Although the park received its name by local law in 1971, its eponymous monument has stood on the site since 1923. During the first World War, British soldiers referred to their American counterparts as "doughboys" because of the large round buttons on the American uniforms; these buttons reminded the British soldiers of the cakes or biscuits known as doughboys. Statues of American infantry soldiers are similarly called doughboys, and there are bronze doughboys in each of the five boroughs of New York City. The sculptor of the Woodside Doughboy also created a doughboy for the Flanders Field Memorial in De Witt Clinton Park in Manhattan.
