The Camp Funston, Kansas, and Camp Lee, Virginia, photograph album contains approximately 100 photographs related to World War I army training activities and facilities at Camp Funston, Kansas (later Fort Riley); Camp Lee, Virginia; and Fort Myer, Virginia. The album (21 x 28 cm) has brown suede covers stamped with a U.S. Army design and is bound with string. Most photographs include manuscript captions on versos. Images include photographs of training activities including bayonet drills, hand-to-hand combat, digging trenches, and practicing maneuvers; Basil M. Stevens standing at the front of African American guard troops; and individual portraits of officers in uniform, autographed and inscribed to Basil M. Stevens. Additional photographs taken in Washington, D.C., show Stevens with military officers and his wife, Helen.
Col. Basil Martiau Stevens was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on December 28 1888 to Col. Edwin Augustus Stevens, Jr. (1858-1918), and Emily Contee Stevens (1857-1931). Basil's paternal grandfather, Edwin Augustus Stevens, Jr. (1795-1868), founded the Stevens Institute of Technology, while his great-grandfather Col. John Stevens III (1749-1838) was an influential lawyer, engineer, and invetor best known for his development of the first steam-powered American locomotive, the first steam-powered ferry, and the first commercial ferry service in the United States. Basil graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and New York Law School, and was first admitted to the bar in 1919. In 1916, Basil was stationed on the Mexican border and also served as an infantry officer during World War I.
Basil married Helen C. Ward Stevens (1891-1963), with whom he had one child, Edwin Augustus Stevens (1917-1959). He died of a heart attack on November 7 1957 while attending a trustees meeting at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
