn & Hardart opened a second one on Juniper Street. A third and fourth soon followed. During this time, Hardart continued to order the “wall of windows” from Europe, but they were at work on a new plan with their chief engineer, John Fritsche.

Fritsche was deeply involved in setting up each restaurant, and soon he was willing to take on the task of building a made-to-order wall for Horn & Hardart. The new design was more American—less ornate. It was made from glass and chrome and looked sleeker, more in keeping with America. Instead of the more ornate and heavier European look, Fritcsche used Carrara glass (milk glass), polished brass, and eventually chrome. The look was bright and sanitary. It was a perfect look for the day as Americans were beginning to worry more about food and cleanliness.

He also made the mechanics more workable.   He patented a knob system that could be twisted by the customer and the door sprang open. The sandwich or piece of cake was easily within reach. He also added a rotating metal drum that made it “automatic” for food to be replaced. A worker on the other side of the wall could simply rotate a fresh plate into the empty slot. This allowed the “wall of windows” to stay constantly full, creating the illusion of a self-replenishing machine that never ran out of food.

Expanding to New York City

The pace of New York City with city dwellers traveling all over town and commuters making their way in and out of the train stations offered an environment that Horn and Hardart couldn’t resist. 

The first property they established was at 1557 Broadway (46^th Street) right in the heart of Times Square. As they undertook construction for this location, they spared no expense. They hired an artist to install a two-story stained glass surround to the main door, and the marble-topped tables and glass compartments trimmed with chrome were everything they could have dreamed of.   

With the opening of that restaurant in 1912, Horn & Hardart became a regional chain.

Continued Focus on Quality

While Frank Hardart maintained high coffee standards, Joe Horn felt the same way about the food. He wanted it to be consistently excellent throughout he restaurants in both cities.

Joe Horn assembled a 200-page manual to be used by all the restaurants. It covered everything from how to clean the coffee dispenser to how to prepare each dish. Instructions on how to monitor the food to be served was also important. Coffee dispensers were to be refreshed every 20 minutes and soup was never to be left uncovered. (If the soup had a lid, then the steam continued to recirculate and the salt and the flavoring remained consistent.)

With his eye on quality, Horn hired a master chef. Francis J. Bourdon had been trained at Cordon Bleu, but he was perfectly happy to have regular employment and to create good-tasting comfort food for working people.

Horn and Hardart Central Kitchen

Joe Horn also determined that each city needed a central kitchen from which to operate. If food was prepared in one place in large batches, the executives could check quality central location before the offerings were sent out to each location. The New York kitchen was at 50^th and 11^th Avenue, and Philadelphia’s central spot was near 10^th and Locust. 

Each day Horn and the top executives in Philadelphia and New York would gather at the “sample” table in their commissary kitchen. Each dish would be sampled, and if anything was even the slightest bit off, Horn was perfectly willing to trash the whole batch. After everything was approved, the containers of food were loaded on trucks and sent off to the various Automats.

Expansion Continued

By 1932, New York City had 42 Automat-cafeterias, and Philadelphia had 46 properties. About half of the restaurants in Philadelphia were lunchrooms. The rest were Automats.

As they watch the population needs change, Horn and Hardart also decided to sell prepared food from free standing retail stores. Their advertising slogan for these operations was “Less Work for Mother.”  She could heat up the food at home, but she didn’t have to prepare it.

Joe Horn Focused on Community

While Horn & Hardart worked their people hard, they also kept their eyes on what the staff needed. During the Depression, Horn & Hardart made certain that all staff members were fed at least one meal. 

Joe Horn had no family, so he treated the workers as extended family. He made sure they had disability insurance  and set up a loan program for people in need.  

How Horn and Hardart Became Part of Popular Culture

 How did a regional cafeteria concept become an enduring icon of American dining? The answer lies not in the “wall of windows,” but in the chain’s locations—they were in the heart of two important cities. Philadelphia was becoming the capital of the music business (Gamble and Huff and the Philly Sound), and New York was where the theater world thrived. 

