Huge crowds celebrated what would become Veterans Day on this week in Philly history
Armistice Day marked the end of World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.
There was victory in Philadelphia.
Thousands made a beeline for Broad Street and South Penn Square to vent their cheers.
They rallied around the city’s 29-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty in commemoration of the end of a worldwide conflict.
The celebration surpassed any event in the city’s history up until that point, The Inquirer reported.
Early-morning whistles, the paper wrote, carried the news of victory to sleepers.
Business stopped while men, women, and children rejoiced with pomp and circumstance later seen for Super Bowl parades and papal visits.
It was Nov. 11, 1918, the day the world’s mightiest military powers signed the armistice that ended World War I.
From 3 a.m., when news of the deal hit the city, and through midnight, the city “marched and sang and lifted up its souls and rejoiced,” The Inquirer reported.
“A solid seething mass of humanity stacked shoulder to shoulder as far as you could see was jammed in the streets,” recalled attendee Morris G. Condon III, whose account was included in the 2016 Library Company of Philadelphia exhibition, “Together We Win: The Philadelphia Homefront during the First World War.”
“I can still hear my father swearing, pulling my mother through the crowds, and she, near tears, pulling me,” Condon said. “It seemed everyone in the city was jammed into the City Hall area in all directions.”
People all over the country rejoiced in unison.
Philadelphia’s monster celebration followed the devastating Liberty Loans Parade, a war-bond promotion that brought 200,000 people into the city earlier that fall and helped spread the deadly influenza pandemic. The outbreak would go on to kill more than 20,000 Philadelphians.
“Philadelphians came together publicly to show support for the war effort,” according to the Library Company. “From attending war bond rallies to participating in patriotic sing-a-longs to watching parades, Philadelphia residents honored those who were serving and encouraged the city to do whatever it could to help win the war.
And the celebration, which would become known as Armistice Day, wouldn’t end in 1918.
On June 1, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation that made Nov. 11 a national holiday.
Henceforth known as Veterans Day.
