America in WWII - (Page 52) the way we were back then by Judy P. Sopronyi LEFT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES; OPPOSITE: NATIONAL ARCHIVES / LT. COMMANDER CHARLES F. JACOBS, USN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / JOHN VACHON AMERICA IN WWII COLLECTION LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / ESTHER BUBLEY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / JACK DELANO and clothing and other consumer goods became scarce or dropped off in quality. Also on the negative side, manufacturers that were too small to get defense contracts went out of business when they couldn’t get raw materials. W floors, stepping to the tunes of big bands. They swam, rode bikes, had picnics, played softball, and went for drives when they had enough rationed gas in the tank. The war years were a time of high energy. All that home-front intensity helped win the war. A JUDY P. SOPRONYI, a freelance writer in central Pennsylvania, is a former staff member of Early American Life, Historic Traveler, and British Heritage magazines. even on the home front, but Americans played hard, too. The movie industry thrived, with Americans plunking down their money for tickets in unprecedented numbers. They flocked to fairs and filled dance AGING WAR WAS HARD WORK, fun came easily to WWII-era Americans. They delighted in movies, which, for about a dime gave them a cartoon, a serial, world news, and a feature. Hollywood filled America’s magazines and plastered its cities with posters like the one behind this woman in Cincinnati in 1938 (top left) and this lively one for the 1941 Bob Hope film Louisiana Purchase (top center). WWII Americans loved patriotic spectacles, too—displays of weaponry, War Bond rallies, and parades like this Army Day march down New York City’s Fifth Avenue (top right). There was old-fashioned fun at events such as the 1941 Vermont State Fair in Rutland (bottom left), where rides whirled next to a “freak” show. And there was music, Americans’ perennial obsession. War-era Americans—like this young woman in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse in 1943 (bottom right)—tuned it in on radios along with news, dramas, and comedies. But they also enjoyed it live and danced to it in classy steps that brought couples closer. Here (opposite), navy pilots on leave in March 1944 dance and lounge with dates in Hawaii. 52 AMERICA IN WWII OCTOBER 2007
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.