While businesspeople, clerks, and secretaries were very much a part of the customer base, so were writers, composers, and actors. These people helped turn the Automat into a setting for a film, a scene for a Broadway show, or the subject of a song sung by the latest singer in vogue.  The most famous song specifically about the coffee (and pie) at the Automat is “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee,” written by the legendary Irving Berlin.

In the meantime, the New York Automats had Gene Kelly, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Stewart, Walter Winchell, Beverly Sills, Anne Bancroft, Dorothy Parker, Helen Gurley Brown, and Woody Allen coming in and out. Many weren’t luminaries at the time they first visited, but they rose to fame. As their careers progressed, they shared memories of the Automat, increasing its reputation and standing

To people in rural locations, the fact that movies were frequently set in the Automats, made it an iconic part of New York City. If you were coming in to see the Empire State Building, you just had to have a meal at the Automat.

Nearing the End

Automats remained popular into the 1960s, but the restaurants began to show their age as the popularity of true fast-food restaurants grew. At Horn & Hardart, the next generation of family stepped in with William Curtis, Joe Horn’s nephew, taking over.    

The new board saw that as office workers scurried for trains and buses to take them to the suburbs, the center-city business model was losing its restaurant magic.  The company tried setting up an Automat or two in shopping malls, but no one wanted comfort food if they could get a hamburger and fries.

Since Horn & Hardart had been taken public in 1960, there was added pressure to deliver shareholder value.  By the 1970s, Horn & Hardart prepared to pivot. They knew they had great value in real estate, so they secured franchise rights. They began gutting their own legendary Art Deco dining rooms to convert them into Burger Kings.

The business that was built on the personal integrity of Joe Horn and Frank Hardart was eventually dismantled. Horn & Hardart effectively stopped being a “restaurant business” and became a franchise holding company. 

In 1991, the very last Horn & Hardart Automat, located at 200 East 42nd Street in New York City, shut down, ending a nearly 90-year run of the regional chain. The ultimate irony of the Automat’s demise is that it wasn’t just defeated by modern fast food; it was consumed by it.

***

H and H Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Horn & Hardart was known for its comfort food. What could be better than reprinting their recipe for Macaroni and Cheese?

(Yields 4 to 6 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. small elbow macaroni
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (plus extra for greasing the baking dish)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 2 Tbsp. light cream (or half-and-half)
• 1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, freshly grated (avoid pre-shredded, as it won’t melt as smoothly)
• 1/2 cup canned diced or crushed tomatoes (drained slightly)
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• A dash of white pepper
• A dash of cayenne pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F and generously butter a shallow casserole or 8×8-inch baking dish.
2. Cook the elbow macaroni in salted water according to the package directions until just al dente. Drain well and set aside.
3. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the flour, salt, white pepper, and cayenne. Cook for about 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly to form a smooth paste and eliminate the raw flour taste.
4. Gradually pour in the milk and light cream, whisking continuously. Raise the heat slightly to medium-low and bring it to a gentle simmer. Keep whisking for about 5 minutes until the sauce becomes thick, smooth, and coats the back of a spoon.
5. Remove the saucepan entirely from the heat. Add the grated cheddar cheese, stirring constantly until it is completely melted and the sauce is velvety.
6. In a small bowl, stir the sugar into the canned tomatoes. Gently fold this tomato mixture into your warm cheese sauce.
7. Fold the cooked macaroni into the cheese sauce, ensuring every noodle is perfectly coated. Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the edges are bubbling aggressively and the top develops a beautiful golden-brown crust.

Why is Election Day always on a Tuesday? This is a question I am often asked when I address groups about our election day history. 

In 1845, Congress chose the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November because it was the most convenient day for 19th-century farmers. They traveled on horseback or with wagons, so a Tuesday gave them travel time without interfering with Sunday church services or Wednesday market days.

