Nine Real Photo Postcards from the American Legion Parade at the 1927 National Convention in Paris.

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Photo documentation of a little-remembered international Franco-American event. In 1927, special trains and ocean lines were chartered to bring almost 10,000 American Legionnaires to Paris. Referring to themselves as the Second American Expeditionary Force, the Americans descended on Paris, ten years after first A.E.F. arrived in the city, for a Convention sponsored by the American Legion.

The event was significant enough that Congress and various states enacted laws allowing various public-employed WWI veterans to attend the event without losing their jobs and, in some instances, even given a paid vacation. (The American Legion Monthly. July, 1927 and also with photographs by Yvon)

These 9 images document the Convention’s opening day parade, a “world event ... in keeping with the customs and traditions of both France and the United States.” Veterans from the delegations of Georgia and Illinois are seen marching, drummers drum, bands play, large American flags fly, and American veterans from all service branches parade along as French citizens line the sidewalk of the Avenue des Champs Elysees with the Arc de Triumphe visible in the background of several images.

Yvon was the pseudonym for the French photographer Jean Pierre Yves-Petit (1886–1969), a.k.a., who took thousands of images in Paris.

Price: $125.00