Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Christmas shopping was in full swing. People had agonized feelings about the season. Fear and worry over the war pressed on them but they felt this might be the last real Christmas they would have for some years. Money was plentiful and it was spent freely. Sales of almost everything reached record highs. Retail sales in January 1942 were higher than in any January in history.1 Much in demand were war toys. Some retailers decided to destroy any goods they had which were made in Japan, (even going so far as to burn a Santa Claus) but the government suggested that did no harm to anyone but US shoppers.
As to be expected, rumors were flying. One rumor had Japanese farmers in California putting poison in the crops they harvested. Others were said to have tainted the seafood they brought to market. No evidence was found for either. Many rumors revolved around anticipated sabotage during the Christmas holidays. None occurred.
In a strange occurrence, the near hysteria of late 1941 settled into an odd mix of overconfidence and complacency. Americans seemed to feel that the war would be a “mop up” affair. The result was a population and, unfortunately, a workforce that was not motivated to put forth full energy. Some blamed the government, especially military censorship, which hid unpleasant war news. Official charts showing the US (projected) capacity likely added to the feeling of certainty of victory. Commentators and politicians openly raged against this lack of fervor. Thankfully, the country awoke as events by mid-1942 unfolded: Bataan falls, the carrier Saratoga is sunk, Japan advances in Burma, MacArthur evacuates the Philippines, Rommel advances in North Africa. The awakening evolved to the determination of purpose we most often associate with home front America.
America, for all its extraordinary exertion at war production, its shortages of foods, gasoline and more, plus the unprecedented disruption of millions of migrating lives, carried on fairly well. Americans enjoyed a kind of unity and collective spirit only enjoyed by people under common threat.
That unity was aided by a powerful and national communications complex of newspapers, magazines, radio, and movies. All Americans anywhere in the country had access to the same news, information and entertainment and much of that for five years was about the war.
What the home front saw and heard, however, was not always the reality of the war. Censorship, voluntary and enforced, prevented coverage of the most gruesome aspects of the war for both security and decency. No doubt communications also carried levels of propaganda for support of the war and assurances of our eventual success. Reports about the war shaded the truth, having the US winning battles in the Philippines. “The newspapers are winning the war for us,” said Charles Lindbergh. He and Senators in Washington were warning of a long hard time.
Newspapers were hampered by the shortage of paper but still managed to grow their circulation by 20 percent between 1940 and 1945.2 The big general interest magazines such as Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Look, and Time expanded their staff and increased their photo-journalism capability to better cover the war. These magazines reached millions of Americans every week as did dozens of Women’s magazines. All of these, (and their advertisers) in their own way, kept a focus on the country at war. The Office of War Information (OWI) worked closely with the magazine publishers suggesting stories and providing access to military leaders and facilities to generate positive coverage.
Because more than 80 percent of American families tuned in to radios3, OWI felt a need to create a special Radio Bureau. The Bureau not only encouraged programing which supported the war effort, it actually wrote and produced spot programs to run in between regular programming. The result was that Americans from coast to coast were reminded daily of their common bond and the need to work toward victory. Early in 1941, FDR appointed Elmer Davis to head up OWI. From this position, Davis helped to whip the home front into a fury over the aggressions of the Nazi’s in Europe.
President Roosevelt made great use of the radio for his addresses to the nation’s home front. His approval rating was an astounding 84 percent, though his detractors cried about his aim of totalitarian collectivism.4 Audience measures were not sophisticated, but it is estimated that his audience reached as high as 80 million listeners. He used a common vocabulary, and his delivery was calm and direct. His broadcasts were conversational in tone and became known as “fireside chats.” FDR used radio to present his programs and ideas directly to the public, creating an intimate relationship between the president and the American people. The chats became a source of hope and security during the war.
Early each evening across America households went quiet.
Children were shushed.
It was time for the news.
Americans came to recognize the voices of Lowell Thomas, Gabriel Heatter, Edward R Murrow, H. V. Kaltenborn, and Elmer Davis. Among the most famous of these newscasts was Edward R Murrow broadcasting live from London, complete with the sounds of war in the background. These highly professional radio journalists presented Americans on the home front with accurate accounts of the war and of American news in general. The reach of these broadcasts was so broad that it had the effect of giving the entire home front a daily and common update of the progress of the war. That collective experience provided Americans a common basis for conversation and comradeship; that we are all in this together. Radio was an incredibly powerful force for unity.
A special kind of radio programming targeted women: the daytime drama or soap opera, so named because at one time most of the sponsors were soap companies. The programming ran much of the day and as many as sixty came and went during the war years. Among the most popular were Stella Dallas, Backstage Wife, Bright Horizon, The Brighter Day, Front Page Farrell, The Guiding Light, John’s Other Wife, One Man’s Family, Portia Faces Life, and Young Doctor Malone. The stories were clearly for women on the home front. Some of the difficulties of the war, such as rationing, were woven in, but most of the programs dealt with women gaining their identity in difficult situations.
Another special type of programing attracted home front children. These were the short, mostly after school adventure programs: Jack Armstrong – All American Boy; Tom Mix; Sky King; Don Winslow of the Navy; Hop Harrigan; Gangbusters; Tennessee Jed; Dick Tracy; Terry and the Pirates; The Lone Ranger; The Green Hornet; and Superman. These programs wove tales of the hero battling Nazi thugs and Japanese villains as well as spies and saboteurs on the home front.
In addition, some of these programs directly involved their young listeners. Those programs offered secret decoder rings (usually for buying a certain cereal) which could decode messages from the show’s hero. The messages invariably told the young listener how to be a good American and how he or she could help win the war. Dick Tracy asked children to take a pledge to buy savings stamps and collect scrap. Jack Armstrong encouraged children to write to servicemen. Others touted Victory Gardens. The messages underlying the programs themselves universally focused on patriotism and positive moral behavior.
