The Arthur Mansback papers consists of letters, postcards, telegrams, photographs, training materials, and printed ephemera created and collected by Private Arthur E. Mansback during his tour with Battery A, 143rd Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary Forces in France during the second half of 1918. The letters begin aboard the transport ship in August of 1918, and end with Mansback's return to the United States (San Francisco) in January of 1919. In these letters, all addressed to his mother, Mrs. Eleanor Mansback, Private Mansback discusses news of friends and relatives, financial matters (Mansback was a stockbroker in Los Angeles), weather and conditions on board the transport ship and in France, censorship of letters by Army censors, the cost of food in France, impressions of the French and their impressions of Americans, visits to local towns and meals eaten, camouflage training school, life in the camp, Spanish flu, visits to the Amex Club and YMCA, occasional commentaries on the progress of the war, and gifts purchased. Some letters are censored. Others contain letters from cousins living or serving in France that Mansback forwarded to his mother. In addition to the letters are 59 postcards depicting scenes of the war, Mansback's notebook from camouflage training and his two examinations (which are referred to in the letters), and a pamphlet containing graphic images of dead soldiers. There are also 2 clippings and 2 pamphlets (World War II-era). Although Mansback never saw combat, his letters provide a broad overview of the daily life of an American foot soldier during the last months of World War I.