Prejudice on the Home Front
As the Allied Armies were nearing Berlin and Tokyo, U.S. magazines began running articles concerning the nation’s problems that had […]
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.
Child Labor During W.W. II
“Throughout the land, child labor is making a comeback as already inadequate laws buckle under pressure of fraudulent appeals to
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…
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.