1942

Articles from 1942

The New Normal
(United States News, 1942)

This was an important article for its time. It seems hard to believe, but it took the Federal Government the full six months after Pearl Harbor to figure out how the home front would be governed and what would be rationed. This article heralds that new day and clarified how the war would affect their salaries, savings, education, shopping, clothing, taxes, leisure time, transportation and their general manner of living:


In 1944, a class of sixth graders wrote General Eisenhower and asked him how they can help in the war effort; click here to read his response…


Click here food rationing at U.S. POW camps.

The American Draft Dodgers
(The American Magazine, 1942)

This article consists of assorted stories that illustrate the length some American men would go in order to stay out of the military during the Second World War. The article also tells of draft evasion during the First World War.


Click here to read a 1945 article about your average Massachusetts draft board.

Shortages
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The Japanese now are permitted fuel for their homes for only two months of the year and the prices are so high that many homes are without heat the year around.

Women Behind the Guns
(Assorted Magazines, 1942)

When it became clear to the employers on the American home front that there was going to be a shortage of men, their attention turned to a portion of the labor pool who had seldom been allowed to prove their mettle: they were called women. This article recalls those heady days at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground when local women were trained to fire enormous artillery pieces in order that the Army weapons specialists understand the gun’s capabilities. This column primarily concerns the delight on all the men’s faces when it was discovered that women were able to perform their tasks just as well as the men.

Stalingrad Exordium
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

A short article explaining the significance of Stalingrad to Stalin (aside from its name) and the battle that took place there 24 years earlier during the revolution – when the city was called Tsaritsyn.

RAF Bombs Munich
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

Throughout the course of the Second World War, the city of Munich was bombed seventy-four times by both the Royal Air Force as well as the U.S. Army Air Corps. The attached article gives an account of the third of these attacks.

Giant four-motored planes flew in over their targets so low that they could clearly see the Brown House and the Beer Hall where Hitler organized his 1923 putsch… The citizens of Munich will, no doubt, be thinking of their Fuehrer today as they survey the bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble in the streets where Hitler first harangued them about his political ideas.

Walt Disney’s Artists and the Making of ‘Bambi’
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

For the production of Snow White (1938), the Disney artists had gone to great lengths in order to properly portray the manner in which young women move; these efforts were rewarded at the box-office to such a high degree that the same devotion was applied to the study of deer anatomy in their efforts to create Bambi (1942).

We had to remember, that Disney has a ruthless fidelity to the physical scene, to the truth of nature, even when he may seem to be distorting nature.

Click here to read more articles about Disney animation.

Enter, Esther Williams
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

There is a new girl out at MGM in Culver City named Esther Williams (1921 – 2013), who is a cross between Lana Turner and a seal…Miss Williams happens to be that fortunate thing known as ‘a knockout’ – in looks and one of the greatest swimmers in the world.


Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.

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