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 Culture and Men Without Uniforms (Yank Magazine, 1945)

…you think it’s easy for a guy my age not to be in the Army? You think I’m having a good time? Every place I go people spit on me…


So spake one of the 4-F men interviewed for this magazine article when asked what it was like to be a twenty-year-old excused from military service during World War Two. This article makes clear the resentment experienced at the deepest levels by all other manner of men forced to soldier-on in uniform; and so Yank had one of their writers stand on a street corner to ask the slackers what it was like to wear civies during wartime.


Read about the 4-F guy who creamed three obnoxious GIs.
Click here to read an article about a World War Two draft board.

The San Francisco Home Front (Yank Magazine, 1944)

San Francisco played an active roll in World War Two and it was the largest port of embarkation, ferrying millions of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines off to their unknown fates in the Pacific War. Between 1942 and 1945, the San Francisco population increased by some 150,000 – yet despite the growth, traffic along Market Street was just as heavy as it was before the war. Taxis were fewer and far more dilapidated, trolley car rides were raised to seven cents and despite a government restriction obliging all coffee vendors to charge no more than five cents for each cup, the caffeine-addicted San Franciscans paid twice that amount. U.S.O shows were plentiful throughout San Francisco and with so many of the city’s police officer’s called up, some parts of the city were patrolled by women.

True fans of San Francisco will enjoy this article.


Read about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake…


From Amazon:


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New York City Home Front (Yank Magazine, 1945)

This is a three page article concerning the city of New York from Yank’s on-going series, Home Towns in Wartime. The Yank correspondent, Sanderson Vanderbilt, characterized Gotham as being overcrowded (in 1945 the population was believed to be 1,902,000; as opposed to the number today: 8,143,197) and I’m sure we can all assume that today’s New Yorkers tend to feel that their fore-bearers did not know the meaning of the word.

New York was the home base of Yank Magazine and this article presents a young man’s view of that town and the differences that he can recall when he remembers it’s pre-war glory (Sanderson tended to feel that the city looked a bit down-at-the-heel).

Click here if you would like to read an article about the celebrations in New York the day World War Two ended.

Home Front Ditties (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Attached is a 1945 article written for the many homesick GIs who wondered what musical treats they were missing in their absence. All the great performers are cataloged as well as a list of many of the most popular home front hits from the top forty.

Popular music back home hasn’t changed much. The same familiar bands play the new hit tunes.

Would you like to read a 1941 article about Boogie-Woogie?

American Makeup Goes to War (Click Magazine, 1942)

An interesting look at the beauty products used by American women during the Second World War and how that war effected the cosmetic industry. Students of history will be reminded that when a nation commits itself to a state of total war, all available elements within a government’s grasp will be picked over by that country’s military; even makeup.

If you’re following a routine of ‘beauty as usual’ with qualms of conscience, believing that cosmetics and toiletries use materials essential to the war machine, know for certain that if Uncle Sam needed your lipstick for bombs and bullets, he’d have gotten it first.

The U.S. cosmetics industry was effected in many ways, read the article and find out.


Click here to read an article about a popular 1940s hairstyle.


CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful Blonde Battalions who spied for the Nazis…

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