That’s the simple answer, but there is more complexity behind it. 

Allowing for the Electoral College Timing

When voters cast a ballot for president every four years, they are actually voting for a slate of electors who meet in each state to cast their votes for a particular candidate. Those votes are then sent to Congress where they are officially counted, and the incoming president is announced. (This constitutes the Electoral College.)

The first effort for some sort of schedule and system began in 1792. At that time, electors met on the first Wednesday in December. Federal law specified that each state could choose its own electors, so long as it was within a 34-day window before the date when the electors would meet and cast their ballots.

Why a 34-Day Window?

The founding fathers picked 34 days out of respect for the lifestyles of the citizenry. Many landowners owned farms, and so they wanted to be sure the harvest was in. They also needed to allow travel time for people to arrive in town to vote.

But it was chaotic. States held elections at all different times. Government officials worried that if one state voted earlier than the others, then word of their vote might affect how people in other states voted. (We have a similar issue today, but they used to think they could control it.)

For that reason, Congress passed the 1845 law specifying that elections should take place the “first Tuesday after the first Monday…” keeping the date within the 34 days prior to the December Electoral College meeting date.  (The election of 1848 was the first time this new schedule was applied.)

However, like everything else in this world, “things change.” In 1887 the date of the meeting of the Electoral College was moved to the second Monday in January. Despite this, the states have maintained the “first Tuesday after the first Monday.”

More Changes: Earlier Voting and Mail-In Voting

As election officials evaluated voter turnout and listened to consumer feedback, states began coming up with changes that were intended to increase voter participation. (The Constitution specifies that states are in charge of elections.)  Administrators noted that citizens are more likely to vote if they don’t have to take time off from work or stand in a long line to cast their ballots.

As a result, states have tried offering many options over the last 20 years. Some states switched to more easily available mail-in ballots; others have broadened the opportunities for in-person early voting. Voting by mail or a more spread out time in which to vote also relieves the strain on poll workers.

In 2000, only about 14 percent of voters cast their ballots before Tuesday; by 2022, that number hit50 percent.

As of 2026, 47 states (plus Washington, D.C.) offer some form of early in-person voting. Three states—Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire—do not offer early voting for general voters though people with specific excuses can usually vote absentee.

In some areas, states are making mail-in voting easily available as a way to increase turnout.   In California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, every registered voter is automatically mailed a ballot before the election.

Federal Push for Voter ID and In-Person Voting

Though some communities worry about the safety of our voting system, studies show that statistically voter fraud is not really an issue. Studies have been conducted by major non-partisan groups including the Heritage Foundation (leans right) and the Brennan Center (leans left), and there is very little abuse of the system.

Despite the low statistics on fraud, some states are working on change. Florida has just passed a bill that requires voters to show IDs to register to vote. (This change occurs in 2027.)

Other states, including New Hampshire, Wyoming, and Louisiana, have passed laws requiring proof of citizenship to register.

Until recently, Utah offered universal mail-in voting, but they just amended that law. By 2029, voters may still vote by mail, but they will need to “opt-in” instead of receiving a ballot automatically.

Another troubling change has been put forward by Ohio. Their state legislature passed a law that strictly limits the time for returning mailed ballots. This means a foul-up by the postal system could cause voters ballots to not be registered in time. Election administrators hope more people will vote in person as a result.

And while the current federal government continues to push for more alterations to tighten up the voting system, changes cost money. Most states are currently taking a “wait and see” approach. What will happen with the court battles in states like Florida and Arizona? (In Arizona, they have been wrangling over proof-of-citizenship laws for 20 years.)

Because studies show that the system is sound, many states figure they might as well wait.

So as you can see, Americans may still honor the first Tuesday after the first Monday as Election Day, but they actually vote at a wide variety of times and places!

In the early 19th century, the American medical field was almost exclusively a men’s club. However, a few resilient women refused to accept the status quo, stepping forward as pioneers to carve out a new path.