Evening programming on the radio brought top stars into people’s homes. Celebrities like Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Glen Miller, Fred Allen, Kay Kyser (and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge), Amos and Andy, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Henry Aldrich, and Al Jolsen, who was once cut off the radio for letting the word “hell” slip out on the air as he was warming up his studio audience.
While those were comedy and variety shows, thrillers and dramas held big audiences. The most famous of which were The Shadow, Inner Sanctum (which opened with a squeaking door), Suspense, Lux Theater, Gang Busters, The FBI in Peace and War, Lights Out, The Whistler, Boston Blackie, and Sam Spade.
A big development in radio, the music variety show, brought music to the entire nation. A top program of its type was Your Hit Parade. Every Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. A countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale.
Popular songs included peppy numbers such as Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, and Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer. The big bands like Glen Miller with swing tunes In the Mood and Pennsylvania 6–5000 were big hits. More memorable, perhaps, were the sentimental titles such as I’ll Be Seeing You, White Christmas, You’ll Never Know, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, I’ll be Home for Christmas, Long Ago and Far Away, and The Last Time I Saw Paris. Slotted in there was one by Frankie, The House I Live In. Hailing the war’s end were songs like When the Lights Go on Again, and one by Harry James and Kitty Kallen, It’s been a Long, Long Time.
Another top musical program was the Camel Caravan named for its sponsor, Camel cigarettes. The nationally broadcast musical variety show featured the big stars of music such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Bob Crosby. It later became the Camel Comedy Caravan with performers such as Abbott and Costello, Jimmy Durante, Garry Moore, Jack Carson, and Mel Blanc.
The Camel Caravan and radio brought the home front another music phenomenon. Spawned in places like Nashville and Memphis and now carried all over the country by southern servicemen and migrating war workers, “hillbilly’ or country and western music found a home on radio. The music had gained popularity on local radio even before the war, but now it was beamed nationally via a variety format known as “barn dance” typified by the top-rated Grand Ole Opry out of station WSM in Nashville.
The touring revue of the Camel Caravan featured Opry stars and was created as a morale booster. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the troupe kicked into high gear, playing 175 shows in 1942 at 68 military facilities in 32 states. Radio station WSM contributed transcriptions of its radio broadcasts to the Armed Forces Radio Services and the Opry’s blend of country music and down-home comedy was played around the world. Yankee servicemen raised on Bing Crosby were exposed to country performers like Roy Acuff, Hank Snow and Pee Wee King.5
Top Country-Western (Hillbilly) Hits
Bouquet of Roses – Eddy Arnold
Lovesick Blues – Hank Williams
Walking the Floor Over You – Ernest Tubb
Candy Kisses – George Morgan
Smoke on the Water – Red Foley
New San Antonio Rose – Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
Pistol Packin’ Mama – Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters ‘Slippin’
Around – Margaret Whiting and Jimmy Wakely
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) – Tex Williams
Blue Moon of Kentucky – Bill Monroe
In general, radio programs treated the war as background material, not the central subject. A program might include some special mention or recognition at the close of their broadcast.
Two special forms of communication arose. One involved the placing of photographs of service men and women in lighted store windows. The lights were left on all night. During shopping hours friends and family members stopped to view their loved ones Another form was the “Honor Roll.” It was printed in the local newspaper and was also posted on some form of bulletin board placed in a prominent place in town. The Honor Roll listed men and women who had entered the service and reserved a special section, usually in gold, for those who gave their lives. The knowledge that the newspapers and the board provided often led to acts of kindness, sympathy, and help. Here is a simple story of kindness:
J. Kinkade (b.1935):
I grew up in a small town near Dallas. My cousins and I played marbles games back then. We had lots of kinds of marbles; glass, stone, “aggies” of agate, and there was the rare ‘steely’ that my cousin, Maryann, used for her shooter.
Our games were simple: draw a circle, put in a marble from every player and then take turns trying to knock the other players’ marbles out of the circle. She won lots of games with that steely and prized it above anything she owned.
When my father was killed in France, Maryann came to our house for the wake. We were both about 10 years old. As a kid, she didn’t know the right things to say, but she gave me her steely. I knew what it meant to her and understood what she was doing.
I won some games with the steely, but never used it against Maryann. Today the steely is in my jewelry box where I see it and think of Maryann’s war time kindness often.
At times it seemed as though everyone on the home front was at the movies. Attendance skyrocketed with an estimated 80 million people per week buying tickets.6 People had few ways to spend the big money they were making, and gas rationing further reduced their options. Movies were not only convenient and cheap, but they helped relieve the tensions and anxieties of the war.
Hollywood had made a few pre-war movies about the war – Disney’s cartoon In Der Fuhrer’s Face (complete with rude sounds), A Yank in the RAF, and International Squadron among them – but the flood of films began after Pearl Harbor.
Movie makers turned out thousands of feature films as well as short documentaries, newsreels, and serialized dramas. Some turned out to be classics such as Citizen Kane, Rebecca, The Lady Eve, Sergeant York, and How Green Was My Valley. The sample of the war-oriented films includes Casablanca, Bataan, Bombardier, Five Graves to Cairo, Guadalcanal Diary, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Since You Went Away, and The Fighting Sullivans. These films united people on the home front in support of their war efforts and sacrifices. The films also carried a propaganda undertone emphasizing the profound evilness of the Axis and the righteousness of our cause.
The Saturday matinee serials attracted a very loyal audience of youngsters. The top titles included Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, and Nyoka the Jingle Girl. Young people just had to see if their hero, who was trapped and doomed at the end of last week’s episode, would manage to escape. (Even though they knew he/she would.) These serials were the perfect medium to infuse patriotic messages.
The newsreels held a place of special importance which can only be likened to the role television plays today. They were the equivalent of today’s evening news, covering current events and showing what the war actually looked and sounded like. The fact that the same graphic reports were seen by millions of home front Americans provided another way for common experience and bonding.
With attendance at all-time highs, Hollywood was able to survive its big problem: the loss of its top stars and directors. Clark Gable, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Alan Ladd, Robert Taylor, and many other stars left for the military, as did such top directors as John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, George Stevens, and John Huston.
