E-2750  Extremely RARE WWI Flour Sack sent to Belgium to feed the starving citizens ofthe occupied areas. The Germans were confiscating food and the Belgian already were importing 75% of their food prior to WWI. The Germans would not let the refugees go into Germany, nor would they let them pass through the front lines into France. Herbert Hoover negotiated with the British , French and Germans to allow this humanitarian aid. Outrageously rare item of early US aid. Between 1914 and 1919, the CRB operated entirely with voluntary efforts and was able to feed 11,000,000 Belgians by raising the necessary money, obtaining voluntary contributions of food, shipping the food past the German submarine blockades and army occupied areas, and controlling the food distribution in Belgium. The CRB shipped 697,116,000 pounds of flour to Belgium and evidence indicates that sugar and grains were also sent. The flour was packaged in cotton flour sacks by American mills. The movement of these bags throughout Belgium was carefully controlled by the CRB since cotton was in great demand for the manufacture of German ammunition and also because the CRB feared that the flour sacks would be taken out of Belgium, refilled with inferior flour, and resold as relief flour. As a result, the empty flour sacks were carefully accounted for and distributed to professional schools, sewing workrooms, convents, and individual artists. Separate from the trade schools of Belgium, the professional schools specialized in training girls to sew, embroider, and make lace, and the sewing workrooms were large centers established in the major Belgian cities during the war to provide work for the thousands of unemployed. Girls and women made famous Belgian lace, embroidered textiles and repaired and remade clothing in these workrooms. The flour sacks were used by these various Belgian groups to make new clothing, accessories, pillows, bags, and other functional items. $235

E-2749    Extremely RARE WWI Flour Sack sent to Belgium to feed the starving citizens ofthe occupied areas. The Germans were confiscating food and the Belgian already were importing 75% of their food prior to WWI. The Germans would not let the refugees go into Germany, nor would they let them pass through the front lines into France. Herbert Hoover negotiated with the British , French and Germans to allow this humanitarian aid. Outrageously rare item of early US aid. Between 1914 and 1919, the CRB operated entirely with voluntary efforts and was able to feed 11,000,000 Belgians by raising the necessary money, obtaining voluntary contributions of food, shipping the food past the German submarine blockades and army occupied areas, and controlling the food distribution in Belgium. The CRB shipped 697,116,000 pounds of flour to Belgium and evidence indicates that sugar and grains were also sent. The flour was packaged in cotton flour sacks by American mills. The movement of these bags throughout Belgium was carefully controlled by the CRB since cotton was in great demand for the manufacture of German ammunition and also because the CRB feared that the flour sacks would be taken out of Belgium, refilled with inferior flour, and resold as relief flour. As a result, the empty flour sacks were carefully accounted for and distributed to professional schools, sewing workrooms, convents, and individual artists. Separate from the trade schools of Belgium, the professional schools specialized in training girls to sew, embroider, and make lace, and the sewing workrooms were large centers established in the major Belgian cities during the war to provide work for the thousands of unemployed. Girls and women made famous Belgian lace, embroidered textiles and repaired and remade clothing in these workrooms. The flour sacks were used by these various Belgian groups to make new clothing, accessories, pillows, bags, and other functional items. $235