War's End on Wall Street, 1918
America prematurely celebrated the end of World War I, four days before the formal declaration of Armistice. Why?
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“All night long Broadway reverberated to the crash of band music and the tooting of hundreds of thousands of horns”
Taken at 1:52 pm Eastern Time on Thursday, November 7th, 1918, America prematurely celebrated the end of World War I, four days before the formal declaration of Armistice. Why? Because of a lunchtime conversation between Roy Howard of the United Press and Admiral Henry Wilson of the US Navy, passing on that an armistice treaty had been signed, according to a contact of Wilson’s at the American Embassy. News spread quickly, and soon traders on Wall Street celebrated along with the rest of New York, throwing their ticker tape from every available window onto the streets below. Armistice was formally declared on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, with the United Press receiving scorn from The New York Times for reporting the news prematurely without confirmation. 𖨠
12 November 1918
All night long Broadway reverberated to the crash of band music and the tooting of hundreds of thousands of horns, echoed to the clatter of exploding automobile exhausts firing volley after volley to the detriment of engines and the ears of passers-by, trembled to the footsteps of close to 1 million people who surged back and forth, screaming their exultation to the pale stars high above electric signs that blazed as though there had never been such a thing as the coal shortage.
