History of the World War I draft
Published Saturday, September 6, 2008
Photo provided by Otter Tail County Historical Society
Selected draft outside the Otter Tail County Court House, ready to leave by train for Camp Grant near Rockford, Illinois, 1918.
On May 18, 1917, the Selective Service Act was passed, authorizing the president to temporarily increase the military establishment of the United States.
The Selective Service System was responsible for the process of selecting men for induction into the military service, from the initial registration to the actual delivery of men to military training camps.
Under the office of the Provost Marshal General, the Selective Service System was made up of 52 state offices (one for each of the 48 states; the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; and the District of Columbia), 155 district boards, and 4648 local boards.
These organizations were responsible for registering men, classifying them, considering needs for manpower in certain industries
and agriculture, as well as family situations of the registrants; handling appeals of these classifications; determining the medical fitness of individual registrants; determining the order in which registrants would be called; calling registrants; and placing them on trains to training centers.
Local boards were established for each county or similar subdivision in each state, and for each 30,000 persons (approximately) in each city or county with a population over 30,000.
For additional information on those that were drafted from Otter Tail County see the collection of draft registrations cards in the library of the Otter Tail County Historical Society, 1110 W. Lincoln Ave., Fergus Falls.
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