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The End of the Road for Ernie Pyle (Yank Magazine, 1945)
1945, War Correspondents, Yank Magazine

The End of the Road for Ernie Pyle
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

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This article was penned by Yank correspondent Evans Wylie; it is an account of Ernie Pyle’s (1900 – 1945) surprise appearance during the Okinawa campaign and the violent death that Pyle had long anticipated for himself. His end came while he was being driven along a road in the company of Marines in a sector that was believed to have been safe.
Of all the many American war correspondents writing during World War II, Pyle was, without a doubt, the most well loved; he was adored by readers on the home front as well as the GIs in the field. Like many men, Pyle struggled in his career as a younger man; yet when the war broke out he very quickly found his voice – and his readership soon followed.


Two months after the death of Ernie Pyle, United Artists released a movie about him; Click here to read about it…

Typical 1950s View of Cold War Geopolitics | Graham Patterson Pathfinder Magazine Publisher
1950, Pathfinder Magazine, The Cold War

Communism vs Democracy
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

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Pathfinder Magazine publisher Graham Patterson put pen to paper in an effort to articulate what the Cold War was in its simplest form, and what were the differences between a communist government and a democracy.

It is important for free people to know their avowed enemy, to understand communism, to recognize the difference between their present freedom and the way of life communism would force upon them.

1960s American Counterculture |
1967, American Opinion Magazine, Magazines, Recent Articles

The Underground Newspapers of the Sixties
(American Opinion, 1967)

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The Enemy, according to the underground press, is ‘The Establishment’ – an amorphous term used by young radicals to mean parents, teachers, school administrators, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Pentagon, CIA, the media, government bureaucrats, the narcotics squad, businessmen, and the FBI. The favorite hate symbol within this curious Establishment is the policeman – according to the mythology of the Left, a brutal enforcer of the capitalist status quo and oppressor of youth.

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Flappers Altered the Sexual Contract in Society (Coronet Magazine, 1955)
1955, Coronet Magazine, Flappers, Recent Articles

Flappers Altered the Sexual Contract in Society
(Coronet Magazine, 1955)

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Perhaps the above headline gives a wee-bit too much credit to the flappers for changing the sex codes of North America – but it certainly would never have happened without them. They were one of the necessary elements, in addition to motion pictures, recorded music, automobiles and greater job opportunities for women, that, when mixed together created a new social contract. The attached article spells it all out as to how the flappers of the 1920s had stripped the female body of its Victorian wrappings and proudly displayed it in the sunlight.


You might also want read about sex during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Domino Theory Vietnam |
1951, Collier's Magazine, Recent Articles, The Vietnam War

The Domino Theory
(Collier’s Magazine, 1951)

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In 1951, N.Y. Governor Thomas Dewey (1902 – 1971) made a fact-finding trip to French Indochina (Vietnam), and as impressed as he was with the French command, he wrote urgently in this Collier’s article of his belief in the Domino Theory – Indochina, Thailand and Burma were the Rice Bowl of Southeast Asia:

The Rice Bowl of Southeast Asia is the cornerstone of our Pacific defenses. And Indochina is the cornerstone of the cornerstone.

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Influenza in 1944
1944, Home Front, Newsweek

Influenza Returns
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)

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During the final year of the First World War, the Influenza Pandemic absolutely ravaged the American home front – it made a return visit to the W.W. II home front during the winter of 1943 – 44, but not to the same degree.


Click here to read about the 1918 – 1920 outbreak of influenza in the United States.

Home Front Philadelphia (Yank Magazine, 1944)
1944, Home Front, Yank Magazine

Home Front Philadelphia
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

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You can boil down nearly all the changes that have taken place in Philadelphia since Pearl Harbor to one word: prosperity.

In 1940 the average factory worker in Philadelphia was making $27 a week and the city’s total factory pay roll was 393 millions. In 1943 Philadelphia’s factory workers averaged $48 a week and the total factory payroll was one and a quarter billions…The Philadelphia social life, too, has taken a terrific shot in the arm…

Read about Wartime San Francisco.

Click here to read about wartime Washington, D.C..

The American Home Front Finds Faith Again (Click Magazine, 1942)
1942, Click Magazine, Home Front

The American Home Front Finds Faith Again
(Click Magazine, 1942)

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By the time this article appeared on the newsstands at the close of 1942, the American people were fully committed to a war on two fronts that quite often was not generating the kinds of headlines they would have preferred to read. Certainly, there was the naval victory at Midway, but the butcher’s bill was high at Pearl Harbor and North Africa and after a thirteen year lull in church attendance, America was once again returning to the church:

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Tin Cans Go to War (Click Magazine, 1945)
1945, Click Magazine, Home Front

Tin Cans Go to War
(Click Magazine, 1945)

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This article is accompanied by nineteen pictures illustrating the various ways tin cans are put to use by the American military during W.W.II, and it was printed to show the necessity of full civilian participation along the home front. In order to guarantee that this message would get out to everyone, magazine editors would have been provided with these photographs and an assortment of facts by a government agency called the Office of War Information.

