The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939-1946: A Business History of the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries [1st ed.] 9783030395186, 9783030395193

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xx
The US Confronts the Great Depression and World War II: 1929–1941 (Albert N. Greco)....Pages 1-12
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Domestic Policies, Executive Orders, and the Home Front During World War II (Albert N. Greco)....Pages 13-30
The US Government and the Advertising, Radio, Newspaper, and Magazine Industries Confront the War (Albert N. Greco)....Pages 31-70
The US Government and the Entertainment Industries Confront the War: Motion Pictures, Music, and Book Publishing (Albert N. Greco)....Pages 71-107
The Impact of Wartime Cooperative Relationship Between the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries on American Society and Consumers (Albert N. Greco)....Pages 109-123
Back Matter ....Pages 125-147

Citation preview

The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946 A Business History of the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries

Albert N. Greco

The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946

Albert N. Greco

The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946 A Business History of the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries

Albert N. Greco Fordham University Bronx, NY, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-39518-6 ISBN 978-3-030-39519-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Elaine

Preface

The published literature on the years 1939–1946 is staggering. There are superb analyses of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Commander-in-Chief as well as riveting studies of the major land (e.g., D-Day), sea (e.g., the Battle of Midway), and air battles (notably the 8th Air Force in Europe and Custis LeMay’s bombardment of Japan). The US home front has been the subject of major historical books and articles; and many of these books presented excellent “macro” histories about large cities (e.g., New York City) or the transformation of a domestic industry into a major war machine (e.g., the automobile industry Detroit was converted to produce heavy bombers). However, I thought it would be useful to analyze the impact of the marketing of World War II and the relationship between the Roosevelt Administration and the vast media and entertainment industries (i.e., radio; newspapers; magazines; motion picture films, documentaries, and newsreels; books; and music) on the people in an average small town. According to statistical analyses from the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, in 1940 the “center of population” was “located in Haddon Township, Sullivan County, Indiana.”1

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The Census Bureau defined an urban area as “made up for the most part of cities and other incorporated places having 2500 inhabitants or more… The rural population is by no means identical with the farm population, that is the population living on farms…”2 So, in 1940 using Census’ data, the US population was 132,164,569. Of that total, urban areas accounted for 74,423,702 million (56.31%); and small rural (nonfarm) towns and communities in this nation totaled 57,245,773 million (43.31%).3 In 1940, the population of New Jersey was 4,160,165. Of that total, 3,394,773 (81.6%) was urban, and 765,392 (18.4%) was rural.4 Census reported that, in 1940, there were 16,752 cities and towns. Of that amount, 3464 (20.68%) were classified as urban; and 1422 (41.05%) had a population between 2500 and 5000, the remaining urban areas had a population more than 5000. And 13,284 (79.32%) were listed as rural-nonfarm towns and communities, with 3205 (24.12%) recorded a population between 1000 to 2500; and 10,083 (75.88%) had a population under 1000.5 So, of the 16,752 urban and rural-nonfarm communities in the US in 1940, 10,075 (60.15%) had a population under 1000. After some research, I selected Bay Head, New Jersey to determine the impact of the Government’s work with the media and entertainment industries on average American citizens. This small town was nestled on a small barrier island; and, on its East was the Atlantic Ocean, and on the West Barnegat Bay and Point Pleasant Boro, NJ. On the North was Point Pleasant Beach; and Mantoloking was just to the South. In 1940, Bay Head’s population was 499. During the early days of war, many in Bay Head worried about their safety, German submarines had attacked and sunk an oil tanker just a few miles offshore Bay Head near the town of Manasquan (about 4.4 miles from Bay Head). More than three dozen men from Bay Head served in the military during the war, and one died in combat. Many women worked with the Red Cross; older men too old to serve in the military and young boys in high school volunteered for the Civilian Defense. These residents patrolled the town’s board walk every night, working with armed Coast Guard sailors on horseback (who were accompanied by a watch dog), looking for submarines, saboteurs launched from a

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German sub, or the floating tell-tale remnants of war (e.g., during the war, these volunteers found floating or on the shore Chase & Sanborn coffee cans, life preservers; clothing etc.) from sunk US or Allied ships. In 1944 a storm destroyed the town’s board walk, which was never replaced; so, during the last months of the war, these volunteers patrolled on the town’s two miles beach. During the war, dozens of men worked in the local boat manufacturing factory building more than 1000 lifeboats for the US military. Local school children participated in paper and metal drives. Adults gave blood and donated clothing for the war effort. These were difficult years for this small town, but their resilience during rationing, price and wage controls, blackouts, air raid sirens, and constant concerns about the well-being of their young men at war enabled them to get through an unsettling war. Bay Head was typical of the countless thousands of small towns across America during the war; and during those years, they coped with rationing, wage and price controls; and shortages of clothing and footwear; and many sent their sons, brothers, uncles, and friends to war. During those turbulent years, all gave some. And some gave all. Bronx, USA

