During WWI, Missouri's white, middle-class Home Guard filled in for the National Guard

The Great War depleted the states’ National Guard troops, sending them overseas. Missouri was one of the states that backfilled the domestic duties with unpaid volunteers.
During World War I, Missouri was among a handful of states that implemented a volunteer, unpaid version of the National Guard.

A new book from a Missouri University of Science and Technology historian examines the little-known Home Guard.

The United States didn’t have much of a standing army when it entered World War I. So every state’s National Guard was sent overseas. That left no one available to handle the domestic duties normally assigned to the guard.

Gov. Frederick Gardner responded by invoking a state law that allowed him to establish a Home Guard.