Today, that landscape is shifting dramatically. While men currently account for 61% of active physicians in the U.S., women now make up the majority of medical students and residents. We are standing on the brink of a major demographic shift.

Below are the stories of six unsung women who challenged the establishment and moved the field of medicine forward.

Women Medical Leaders: Lydia Pinkham

Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819-1883) was one of the first people to take women’s health issues seriously.  She opened a closed door on the health matters that are unique to women. To help friends and neighbors, she created a vegetable tonic that helped with “women’s ills.” The family decided to package the product, and her sons soon took to the road to help place the tonic in stores.

Up until this time, women had no resources for health advice. Because Pinkham’s product became so popular, women wrote her for advice. Her responses were mostly common sense (eat well, exercise, and avoid the tight, restrictive clothing that was popular in the 19^th century). Eventually some of the advice was collected in pamphlets.

Though the compound has evolved to meet modern FDA standards, Lydia Pinkham’s Compound (now owned by Numark Brands) can still be found online and in major drug stores.

Clara Barton

Clara Barton (1821-1912) is well-known as the “Angel of the Battlefield”for her work during the Civil War. Later she brought the Red Cross to the U.S. and formed the American Red Cross.

Barton is less well-known for running the Office of Missing Soldiers. During the Civil War, the military had no official identification system. Sometimes soldiers caried a note in their pocket or wallet. Other times, their buddies buried them with something saying who they were.

Clara Barton set up an office in Washington, D.C. that operated from 1865-1867. She received 63,000 letters from families whose loved ones were missing, and she or her staff answered them all. They also managed to identify 22,000 soldiers.

Dr. Rebecca Crumpler

Dr. Rebecca Crumpler (1831-1895) was a Black woman who worked as a nurse for several white doctors in Massachusetts in the 1860s. She was so well-regarded by the men that they recommended her for admission the New England Female Medical College; she became the first African American to be admitted.  

Once she became a physician, she cared for Black patients in the Massachusetts area at a time when white doctors refused to treat people of color. At the end of her career, she wrote a home health guide for women about everything from nursing a newborn to managing cuts and wounds.  For the first time, households had a reliable reference as to how to manage various health issues.

Dorothy Harrison Eustis

Dorothy Harrison Eustis (1886-1946) was a dog breeder who became interested in training guide dogs for the blind.  While she was not a medical professional, her service to humanity was important to the health of people with impaired vision.

Eustis trained the first seeing eye dog brought to this country (1928). She went on to dedicate the rest of her life to breeding and training guide dogs. She and Morris Frank, the fellow who received the first dog she trained, created the school, The Seeing Eye. The school still operates today and continues to train and place dogs.

Dr. Virginia Apgar

Dr. Virginia Apgar (1909-1974) hoped to be a surgeon but she graduated from medical school during the Depression when men were taking all the available jobs.  She went into the relatively new field of anesthesiology. This placed her in delivery rooms where she had the opportunity to observe what happened with mothers and babies shortly after birth.

Apgar was alarmed that babies were only cursorily evaluated before being sent off to the hospital nursery. To solve the problem, she developed a method for assessing newborn health.  She originally called it the Newborn Scoring System, and it greatly changed the mortality rate for infants. The system is still used today but it is now referred to as the Apgar Score.  She then went on to run the March of Dimes.

Dr. Antonia Novello

Dr. Antonia Novello (1944–  ) grew up in Puerto Rico and became a physician. She is the first Latino to ever serve as U.S. Surgeon General. Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, she made many contributions to public health, among them working to improve medical care for women and minorities. 

Dr. Novello also targeted underage drinking and smoking, which involved a focus on cigarette advertising.  The cartoon image of Joe Camel was a particular target that she felt made smoking attractive to the young.

***

This information is based on my six-volume history of medicine as well as a speech I gave at Arizona State University for their Barrett Honors Program. If you’d like to see the full presentation given at ASU, click here:

Little-Known Women in Medicine Presentation with Kate Kelly.

