Collecting the artifacts of Citizens’ Training Camps

ilitary collectors often focus on particular periods such as the Civil War, WWI, WWII and subsequent conflicts. WWI Collectors often find in their search items that relate to the CMTC. Actually the origin of the Citizens’ Military Training Camps has its roots in the period in the years just before the U.S. entered WWI. As tensions broke out in Europe, a group of influential Americans who supported the Allies set up what was known as the “Plattsburg Camps” and were privately funded. Realizing that the U.S. standing army was too small to help the Allies, private funds set up camps that would help train additional potential Army officers during the summers of 1915 and 1916. Some 40,000 men, who were all college graduates, would provide a cadre of the wartime officer corps. The Military Training Camps Association was formed in 1916 by the graduates of these camps. At the conclusion of WWI with the National Defense Act of 1920, the CMTC was established. This military training program