In a case of doing well by doing good, the studios often released hundreds of prints of a new film to first go to Army and Naval stations at home and around the world. Sometimes servicemen wrote home telling about a new movie they had just seen. Variety, in April 1943, indicated that this unique form of word-of-mouth promotion generated “considerable preselling value,” and the advance release setup with the army and navy was “developing into an important merchandising channel.”
As might be expected, such a rush to the movies brought a desire to know about the stars in those movies. Movie and gossip magazines such as Pictoplay, Movie Life, Filmland, Photoplay, and Modern Screen to name just a few, met that need with color photos and breathless prose!
Breathless prose was in order for Errol Flynn and his adventures with young girls, and for Charlie Chaplin and his fascination with, and marriages to, very young women which was revealed in lively courtroom dramas. Another breathtaking tale dealt with Gary Cooper and his entanglement with actress Lupe Velez, “The Mexican Spitfire.” Cooper, reportedly quite a Lothario, had decided to break off his relationship with Miss Velez. He went to the train station to leave for New York when Miss Velez appeared on the platform, whipped out a gun and started shooting. She missed and Cooper went on to New York and then to Italy to rendezvous with Countess Dorothy di Frasso.
Celebrity marriages were aplenty during these times: Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and Gloria Vanderbilt and Leopold Stokowski. (Only Bogart/Bacall worked out.)
In addition to commercial features, several Hollywood directors produced documentaries for government and military agencies. Among the best-known of these films, which were designed to explain the war to both servicemen and civilians, are Frank Capra’s seven-part series Why We Fight (1942–44), John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (1942), William Wyler’s The Memphis Belle (1944), and John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro (1944). The last three were shot on location and were made especially effective by their immediacy.7
Hollywood underwent huge changes during the war. In addition to deciding on what films to produce, they had to adjust to the rules for blackouts by starting their shooting earlier and ending earlier. Some shooting locales such as bridges and tunnels were off limits. Scenes could not show airports, harbors or rail centers. Rationed wood and steel meant they had to reuse old sets. It was widely known that they even had to reuse nails.
Gangsters wielded toy guns, but only on backlots as location shooting was prohibitive. Some films in production had to be edited to reflect the reality of the war. The military comedies of early 1941 gave way to more serious fare.
Best Picture: “How Green Was My Valley”
Actor: GARY COOPER in “Sergeant York”
Actress: JOAN FONTAINE in “Suspicion”
Supporting Actor: DONALD CRISP in “How Green Was My Valley”
Supporting Actress: MARY ASTOR in “The Great Lie”
Director: JOHN FORD for “How Green Was My Valley”
Best Picture: “Mrs. Miniver”
Actor: JAMES CAGNEY in “Yankee Doodle Dandy”
Actress: GREER GARSON in “Mrs. Miniver”
Supporting Actor: VAN HEFLIN in “Johnny Eager”
Supporting Actress: TERESA WRIGHT in “Mrs. Miniver”
Director: WILLIAM WYLER for “Mrs. Miniver”
Best Picture: “Casablanca”
Actor: PAUL LUKAS in “Watch on the Rhine”
Actress: JENNIFER JONES in “The Song of Bernadette”
Supporting Actor: CHARLES COBURN in “The More the Merrier”
Supporting Actress: KATINA PAXINOU in “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
Director: MICHAEL CURTIZ for “Casablanca”
Best Picture: “Going my Way”
Actor: BING CROSBY in “Going My Way”
Actress: INGRID BERGMAN in “Gaslight”
Supporting Actor: BARRY FITZGERALD in “Going My Way”
Supporting Actress: ETHEL BARRYMORE in “None But the Lonely Heart”
Director: LEO MCCAREY for “Going My Way”
Best Picture: “The Lost Weekend”
Actor: RAY MILLAND in “The Lost Weekend”
Actress: JOAN CRAWFORD in “Mildred Pierce”
Supporting Actor: JAMES DUNN in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”
Supporting Actress: ANNE REVERE in “National Velvet”
Director: BILLY WILDER for “The Lost Weekend”
Life was hectic. The longing to live life to the fullest during wartime was a new phenomenon on the American home front. Combine that “live for today” temperament with the fact that Americans had more money to spend than they had in years and far fewer places to spend it and you have a recipe for a consumer explosion. Just about anything that was for sale got sold, often depleting the available stock. The hectic life led to a dramatic increase in automobile accidents. 1941 saw an all-time high in auto deaths.
The era also saw a tremendous wartime boom in nightclubs and restaurants, in live music and dancing, spectator sports, and in various other forms of entertainment. While entertaining the troops had its place, entertaining the workers who stoked the war machine was crucial as well.
Dancing was an easy way to relax, socialize, and be entertained. Most nightclubs offered dancing to big swing bands. USO centers and some restaurants also offered dancing often from jukeboxes. Even some factories set aside space for employees to dance during breaks. The war years are most often known as the time of jitterbugging. While that may be true, the Latin influence mentioned earlier brought the rhumba and the samba, with songs like Brazil and Amor.
For Americans who lived near New York City, or who had gas rations to get there, Broadway during the war years offered some of the biggest hits of all time: A Bell for Adano; Carousel; Dark of the Moon; Harvey; I Remember Mama; Life with Father; Oklahoma!; On the Town; Song of Norway; and The Glass Menagerie. The problem was finding a seat even at the top ticket price for Carousel – $6.00!
The war years were also the years of the big bands, girl bands, the Andrew Sisters and a true phenomenon – Frank Sinatra. This skinny crooner from New Jersey captivated the female audience, especially the young girls who typically wore the fashion of the day and were nicknamed “bobby soxers.” It’s doubtful that any American on the home front could avoid Frank Sinatra either on the radio, in the fan magazines or in the newspapers where he often showed up in a fracas at some night spot.