The Triple Nickles, as the 555^th Parachute Infantry Battalion was known, were a remarkable, highly-disciplined company of African American paratroopers who paved the way for integration in the military. They also overcame military skepticism by proving that African Americans could excel at jobs that required intricate training.

How The Triple Nickles Got Started

At the beginning of World War II, African Americans were taken into the military at a rapid rate, but they were not given combat positions. They were the support personnel. They could cook, clean, manage the laundry, or become carpenters, road builders, guards, or clerks. If a black man became an officer, he could only be in charge of other African Americans in the military.

Housing, meals, and recreation were also separate. If they were allowed to attend movies on base, there was a separate entrance and seating area for them.

This was not the Army they had hoped for.

Some of the men worked as support staff at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the Army’s new parachute school was based.  Watching the white men train to be paratroopers was exciting but disheartening. Why couldn’t the black troops qualify for jobs like that?

Walter Morris was a first sergeant at Fort Benning. His official job was as a clerk. As he performed his job, he noted that his fellow soldiers were depressed. For many, their old jobs at home were better than what they were doing at Fort Benning.

Walter Morris began to consider the possibilities. If the white soldiers finished their training at 4 p.m. and the support staff got all their work done, what would keep him from gathering a group of men to go through the type of training the white soldiers were enduring?

Taking a Risk

To be a paratrooper requires important qualifications and skills as Tanya Lee Stone points out in her book about the Triple Nickles, Courage Has No Color. The men needed specialized training along with a very high level of physical fitness. To jump out of airplanes into the unknown, they also needed  a lot of courage.

Morris gathered the men and began guiding them through the same rigorous calisthenics he had observed being performed by the white soldiers. Some of the equipment was not accessible without specialized trainers, but for jumping preparation, there was a 5-foot tower the men could use.  This exercise provided the feeling of jumping off something high, and it also let them practice learning to land with their weight well-distributed. Evenly distributed weight is key to reducing injuries.

As Morris continued his after-hours program, the men became more fit. With that came added pride for what they were accomplishing.

One evening the base’s commanding general drove by and saw the men training. The next day Morris was summoned to headquarters. Morris was afraid he was in trouble, but the general congratulated him and shared with him the fact that plans were in the works to create a test platoon of African American paratroopers. Walter Morris was asked to be their first sergeant.

First Black Paratroopers

On February 18, 1944, sixteen soldiers became America’s first black paratroopers. They became known as the “Triple Nickles” as a shorthand for their official title, the 555^th Parachute Infantry Company. The spelling of “nickle” derives from the old English, but it may also have been a spelling error that stuck.

Despite qualifying as paratroopers, they still lived, ate, and participated in recreation separately. Only their work life changed.

The 555^th hoped that they would soon be sent to Europe to fight. Their hopes rose in December 1944 when they heard that the Allies were in need of reinforcements.

But the Army hesitated. The Allied paratroopers were all white. How could they send in African Americans as reinforcements? In the meantime, fate made a decision unnecessary. Germany was clearly in a slow collapse. The fighting probably wouldn’t go on that much longer.

Triple Nickles: A New Plan

Soon the Triple Nickles were told they were going to be sent West on a secret mission. The assumption was that they would soon help with the war in the Pacific. To their surprise, the group was split—some were sent to Chico, California. The remainder went to Pendleton, Oregon (northeast section of the state). The orders were called “Operation Firefly.”

In these two locations, the Triple Nickles learned of a top-secret threat to the United States that the government wanted to keep under wraps.

After much experimentation, the Japanese had discovered a way to mount an assault on the western portion of the United States using the jet air stream that flows from west to east. The Japanese found that the jet stream could successfully carry oversized helium balloons loaded with incendiary devices. The plan was to get the balloons to the West Coast and let the fire-starting devices drop. If enough fires could be ignited along the West Coast, Americans might be diverted from attacking overseas.