Albert N. Greco

Notes 1. US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. US Summary; 9. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1940/popula tion-volume-1/33973538v1ch02.pdf. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%. 2. Ibid., 10. 3. Ibid., 18–19. 4. Ibid., 14. 5. Ibid., 25. Also see Marcello, Ronald E. 2014. “Small Town America in World War II: War Stories from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania.” Oral History Review 41 (2, Summer/Fall): 387–388; Goodwin, Doris Kearns. 1995. No Ordinary Time: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt the Home Front in World War II , 44–384. New York: Simon & Schuster. Goodwin,

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in her book that won the Pulitzer prize for history, remarked that, in 1940, the vast majority of all Americans lived in small towns; and that, until the war, most Americans tended to live in or near these small towns that formed a firm bedrock of community and democracy.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the support of Marcus Ballenger, Sam Stocker, and the superb staff at Palgrave Macmillan in the US and abroad for their tremendous assistance in the development and publication of this book. During my research, I received great cooperation from key people in Bay Head, New Jersey, representative of small towns in America during the war. The following provided access to Bay Head’s town council records during World War II, including: Mayor William W. Curtis; Mary Glass, the Chair of the Public Safety Committee; and Patricia M. Applegate, Municipal Clerk. I must also thank: Cathie Coleman, from the Bay Head Historical Society; Charles Tillson, for his inciteful comments and recollections about Bay Head during the war; and the helpful librarians at the Bay Head, NJ Reading Center, the Ocean County Library in Toms River, the Point Pleasant Boro, NJ Library, and the Point Pleasant, Beach, NJ Library.

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Introduction

World War II was a turning point in the history of the US. During the war (often called the war between 1941 and 1945 and even to today), the US defeated enemies in both the European and Pacific Theaters of Operations, had a nuclear arsenal, and air and naval armadas unrivaled in the history of warfare. In 1945, it helped create a series of international monetary, financial, and diplomatic organizations. By September 2, 1945, when Japan signed the instrument of surrender on the deck of the USS. Missouri in Tokyo harbor, the US was unquestionably the strongest and richest nation in the world; in 1947, this nation controlled over 70% of all of the gold in the world. However, this book is a business history not a military history of World War II. This book describes the complex and often contentious “double helix” relationships between various US departments, offices, agencies, and the very independent media and entertainment industries (i.e., radio; newspapers; magazines; books; and Hollywood and popular songs) during a period of great uncertainty and fear between December 7, 1941 and September 2, 1945.

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In addition, the book evaluates the impact of the war on the US home front. Now the US faced entrenched, well equipped enemies in both the Europe and the Pacific. After December 7, 1941, the entire apparatus of the US Government was mobilized to “market” the war to Americans who were incredulous and horrified about the attack at Pearl Harbor. Americans wanted immediate, accurate, and detailed information from the US Government and the nation’s media and entertainment companies about the recent military disasters at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines. This meant that Americans had to understand and accept: (1) the complete mobilization of the US economy; (2) severe wartime rationing; (3) the disruption of families with 16.5 million men and women drafted or enlisted in the military forces of the nation; (4) the impact of massive US military casualties: the US sustained 407,316 military deaths; and 617,278 members of the military were wounded; (5) the staggering cost to wage war in Europe and the Pacific: the war cost the US Government $296 billion in 1945 dollars; and +$4.22 trillion in inflation adjusted 2020 dollars; (6) and an intense marketing push to encourage Americans to buy US war bonds; convincing Americans to pay high US income taxes (e.g., Internal Revenue Service tax law revisions increased the numbers of those paying some income taxes from 7% of the US population in 1940 to 64% by 1944); and justifying the need to have significantly higher I.R.S. tax rates (reaching up to 94% for income over $200,000 in 1944 or slightly more than $2.92 million in 2020 dollars); (7) severe wartime rationing of consumer goods (e.g., meat; sugar; butter; coffee; shoes; etc.); (8) “stringent” but “voluntary” US Government censorship policies; (9) major concerns about sabotage on the docks and in war plants and anti-war propaganda; (10) the internment of Japanese-American citizens; and (11) segregation in the US military and in American communities. Generating support for the war placed a heavy burden on every US Government department and agency. The US Government (e.g., the Office of War Information, OWI; the Office of Censorship; etc.) had to work with the diverse media industries (e.g., advertising agencies; trade associations; radio; book publishers; newspapers; magazines) and the entertainment industries (e.g., radio; the Hollywood studios; recorded music industry; live entertainment; etc.) to “market” support for the war