Sports suffered more than other forms of entertainment and distraction. In the United States the major spectator sports were boxing, horse-racing, major-league baseball, and professional and college football. Professional basketball was still in its infancy.
Boxing was very popular and Joe Louis, who became the heavy-weight champion, was a big part of the reason. A poor Black man from Alabama who swore he would never throw a fight because, “I want to fight honest so that the next colored boy can get the same break I got. If I ‘cut the fool’ I’ll let my people down.” His fights drew radio audiences second only to FDR’s addresses. He served honorably in the Army. Other top boxers also served and so boxing titles were frozen during the war which opened up the sport for others, including more Black boxers.
Horse racing survived until it was banned in 1945 when the Office of War Mobilization in Washington viewed it as a waste of valuable resources. The Board felt that men that could be serving in the war instead were working in track operations. In addition, gas and tire rubber was being consumed heavily in transporting bettors and horses to tracks.
College football and its bowl games had always occupied American’s attention all through the Fall and up to New Year. Like professional teams, college teams lost players to the armed services. (There was no deferment for college.) The anomaly here was that two college teams were composed of players already in the services: Navy from its Naval Academy and Army from West Point. They dominated the college field with Army posting one of the best teams in college history.
Military training bases also fielded college-level teams, but the rosters changed frequently, and they lacked the tradition of college sports.
The Rose Bowl was normally played in Pasadena, California, and continued to be played there throughout the war except for January1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, when it was moved to Durham, North Carolina.
Two other bowl games were played far from the home front. The Spaghetti Bowl was played between teams from the Fifth Army and the Twelfth Air Force in Florence, Italy, on New Year’s Day 1945. The game was won by the Army 20–0.
The other such bowl game had fewer festivities. The Mosquito Bowl was played on Christmas Eve 1944 between two regiments of Marines on Guadalcanal. The Marines were training for the invasion of Okinawa where they would face the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific. The game ended in a scoreless tie.
Pro football, like everything else, was hit by the draft taking away key players. Nonetheless, with a reduced eight team roster, the National Football League, (NFL) had banner attendance during the war years.
Baseball was by far the most watched. The question arose at the start of the war about whether baseball should be banned for the duration. Here is what President Roosevelt thought about it:
Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. If 300 teams use 5,000 or 6,000 players, these players are a definite recreational asset to at least 20,000,000 of their fellow citizens – and that in my judgement is thoroughly worthwhile.
Among the 500 or so major leaguers who entered the services were some of the biggest names in the sport: Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, Pee Wee Reese, Phil Rizzutto, and Hank Greenberg.
The players left were unfit for drafting because of either age or disability so the level of play was not top notch. Even using these players some teams could not fill a full roster and merged their team with another as did Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. One fill-in player who drew a lot of fan attention was Pete Gray of the St. Louis Browns. He wasn’t a great hitter, though he could bunt, but he was a fine outfielder made all the more special because he had only one arm. He certainly helped attendance and he stood as an inspiration to returning disabled servicemen about overcoming disability.
In baseball as in defense plants, women stepped up to take the place of men. In 1943, Philip K. Wrigley, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, formed the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League. The league consisted of fifteen Midwestern teams and lasted until 1954.
The women’s game underwent some changes. The size of the ball was altered to that of a regulation softball and the pitcher’s mound was moved to 40’ from home plate. The size of the field shrank, as well, with the distance between bases shortened to 65 feet as opposed to the standard 90 feet.
Like many of the industries that women took over as men went to war, when the war was over and the men started to return home to their jobs, women were pushed out, many to their previous role as housewives. But, of all the sports, only baseball advanced women’s athletics.
War-time baseball cannot be discussed without mentioning the special performances of two legendary players during the 1941 season. Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees hit in 56 consecutive games, a record that still stands. Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox batted for an average of 406, also a record that still stands. (Both records are likely to stand for the foreseeable future due to changes in the game of baseball.)
Sports entered the American home front in another way. The draft revealed a nation of physically unfit Americans; the nation was flabby. The response, led by the Office of Civil Defense, was a nationwide exercise program called Hale America, and corralled local CD officials to join up. The program was promoted across the country with a full media push, including personal appearances by professional sports stars. Contests, matches, meets, and tournaments of all kinds were held. Schools and colleges added physical exercise to their curricula. Scouts introduced a fitness merit badge.
The physical fitness thrust expanded to include nutrition which was also seen to be a big factor in draftee rejection.
In another paradox, in this pre-war time of contradictions, Americans on the home front were presented with two huge spectacles.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition celebrated the recent completion of two landmark bridges – the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge.
The entertainment zone featured mechanical rides and numerous shows by such performers as Count Basie, Bing Crosby, Eddie Duchin, Benny Goodman, and the Folies Bergere from Paris. Esther Williams swam in Billy Rose’s Aquacade. Sally Rand, the fan dancer, performed in her Nude Ranch. Military bands and roaming Mexican folk musicians played amid camels and rickshaws giving tourists rides.
Despite predictions of a robust tourist season, the fair was a financial disaster, losing more than $4,000,000 in 1939. A court order forestalled bankruptcy and permitted a second season. The fair closed in the red in September 1940, despite 17 million visitors.8
The 1939–40 New York World’s Fair was held at Flushing Meadows, Corona Park in Queens, New York. It was an expensive extravaganza. Many countries around the world participated, and more than 44 million people attended its exhibits in two seasons. Its theme was based on the future, with an opening slogan of “Dawn of a New Day,” and it offered a look at “the world of tomorrow.”
The fair was open for two seasons, from April to October each year The first year piled up financial losses and the fair changed its emphasis from educating about the future – television was demonstrated at one point broadcasting a speech by FDR – to emphasizing traditional America and providing more amusement and entertainment opportunities. The fair attracted more than 45 million visitors and generated roughly $48 million in revenue. But, since the Fair Corporation had invested 67 million dollars (in addition to nearly a hundred million dollars from other sources), it was a financial failure, and the corporation declared bankruptcy.9
It seems that some officials in America were looking beyond the rationing of gas and rubber. In 1940 fortunate Americans could drive on the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first “freeway.” It connected downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena, California.
