Why were US soldiers in the 1st World War Called "Doughboys"?

Answer 1

'Doughboys' was the nickname given to the American Expeditionary Force that took part in the later years of World War One. Before this decisive US involvement the colloquialism had applied only to infantryman, but at some point between April 1917 and November 1918 the word expanded to include the whole American armed forces. The term was not used in a derogatory sense, and is present in the diaries and letters of US serviceman, as well as newspapers.

For us today, and maybe for all Americans who will follow, the Doughboys were the men America sent to France in the Great War, who licked Kaiser Bill and fought to make the world safe for Democracy.

The expression doughboy, though, was in wide circulation a century before the First World War in both Britain and America, albeit with some very different meanings. Horatio Nelson's sailors and Wellington's soldiers in Spain were both familiar with fried flour dumplings called doughboys, the predecessor of the modern doughnut that both we and the Doughboys of World War I came to love. Because of the occasional contact of the two nation's armed force and transatlantic migration, it seems likely that this usage was known to the members of the U.S. Army by the early 19th century.

Independently, in the former colonies, the term had come to be applied to baker's young apprentices, i.e. dough-boys. Again, American soldiers probably were familiar with this usage. This version of doughboy was also something of a distant relative to "dough-head", a colloquialism for stupidity in 19th Century America. When doughboy was finally to find a home with the U.S. Army it would have a disparaging connotation, used most often by cavalrymen looking down [quite literally] on the foot-bound infantry.

In examining the evolution of doughboy these pre-existing streams of application need to be kept in mind. There is, however, an absence of literary citations clearly connecting either to the American miliary. Doughboy as applied to the infantry of the U.S. Army first appears, without any precedent that can be documented, in accounts of the Mexican-American War of 1846-47.


The actual origin of the term 'Doughboy' is still debated within both US historical and military circles, but it dates back to at least the American-Mexican War of 1846-7; an excellent summary of the theories can be found here. However, when US serviceman returned to Europe en masse during the Second World War, the term doughboy had vanished: these soldiers were now GI's.

You may be interested to note that 'doughboy' was also the nickname of an inanimate object, a form of flour based dumpling that partly developed into the doughnut, and was in use by the late eighteenth century.

Answer 2

There are four explanations each with their school of advocates, each with weaknesses in either evidence or logic.
• The Baked Goods Theory: were named such because of their method of cooking their rations. Meals were often doughy flour and rice concoctions either baked in the ashes of a camp fire or shaped around a bayonet and cooked over the flames.
• The Button Theory: infantrymen wore coats with unique, globular brass buttons. The buttons are said to reminiscent of the doughboy dumplings eaten by the soldiers and sailors of earlier days
• The Pipe Clay Theory: During the 19th Century American enlisted men used a fine whitish clay called pipe clay to give "polish" to their uniforms and belts. In rainy weather the saturated clay came to look "doughie".
• The Adobe Theory: in marching over the parched terrain of the deserts of Northern Mexico the infantry stirred up so much dust that they took on the look of the abode buildings of the region -- hence, [after a few phonetic adjustments] doughboys.
For the complete article, read:
http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/origindb.htm

Answer 3

They slept in Trenches. a robust action picture to exhibit screen might want to be all quiet on the western the front. The circumstances were terrible. they in many cases slept with rats and that i heard considering they could no longer take their boots off for days at a time the floor on their feet rotted.

Answer 4

because they were coming from the country of dough nuts ( another correct spelling for donuts, dough-nuts)

Answer 5

??because they were fat and pasty faced?