The Rationing of Meat
(PM Tabloid, 1943)
Whale meat was not rationed…Click here to learn more about the American W.W. II home front…Read more …
Home Front
Read About Life on the WW II Home Front. Learn What was Going on in 1940s America from these Free WW2 Magazine Articles.
Home Front Teen Slang
(Yank Magazine, 1945)
A 1945 Yank Magazine article concerning American teen culture on the W.W. II home front in which the journalist/anthropologist paid particular attention to the teen-age slang of the day.
Some of today’s teenagers —pleasantly not many — talk the strange new language of sling swing. In this bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow, a girl with sex appeal is an able Grable or a ready Hedy. A pretty girl is whistle bait. A boy whose mug and muscles appeal to the girls is a mellow man, a hunk of heart break or a glad lad.
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Click here to learn how the Beatniks spoke.
Click here if you would like to read a glossary of WAC slang terms.
•Suggested Reading• Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang
Under-Age Workers Step-Up
(PM Tabloid, 1942)
The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in 1935 as one of FDR’s many alphabet agencies created to alleviate the sting of the Great Depression; it was tasked with providing work and education for young Americans between the ages of 16 through 25. By the time World War II kicked -in, many in Congress felt it was time to do away with the organization, but as this article spells out, NYA members could now be put to work in the defense plants.
Click here to read about the travails of young adults during the Great Depression.
Influenza Returns
(Newsweek Magazine, 1944)
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)
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)
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:
Tin Cans Go to War
(Click Magazine, 1945)
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)
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)
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.
Absolute, Total Morons on the Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)
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.
Art on the Home Front
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)
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)
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.
Air-Raid Wardens on the Home Front
(ClicK Magazine, 1942)
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.
4-F Guy Mops the Floor with Three GIs
(Yank Magazine, 1944)
Classified as 4-F, Edwin Taylor of Belleville, Illinois, was enraged when four GIs kidded him by singing a song about 4-Fs… he sent two to the hospital and the other soldiers are still running today.
‘Man on the Street Solidly Approves of War Declaration”
(St. Louis Star-Times, 1941)
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.
Dontchya Know There’s A War On!
(Click Magazine, 1944)
Click here to learn more about the American W.W. II home front…– from Amazon:Read more …
Sugar Rationing Hits The Candy Industry
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1943)
The candy-makers of the nation are not having a such a sweet time of it, for, like most other manufacturers, they are bothered by scarcities of labor and materials and so must cut corners and find substitutes.
The article goes on to point out that the sugar that was available was largely devoted to military personnel (18 pounds a year); as a result of this candy rationing, movie-goers were introduced to popcorn as a substitute (you can read about that here).
World War II Fabric Rationing in the United States
(Yank Magazine, 1945)
This illustrated article appeared in Yank Magazine during March of 1945 and explained fully what fabric rationing was and how the American home front fashion consumer was affected:
The absence of cuffs and vests aside, pre-war styles in men’s clothing are still obtainable. A man can get plaids, stripes, herringbones and all sorts of weaves in brown, blue, gray and all the various pastel shades. …Women generally have had to make great changes in their dressing habits. In the first place the shortage of rubber has raised hell with the girdle, or foundation garment..
Click here to read more about fashion on the W.W. II home front…
Read a 1940s fashion article about fabric restrictions and the War Production Board.