In the East, in 1940, those with gas and tires could drive on the first section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the country’s first long-distance controlled-access highway that opened between Irwin and Carlisle.
As they drove, they might have seen the billboard advertising campaign for a shaving cream in a series of five small rhyming billboards about 100 yards apart:
Don’t stick your elbow,
Out so far.
It may go home,
In another car.
Burma Shave
Don’t lose your head,
To gain a minute.
You need your head,
Your brains are in it.
Burma Shave
Driver snoozing.
What happened next,
Is not amusing.
Burma Shave
Around the curve.
Lickety-Split.
Beautiful car,
Wasn’t it.
Burma Shave
At intersections,
Look both ways.
Harps sound nice,
But they’re hard to play.
Burma Shave
Passing school zone,
Take it slow.
Let out little,
Shavers grow.
Burma Shave
A fire at the Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Mississippi killed 209 people on April 23 1940. Bandleader, Walter Barnes, and nine members of his band were among the victims. The band was credited with attempting to calm the crowd and Barnes was praised as a hero for leading the song “Marie” by Irving Berlin as the fire raged.10
Another nightclub tragedy gripped the attention of all Americans on the home front. On Thanksgiving weekend in 1942, in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston, crepe decorations caught flame and in 15 minutes, 463 people died, many crushed in the scrum to get through revolving doors.
A circus fire claimed 167 lives in Hartford Connecticut on July 6, 1944, when the big top tent of the Ringling Brothers circus was set on fire by an arsonist. The tent had been coated with paraffin thinned with gasoline to make it waterproof.
In July 1945, less than a month before Japan’s surrender, a B25 flying in fog, crashed into the Empire State building between the seventy-eighth and seventy-nineth floors killing ten office employees and the crew of three. Photos of the wreckage filled newspapers, magazines, and movie newsreels.
The cost of World War II far exceeded federal tax revenues. To address the deficit the Revenue Act of 1942 created the Victory Tax, the broadest and most progressive tax in American history. To ease taxpayers’ burden of paying a lump sum, and to create a regular flow of revenue into the Treasury, the government required employers to withhold money from employees’ paychecks. By the end of the war in 1945, about 90 percent of American workers submitted income tax forms.
The stock market had its own reaction to these events. After gut wrenching lows in the Depression, it began a slow rise in 1933 up to 1937 where it hit a high before entering a severe but short-lived recession. Americans would not see those highs again until after the war. The market then started a slide, hitting a low in March 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria. The next sharp low came in April 1940 when Hitler entered Paris. The market then drifted downward, ignoring Pearl Harbor, until it hit bottom in the Spring of 1942. Then, as the war began to turn in the favor of the Allies, the market began an up-trend, strongly bolstered by D-Day success, which continued to the end of the war and beyond.
There were just so many football games, baseball games, movies and shows to see or nightclubs to visit and dance in. Even with a resurgence of roller skating, Americans spent much of their time at home. They read. They listened to the radio and phonograph records, now available for less than a dollar in five and ten cent stores. They played cards and board games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Life, checkers, chess, backgammon, Chinese checkers, and dominoes. The sales of these amusements skyrocketed.
A fad was resurrected: the Ouija board. It was played by resting your fingers lightly on a palm sized triangular piece and letting the piece “guide” you to letters painted on the edge of the Ouija board. Ask the piece a question and the piece would guide you and spell out an answer.
Home front children played with Tinker Toys, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, electric or wind-up trains, Army figures, and model airplane kits. Outdoors, children played at war games, had pedal cars, Radio Flyer wagons, and – if parents approved – Daisy Red Ryder air rifles.
The sale of books broke records each year of the war while Book–of–the–Month Club membership doubled. The newly introduced paperback book used less paper and was cheaper and further bolstered sales. The books of the war years reflected the times with a shift from fiction to non-fiction. Nonetheless, some great fiction was published: A Bell for Adano; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; and The Little Prince as examples. But it was non-fiction that dominated the market.
John Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down, a story of German occupiers in Norway, boiled up controversy and criticism about the author’s perceived sympathetic treatment of the occupiers.
One religious themed book, The Robe, and one racy novel, Forever Amber, were both best sellers.
The humorous reporting of a ‘regular guy’ who joins the Army, See Here, Private Hargrove, was an enormous bestseller. As the war wore on more serious war themed books emerged such as Guadalcanal Diary and They Were Expendable. Other firsthand accounts that sold well were Ernie Pyle’s Here is Your War, and Bill Mauldin’s Up Front, which contained several of his now famous cartoons.
Curiously, at the height of the war in 1943, a book not about the war, but about what would come after became the fastest home front seller of all, selling 1,000,000 copies in less than 60 days: One World by Wendell Wilkie. He had been a candidate for president in 1940, and this was his account of his trip around the world which molded his hopes for post war collaboration among nations. The Armed Services Edition program produced popular paperback books that were wider than they were high for fitting into pockets. Over the course of the war around 100,000,000 copies were distributed free to service men and women.11
And of course, there were discussions of politics to fill the hours. President Roosevelt enjoyed enormous popularity during the war years. His political enemies despised him and hurled the epithet “that man” around when discussing him. FDR enjoyed Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, but Southern, more conservative, Democrats could – and did – often join in voting with Republican opposition requiring extraordinary political dexterity on FDR’s part to move his programs forward.
Throughout the 1930s the Democratic Party dominated politics in the South. Party leaders upheld White supremacy and segregationist Jim Crow laws denying Black citizens their rights. The party led the Confederacy through the Civil War and subsequently controlled what was dubbed “the solid South.” FDR counted on the South’s support to win the 1932 election. He took no steps to distance himself from their policies of White supremacy. Eleanor endeared herself to Black communities, however, by supporting Marion Anderson, a Black opera star, and her controversial recital at the Lincoln Memorial.
