Miss Morgan's Book Brigade

The novel highlights the significant yet overlooked contributions of women during WWI, including the American Committee for Devastated France, called CARD as an acronym for its French translation: le Comité américain pour les régions dévastées. CARD was a volunteer civilian relief organization founded by philanthropist Anne Morgan, the daughter of J. P. Morgan, and physician Anne Murray Dike. Anne Morgan used her wealth and position to campaign for women’s rights, as Jessie narrates in the novel:

Instead [of features in the society pages], front-page profile pieces described her advocacy for working women—pushing for better salaries, safer conditions in factories, and paid vacation. She and her high-society friends picketed the streets of Manhattan with impoverished garment workers, knowing that where the well-heeled went, newspapermen and cameras would follow (12).

Using these lessons, Morgan used photography to document the suffering of the people in war-torn France and bring attention to it in the United States. As a trained physician, Anne Murray Dike organized field work and kept records, including the budget, for CARD. Both women received the Croix de Guerre for courage under fire and were appointed to the French Legion of Honor. As in the novel, Anne Morgan and Anne Murray Dike set up CARD headquarters in the 17th-century Château de Blérancourt, fewer than 40 miles from the front and close to what became known as the Red Zone, an area so contaminated with unexploded ordnance, human and animal remains, and toxic chemicals that it is still unfit for human habitation.