Dates

• Existence: 1884-1966

Biography

Leon H. Caverly was born on November 22, 1884 in Dover, New Hampshire, married in the early 1900s and had a child. His wife died in the flu pandemic of 1918, by which time Caverly was a cinematographer who had, in June 1917, joined the Marine Corps Publicity Bureau. His daughter was raised by his wife's mother.   Caverly was sent to Europe where he documented military activities in France, Belgium, and Germany with both motion picture and still photography. He writes in a later letter that a film titled America's Answer to the Huns, the second official U.S. government war film, contains much of his work. A print of this film exists at NARA (111 M 316 "America's Answer.") After the Armistice, he worked filming Russian prisoner camps in Germany and German civilian riots in Berlin. In September of 1919, the Marines sent Caverly to Cuba and Haiti for six months to do documentary photography. He was mustered out in 1920.   He returned to private sector employment, and through the 1920s seems to have worked for or with traveler and travel writer E.M. Newman, traveling and photographing for the "Newman Traveltalks" books; Seeing Paris (1931) includes 300 Caverly photographs. He married a second time in 1925, Grave V. Kopp, and may have had his own busiess from 1926 to 1929 or 1930. In 1933, the Caverlys had a daughter, Lynn Gail Caverly Hartung. Damaged financially by the 1929 stock market crash, he took a took a job as a photostat operator in New York City, in which position he remained until he retired in 1956, at the age of 72. He died December 12, 1966, and was buried in the Long Island National Cemetary.   Some of his glass slides of World War I were donated to the Historica Societyin Newark, New Jersey. There is also a collection of Caverly's materials at the Smithsonian Musuem in Washington, D.C.

Description of "Amemrica's Answer": On U.S. activities in World War I. Reel 1 shows Wilson and Pershing; a destroyer-escorted convoy; Engrs. dredging a marsh and constructing wharves at Brest, Fr.; and troops debarking. Reel 2, Austro-Hungarian POW's unload supplies. Engrs. fell trees and snake logs from a forest. A refrigeration plant is erected and stocked. Reel 3, locomotives are unloaded at Bordeaux. Trucks are loaded with supplies. Bread is baked, French women sew camouflage onto canvas. Lumber is camouflaged with paint. Reel 4 shows camouflaged troops in the field. A small dam is constructed. Shoes, harnesses, and saddles are repaired and clothes are washed in a QM shop. Reel 5, French women sew clothing. Artillery horses are unloaded from a freighter. Soldiers shoot dice. Nurses comfort wounded at a base hospital. Y.M.C.A. and Salvation Army women distribute refreshments to troops. Reel 6, infantry trudges through mud toward the front. Food is carried from a field kitchen to the trenches. Artillery convoys pass through rubbled villages. Reel 7, antiaircraft guns are fired. Ger. bombs explode near a command car. Shows scenes at a base hospital. Reel 8 shows a Memorial Day service (1918) in a cemetery. Gen, Edwards and Maj. Theodore Roosevelt, decorates troops. Artillery is pulled into firing position. Reel 9, Marines await orders to advance. Cantigny is shelled and infantry charges.

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