In building support for the war in Europe, FDR formed a bipartisan alliance with moderate Republicans, including Henry Stimson, whom he appointed Secretary of War in 1940. FDR and Stimson declined to desegregate the armed services, rejecting pleas from the NAACP.
However, in June 1941, A. Philip Randolph, President of the Black Sleeping Car Porters union, urged the administration to end the segregation of workers in the vast defense industry. He threatened a huge march on Washington DC. Four days before the march, FDR agreed to do so. What followed was a watershed moment in civil rights history. For the first time, the machinery of the federal government was put to work on ending racial discrimination in employment. FDR signed an executive order creating the Committee on Fair Employment Practices (FEPC) charged with investigating complaints of discrimination in defense plants and taking “appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid.”
Soon, the FEPC began issuing orders to federal contractors requiring them to hire Black workers. Black workers and their champions were thrilled, but Southern Democrats railed against the FEPC, warning that its attacks on segregation would cause violence and lead southerners to abandon the Democratic Party.
As the 1944 presidential election drew closer, the Democrats sorted out their choice for a running mate for the president. They settled on Missouri senator, Harry S. Truman. Truman was making a name for himself leading the special committee investigating waste and fraud in defense contracting. Dubbed “the mousey-looking little man from Missouri” by Time magazine, he was also faithful to the party line and a strong campaigner.
The Republicans, on the other hand, were engaged in internal conflict over who should be the nominee. Wendell Willkie had alienated the conservative wing with his “one world” outlook. The traditional Midwestern block had Ohio Governor, John Bricker, and Senator Robert Taft, to put forward. Bricker’s very aggressive style against the internationalists set him up as the vice-presidential choice.
In New York, Thomas Dewey was winning accolades as New York District Attorney and then as Governor. He campaigned well and was poised to gain the presidential nomination when a profound event slowed everything down. Southern Democratic states had always held that maintaining segregated primaries was legal because political parties were private organizations and free to set their own rules. Challenged in Texas, the Supreme Court (by an 8 to 1 vote) ruled that such primaries were unconstitutional. The Democratic party, already devolving into a racial divide, continued its spiral.
Dewy did win the nomination and with Bricker at his side went forth to battle FDR and his new running mate, Harry S. Truman.
In a harbinger of modern times, the 1944 election season featured an election initiative in Massachusetts that would allow doctors to disseminate birth control information. It went down to defeat under the predominantly Democratic Catholic majority.
During campaign season country music super star, Roy Acuff, was a sometimes candidate for President and Governor. Pushed by his supporters, he finally told them that while he was a good guitar picker, he didn’t think he had it to be Governor.
One event during the presidential campaign captured a moment of absurdity. Someone had begun a rumor that the President’s dog, Fala, had been left behind in Alaska and a US Navy destroyer was sent, at great expense, to fetch the dog back to Washington. His opponents and their press seized on the issue, though false, and the president addressed it in a radio talk that gave weary Americans on the home front a good reason to laugh.
“These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, now they include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them.”
Columnist, Ray Clapper, described the war time 77th Congress as “composed of a collection of two-cent politicians who could serve well enough in in simpler days. But the ignorance and provincialism of Congress render it incapable of meeting the needs of modern government… What you hear in Congress is 99 percent tripe, ignorance, and demagoguery and not to be relied upon.” Clapper continued to be dismayed at Congress’ selfish and destructive conduct when Congress voted itself a very generous pension. A whopping 84 percent of Americans opposed the pension!12
However, the record of the 77th is one of extraordinary work. It convened in 700 out of 730 possible days and dealt with some of the most critical issues in US history. It’s ironic that with the Allied victories in November of 1942, if the election was held just one month later, in December, the 77th would have been viewed as a great success.13
None the less, the American home front was making it through.
The new conservative-minded coalition in Congress managed to dismantle several large liberal initiatives born in the Depression, including three that enjoyed a degree of public popularity: The Works Progress Administration, (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps, (CCC) and National Youth Administration (NYA). Meanwhile the liberal wing of the Democratic party was working to pass a bill ensuring that servicemen stationed abroad would be able to vote – all 10 million servicemen, Black and White – using a special ballot. Southern Democrats were, of course, opposed. They felt voting laws were the province of states’ rights. There were threats by the southerners that they would leave the democratic party.
The bitter debate had FDR suffering deteriorating health, fighting WWII abroad while re-fighting the Civil War at home. After months of wrangling, a compromise was reached, and states could determine for themselves whether to approve the use of those soldier ballots. With the full support of labor, FDR easily won the election of 1944, and there is no evidence the soldier vote had any impact.
Southern Democrats remained unmoved. The leadership of the Democratic Party, however, had made its decision: they would not countenance White supremacy and injustice for Black citizens.
People refer to the events by which the two parties traded places as the “Roosevelt Inversion,” because it began when the Democratic president embraced civil rights, causing civil rights supporters to shift into the Democratic Party and segregationists to shift into the Republican Party, ironically, the party of Lincoln. Americans on the home front in 1944 were worrying more about their loved ones overseas and the importance of the struggle wasn’t fully realized. Begun in the crucible of war, the story is long forgotten, and misunderstood, but the outcome is starkly visible when looking at America’s political map today.
From the Latin word propagare, meaning “to spread” or “to propagate.”
Propaganda is the dissemination of information – facts, images, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or outright lies – to influence public opinion.
“The principal battleground of the war is not the South Pacific. It is not the Middle East. It is not England, or Norway, or the Russian Steppes. It is American opinion.”
–Archibald MacLeish, Director of the Office of
Facts and Figures
In June of 1942, FDR created the Office of Wartime Information (OWI) to counter the confusion resulting from the huge flow of information about the war, and to mobilize support for the country’s war effort. Almost at once there were concerns in Congress that the OWI might come to resemble the Nazi propaganda machine. FDR appointed Elmer Davis, a respected newsman, to head the effort. The Government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign with clearly articulated objectives to galvanize public support, and it recruited some of the nation’s foremost intellectuals, artists, and filmmakers to wage the war on that front. Persuading the American home front became a wartime industry, almost as important as the manufacturing of bullets and planes.