Meat Rationing Lead To Alternatives (Click Magazine, 1944)
1944, Click Magazine, Home Front

Meat Rationing Lead To Alternatives
(Click Magazine, 1944)

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As a result of the rationing of beef some people along the W.W. II home front turned to whale meat as a substitute for beef:

If you walk into a Seattle, Washington butcher shop and ask for a steak, you might be offered a whale steak. No ration points will be required, and the flavor will be somewhere between that of veal and beef. You can prepare your steak just as you would a sirloin, or you can have it ground into whaleburger.



When the U.S. was fighting the First World War, twenty years earlier, it was found that the oil extracted from whales proved useful in the production of explosives.

The Comic Book Industry: Tweleve Years Old in 1945 (Yank Magazine, 1945)
1945, Home Front, Yank Magazine

The Comic Book Industry: Tweleve Years Old in 1945
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

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This is an article about the 1940s comic book industry and the roll it played during W.W. II.


The writer doesn’t spell it out for us, but by-and-by it dawned on us that among all the various firsts the World War Two generation had claim to, they were also the first generation to read comic books. Although this article concentrates on the wartime exploits of such forties comic book characters as Plastic Man and Blackhawk, it should be remembered that the primary American comic book heroes that we remember today were no slackers during the course of the war; Superman smashed the Siegfried Line prior to arresting Hitler as he luxuriated in his mountain retreat; Batman selflessly labored in the fields of counterintelligence while Captain America signed-up as a buck private.


Click here to read an article about the predecessor to the American comic book: the Dime Novel.

If you would like to read a W.W. II story concerning 1940s comic strips and the failed plot to assassinate General Eisenhower, click here.

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Absolute, Total Morons on the Home Front (Collier's Magazine, 1943)
1943, Collier's Magazine, Home Front

Absolute, Total Morons on the Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

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If you’re one of those types who tend to feel that Americans aren’t as smart as they used to be, this is the article for you: attached is a collection of quotes generated by eight home front dullards who were asked the question:

Do you know what you are fighting?

They all understood that their nation had just finished it’s second year fighting something called Fascism but were hard-pressed to put a thoughtful definition to the term:

A Kansas cattle raiser defined Fascism as ‘…the belief in a big industrial enterprise. Anyone who thinks that way is Fascist-minded.

Additionally, it is fun to see the pictures of all the assorted noobs who made such ridiculous statements.

1942, Home Front, Rob Wagner's Script Magazine

Art on the Home Front
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)

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The United States had only been committed to the Second World War for twenty weeks when the American artist Rockwell Kent (1882 – 1971) felt compelled to write about the unique roll artist are called upon to play within a democracy at war:

The art of a democracy must be, like democracy itself, of and by and for the people. It must and will reflect the public mood and public interest…Awareness of America, of its infinitely varied beauties and of its sometimes sordid ugliness; awareness of the life of America, of its fulfillments and its failures; awareness, if you like, of God, the landscape architect supreme – and political failure: of the promise of America and of its problems, art has been, or has aimed to be, a revelation. It is for the right to solve these problems our way that we are now at war.

Here Comes Denim (Collier's Magazine, 1942)
1942, Collier's Magazine, Home Front, Recent Articles

Here Comes Denim
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

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Nine months into the war the American fashion industry awoke to discover that one of the most sought after cottons being purchased domestically was denim.


Denim was first seen in 1853, worn by the men who panned for gold in California. When faced with hard labor, this sturdy twill had proven its worth again and again, and when the American home front recognized that there was a great deal of work to be done in the fields and factories if the war was to be won, they slipped on jeans and denim coveralls and saw the job through.


Who on Sixth Avenue could have known back then that denim would be the main-stay in American sportswear for decades to come?


A far more thorough history of blue jeans can be read here.

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American Civil Defense Volunteers 1942 | WW II Air Raid Wardens in American Neighborhoods | Click Magazine Article s1942
1942, Click Magazine, Home Front

Air-Raid Wardens on the Home Front
(ClicK Magazine, 1942)

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The Congressional Declaration of War was a mere five months old when this photo-essay appeared that documented the earliest days of the American Civil Defense efforts during the Second World War. At this point in the war, the Marines were still three months away from landing on Guadalcanal and the Army wouldn’t be arriving in North Africa for another six months – but the neighborhood volunteers of the Civil Defense seemed to be prepared.

American Public Reaction to Pear Harbor Attack
1941, Home Front, St. Louis Star-Times

‘Man on the Street Solidly Approves of War Declaration”
(St. Louis Star-Times, 1941)

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This report appeared in the evening edition of the St. Louis Star-Times on December 8, 1941 and it serves as an eyewitness account as to how the St. Louisans reacted both during and after listening to the President’s declaration of war broadcast before Congress:

In downtown restaurants and taverns, people paused to listen to the dramatic broadcast from Washington. Work was at a standstill for those minutes in many office buildings and stores. Pedestrians crowded around newsboys to obtain the latest ‘extras’ and along the streets groups could be seen collected about radio-equipped automobiles.

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