The calculation for these balloons was complex. The scientists saw that the balloons would take from 80-120 hours to reach the United States. The balloons were designed so that if they sank below 30,000 feet, a sandbag would drop, thereby letting the balloon regain altitude.  Their calculations allowed for dropping enough sandbags by the time the balloons reached the West Coast that the next devices dropped would be the incendiary devices. The final device that released was a small fragmentation bomb that was to destroy the evidence.

Japanese Fire Balloons Serious Danger

Nine thousand fire balloons are thought to have been sent, and it is believed that 1000 actually reached the United States.

The plan for the Triple Nickles was to join in with the U.S. Forest

Service to fight this threat. The Forest Service’s smoke jumping program was only six years old, so the Triple Nickles were among the early practitioners.

The Triple Nickles needed to be trained in forest firefighting techniques as well as bomb detonation methods, but they also needed to learn a new method of jumping. While paratroopers always jump into the clear, smokejumpers aim for the trees and then rappel down in order to land near a blaze. (The only fatality among the Triple Nickles involved an unfortunate fall from a tree.)

First Sighting of a Balloon

The first sighting of a balloon may have been in late 1944 by a crew of miners in Thermopolis, Wyoming. The fire that resulted was a distance from the mine, but the reports from the miners were taken seriously by local sheriffs, who explored what had dropped and called in the FBI, the Army, and the Navy.

A short time later, military planes began patrolling the West Coast to shoot down the balloons before they reached land. A few citizen watch groups were formed to help watch for sightings.

The military asked the press not to write about the threat. They didn’t want to alarm citizens, and they also didn’t want Japan to know that the balloons were reaching U.S. shores.

Triple Nickles Up and Jumping

Before long, 555^th were working alongside other smokejumpers fighting blazes.

Though they didn’t know this at the time, none of the Japanese balloons actually set the fires the men fought, but the risk was very real. Over time, parts of the balloons have been found from northern Mexico to Alaska and from Hawaii and as far east as Michigan.

And there were fatalities from these devices.  In May of 1945 a pastor and his wife were taking a group of schoolchildren on a picnic when they came upon a device from a balloon. One of the children spotted it, not knowing what it was. The child picked up the device to show the others. The woman and five of the children were killed in the explosion.

Another near miss was when a balloon became entangled in electrical wires near the Hanford Engineering Works in Washington. The plant was making uranium slugs for the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Japan. Had there been anything longer than the few minutes of electrical interruption, the result could have been a meltdown like what happened in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The Triple Nickles were an important part of this firefighting team, and the service had advantages. While some regretted not going overseas, those who were in Pendleton reported that there was more comradery and less segregation, and they got to do some sightseeing.

Mission Concludes

In October 1945, their mission was deemed concluded. The 555^th spent the next two years at Fort Bragg. In December of 1947, their assignment changed. All men in the Triple Nickles were transferred into the 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment and became the 3^rd Battalion of the 82^nd Airborne—this was first military unit to achieve full integration.

Seven months later President H. Truman signed Executive order 9981, establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Forces of people of all races, religions, or national origins.

The Triple Nickles had already achieved this by taking the initiative.

Walter Morris summed it up nicely in an interview with the Associated Press many years later: “We didn’t win any wars, but we did contribute. What we proved was that the color of a man has nothing to do with his ability.”

Inspiration to Others

In so doing, they have inspired many men to become paratroopers and smokejumpers as well.

The Triple Nickles maintain a robust website so that others  can learn of what they accomplished. There is also a monument honoring them at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

This is a clip from an event held at the Pentagon to honor them:

To read about another story about a World War II hero, read Dorie Miller’s story.

Another heroic story is that of 6888th Central Postal Battalion, the African American women who arrived in Europe to untangle the mail for the soldiers. By getting these letters and packages delivered, the 6888th single-handedly helped morale for World War II.