Two divisions were created: overseas and domestic. The overseas division earned praise from Congress, but Congress expressed concern that the domestic division might become too political or overtly manipulative in the model of Nazi propaganda.
The domestic division had bureaus for motion pictures, magazines, and radio. The Radio Bureau itself produced several series and reviewed the scripts for others. The magazine bureau published The Magazine War Guide which listed suggested topics for articles. It offered guidelines such as setting fiction in war plant locations. It suggested showing minorities, women and men working together, stressing the interdependence of the war effort. It published ration-aware recipes, and other hints.
The Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP) worked very closely with the movie studios. BMP reviewed scripts and suggested edits which would show the better aspects of American life. Elmer Davis, the head of the OWI, said that “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize they’re being propagandized.”14
A much-praised movie series developed by Frank Capra, “Why We Fight,” was intended not for the public but for men in the services who might not be certain of the reasons for the war. WWI had left a bad residue with many, including the military.
During its existence OWI and Davis were in persistent conflict with the military. OWI wanted to be more truthful with the American home front while the military wanted secrecy and censorship. (Of course, OWI did censor what it considered sensitive information.) OWI also butted heads with advertising agencies and advertisers who OWI felt were not depicting realistic images and were also encouraging needless consumption. Advertisers feared they could lose the tax deductibility of advertising expenses and so were more or less cooperative.
The government had many objectives for its propaganda. Its major stated aim was to rally support for FDR’s four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, further justifying the country’s entry into the war and the sacrifices Americans were obliged to make.
Other aims included:
• convincing women to join the work force,
• urging the public to honor rationing rules,
• rallying people to buy bonds,
• supporting scrap drives and other conservation measures,
• encouraging the races to work together,
• pressing Americans to be vigilant for home front spies and sabotage,
• calling for the achievement of (or exceeding) production goals,
• inspiring military recruiting,
• buoying home front spirits,
• depicting the enemy as fearsome and evil
(Some were concerned that this last aim could foster racial hatred. Some older Americans to this day will not buy a Japanese car.)
While adults were certainly the prime target of OWI’s propaganda efforts, children were the target of specialized messages. A “Schools at War” program urged children to join in planting Victory Gardens and conducting scrap drives. Children were told to ask their principal about joining. Dr. Seuss introduced children to Private Snafu. Disney produced an award-winning Donald Duck cartoon Der Fuehrer’s Face, complete with rude noises. Disney also produced Education for Death: The Making of a Nazi, an animated propaganda short film showing how a young German boy is indoctrinated and corrupted into conforming with the Nazi social mindset.
The Wartime Handbook for Young Americans, an OWI publication for children, contained similar urgings and pictured children in adult roles, as did many of the posters aimed at children.
Posters were just one way propaganda was deployed. OWI employed movies, advertising, radio, mail, speeches, songs, and flyers, but nothing compared to posters for reach and coverage. Rosie the Riveter stands as the most iconic example of a poster even though there were two versions of her. Loose Lips Sink Ships, Uncle Sam Wants You, Remember Pearl Harbor, and When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler are among the more memorable poster slogans.
Even with grudging recognition of its success, Congress remained unhappy with OWI’s more than frequent depiction of FDR in the role of the great man and war time leader. Consequently, it cut the program’s budget in 1943 and ended the program completely and abruptly one month after Japan surrendered.
Americans on the home front were subject to whiplash when it came to communism and the USSR. The US was cool to the dictatorship of Josef Stalin and its aggressions, particularly with Finland. Despite pressures from both conservatives and liberals to sever relations with the USSR, FDR chose to implement trading restrictions while publicly condemning the Soviet Union as a “dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.” But the USSR appeared firmly in the camp of those opposing Hitler, and Roosevelt never lost sight of the fact that Nazi Germany, not the Soviet Union, posed the greatest threat to world peace. To defeat that threat, Roosevelt confided that he “would hold hands with the devil” if necessary.15
The USSR did indeed appear to be the devil when, in August of 1939, it signed a ten-year non-aggression pact with Germany. But FDR persisted. Beginning in July of 1940, a series of negotiations took place in Washington between Under-Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, and Soviet Ambassador, Constantine Oumansky. Welles refused to accede to Soviet demands that the United States recognize the changed borders of the Soviet Union after the Soviet seizure of territory in Finland, Poland, and Romania and the reincorporation of the Baltic Republics in August 1940, but the US Government did lift the embargo in January 1941.
Furthermore, in March of 1941, Welles warned Oumansky of a future Nazi attack against the Soviet Union. Finally, during the Congressional debate concerning the passage of the Lend-Lease bill in early 1941, Roosevelt blocked attempts to exclude the Soviet Union from receiving US assistance.
Earlier, a temporary linkage occurred earlier between Black and communist factions. In the 1930s, Black union members were making their first attempts at organizing themselves to obtain some economic justice. The Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) was an alliance of Black and White tenant farmers organized to resist evictions, foreclosures, and wage cuts. STFU had 75,000 members, one third of whom were Black farmers. The Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) aided the STFU in its efforts and won more support for its legal aid in cases of injustice against Black farmers. The front-page case which held the attention of Americans on the home front involved the 1931 “Scottsboro Boys.” Nine young Black men were accused of raping two White girls while riding in a box car. Eight of the men were sentenced to death. After three Supreme Court appeals the death penalties were overturned. What appeared to be a possible partnership came to an end when the Soviet Union signed its pact with Germany in 1939.16
Anti-communist purges, many centered around unions, were flourishing. The American home front was on board with the anti-communist fervor. A major reinforcing event was a strike at North American Aviation, a large defense contractor in California, in early 1941. One of the union executives was an admitted communist and that fired up enough anger that FDR ordered the Army to break the strike, which they did with fixed bayonets and a display of machine guns. Even the pro-union left applauded.
But just a few weeks later Hitler committed what many consider the greatest military blunder of all time: he invaded the USSR opening up a second front. Abruptly the USSR was an ally! FDR had (wisely) preserved Lend-Lease for the Soviet Union and soon food and arms were on their way. Overnight our policies changed. Life magazine treated readers on the American home front with a complete and laudatory issue on the Soviet Union. It stressed the positive nature of the Russian people and praised their armed forces – all without mentioning communism.
Communists on the home front made their own flip-flop. They went from vocal isolationists to full-throated support of the war against the Nazis. Earl Browder, Chairman of the Communist Political Association (the Communist Party of the USA having been disbanded), who had once denounced FDR on the floor at Madison Square Garden, now praised him as a great leader.
It was widely assumed that with the US and the communist Soviet Union now linked against Hitler, that strikes would cease. The opposite occurred. The incidence of strikes in defense plants rose by 50 percent and now they could not be blamed on a communist conspiracy. In fact, no one was more adamantly opposed to strikes at this point than the Communist newspaper the Daily Worker!17
The 1944 election, in which the Republicans put forth New York’s Thomas Dewey, became an occasion to revive the old fears of communist subversion. The campaign was rife with accusations that FDR was, if not a communist, soft on communism. (The “soft on communism” charge became a staple of political campaigns for the next half century.)
Americans on the home front turned to religion for comfort and understanding. This is an article from long-gone Click Magazine, December 1942, page 20:
War Weary Mankind finds Comfort in the Faith of Our Fathers.
“Two years ago most churches were considered fortunate if 45 people attended the morning service. Today, devout worshipers fill the pews morning and night – in Sunday school, formal church services, and in old fashioned camp meetings, men and women are, in the words of Paul, Taking the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit.”18
The same magazine reported a renewed interest in religion in the armed services.
Most American Christians supported the war. But some objected to military service on religious grounds. They registered as conscientious objectors with their local draft boards. Some served in the military as noncombatant medics or chaplains.19
Not all religious activity was positive. A number of fundamentalist lay preachers could be heard on Sundays on the radio preaching racial hatred. One-time presidential candidate, Father Coughlin, preached his antisemitic and anti-negro tracts until his show was pulled by the Catholic church in 1942.
Many members of the clergy felt that they had been duped by propaganda in WWI and walked a fine line supporting US efforts in WWII. Most were anti-interventionists until Pearl Harbor, but then rallied their support. American clergy was confident that the Allied cause was right, and that the enemy was wrong. God would therefore vindicate them.
Their support, however, had some reservation and ambivalence. Religious organizations wanted to maintain the principles of humanitarianism and justice. For example, they expressed their objection to segregation in the military and supported the Double V campaign. They also objected to the internment of the Japanese. (They established ministries in the internment camps.) They ministered to the spiritual needs of the nation and supported the war effort even though they sometimes offered criticism. It was a cautious patriotism. Religious groups also sponsored some 10,000 military chaplains and initiated various ministries in and around military bases.
I Was Inspired on a Sunday Morning
Dave P. (b. 1934):
In 1944 I was 10 years old. One Sunday morning I was at home in Leaksville, North Carolina – now called by the nicer name Eden – waiting for my sister and brother to walk to Sunday school. The skies were clear but for a few puffy white clouds. From out of nowhere roared a Lockheed Lightening P-38 at chimney top level! It must have sent a million volts up my spine. The war was on and I said to myself, “I’m going to do that someday.” Well, I did, but that’s another story.
Some events were simple and from the heart, like the following story.
Patty H. (b. 1928):
Those times are very clear to me as a teenager in Mason City, Iowa. My father had two big maps in the basement: one for the European theater and one for the Pacific. Almost every night he would mark on the maps to keep track of the action.
Every other Saturday my mother would bake bread and my uncle would bring a live chicken from his farm. I didn’t enjoy getting the chicken ready for the table, but it sure tasted good. We couldn’t get much beef – it was rationed. Potatoes were plentiful but I tired of potato soup. We did get an occasional fish if someone got lucky! I often had to stand in line to buy rationed food. I especially remember standing in line for mayonnaise, of all things.
All the women sewed not just because they wanted to, but because there wasn’t much for sale. I didn’t have a store-bought dress until I was 16. I knitted warm caps for several years during the war. I was never sure where they went. As a high school girl, I wanted nice shoes – leather shoes – which were very hard to come by. I don’t know if how I got those leather shoes was allowed. Here’s the story. We didn’t have a car, but we had a gas ration. Our neighbor had a car and wanted our gas ration which we traded for his shoe ration. (I don’t think I’ll get arrested at this late date.)
Those leather shoes were really important to me on Friday nights, the night the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad train came through town. The train came down from Minneapolis carrying men (boys) going down to St. Louis to enlist. When the train stopped around 8p.m. in Mason City the townspeople would set up tables on the platform and load the tables up with homemade cookies and donuts along with coffee and soft drinks, compliments of our local Piggly Wiggly. The boys would get off the train and enjoy the snacks. My mother sometimes worried about me down there, but there were always lots of adults around.
Some of those adults were there to see off their own Mason City sons who were boarding the train to go down to enlist. I remember two of them who did not return. Both were airmen; one went on to fly P51’s and the other B-17’s.
Of course, the war did end and on August 8, Mason City, (which we natives believe was the inspiration for Meredith Wilson’s “River City” in the Music Man) held a rousing spontaneous celebration with marching bands, blowing horns and fireworks!
Not too much later, I enrolled at Principia College and met this wonderful man named Charlie Hathaway who, as a veteran, was there on the G. I. Bill. We were married for 64 years.
Of course, central to day to day life life was the war. Even though the country was not under direct attack, it was never certain until early 1944 that the war would be won. Almost every American had family or friends facing the brutality of combat. Day-to-day life with its shortages and inconveniences did have moments of normalcy and even live-for-the-day happiness, but the American home front, in repose, was serious and restrained.