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to every American. This was, clearly, the largest, and most successful marketing campaign in the history of the US; and these efforts were, at best, a very difficult undertaking. Compounding the impact of war on every segment of American society was the lingering deep-seated and pervasive fear of another depression after the end of the war. In essence, Americans wondered how the nation could handle: the demobilization of +16.5 million Americans; and the stark reminder that far too many veterans would require major medical treatment after they returned. Marketing as an academic discipline was relatively new; the Journal of Marketing was only created in 1936; so many of the well-established marketing principles and theories of today (e.g., the 4Ps, product, price, placement, and promotion; Michael E. Porter’s “Five Forces;” Alfred D. Chandler’s views of the need for strategies and structures; and Ted Levitt’s “marketing myopia”) did not emerge until decades after the end of the war. However, the Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) administration was well acquainted with the time-tested procedures and theories related to advertising and the handling of public opinion; after all, FDR won major presidential elections in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944; and he was elected Governor of New York before he became president. And the FDR war administration was filled with former executives from the advertising world and various entertainment formats (e.g., radio; newspapers). This book also addresses the policies and procedures crafted to influence public opinion by addressing the efforts of the Government working with the diverse and often prickly media and entertainment industries in what was, clearly, a case of do or die.

Contents

1 The US Confronts the Great Depression and World War II: 1929–1941 2

1

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Domestic Policies, Executive Orders, and the Home Front During World War II

13

3 The US Government and the Advertising, Radio, Newspaper, and Magazine Industries Confront the War

31

4 The US Government and the Entertainment Industries Confront the War: Motion Pictures, Music, and Book Publishing

71

5 The Impact of Wartime Cooperative Relationship Between the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries on American Society and Consumers

109

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Contents

Bibliography

125

Index

135

List of Tables

Table 1.1

Table 1.2 Table 1.3 Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3

Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 2.6

Impact of the Great Depression 1929–1941: Gross Domestic Product, unemployment, and the US Population (current US dollars) US government receipts and expenditures 1929–1941 (current US$ million) US total receipts 1934–1941 (current US$ million) US Government receipts and expenditures 1942–1946 (current US million dollars) US total receipts 1942–1946 (current US million dollars) Impact of World War II 1942–1946: Gross Domestic Product, unemployment, and the US population (current US dollars) Personal savings and private investments 1940–1946 (current US dollars) US World War II expenditures and manpower mobilization 1940–1946 (current US dollars) Selected list of military equipment production during World War II: 1941–1946

2 3 5 15 15

17 18 19 20

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 3.6 Table 3.7 Table 3.8 Table 3.9 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 5.1

Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 5.11

US advertising expenditures: 1939–1946 (US$ billions) US population 1939–1946 The US radio industry 1940–1946: number of stations, radio sets, and households with radio US radio advertising revenues 1940–1946 ($ millions) US newspaper industry 1940–1946: number of newspapers Population of the 20 largest urban places: 1940 The US magazine industry: 1940–1946 Gross national advertising in general magazines 1939–1946 Advertising revenues of Curtis Publishing Company: 1939–1946 Motion picture revenues: 1940–1945 New book title output The US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Personal Consumption Expenditures, National Income, and Unemployment Rates: 1945–1949 ($ Billions) (thousands of individuals) Annual percent increases in the US Consumer Price Index: 1945–1949 US Government receipts. Outlays, and surplus or deficit ($ millions) US households (millions) Radio and television industry statistics: 1945–1949 Number of US television households by television season: 1949–1951 Radio industry advertising revenues: 1945–1949 ($ millions) Number of newspapers: 1945–1949 Newspaper industry: 1945–1949 Number of magazines: 1945–1949 Total number of new books: 1945–1949

35 35 40 41 47 48 51 52 53 83 93

114 115 115 115 116 116 117 117 118 118 119

1 The US Confronts the Great Depression and World War II: 1929–1941

Abstract One of the time periods in US history most discussed is 1929– 1941 because in October 1929 the Great Depression started, impacting every American. The response of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to confront the severe, debilitating impact of the Depression and America’s entry into World War II form a critical era in American history. This chapter addresses some of the substantive events of the years between 1929 and 1941. Keywords Great Depression · National Bureau of Economic Research · Herbert Hoover · Franklin D. Roosevelt · The New Deal · Major legislation · Preparations for war · Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II

America and the Great Depression 1929–1939 Many business historians peg the start of the Great Depression with the stock market crash (often called “The Great Crash”) on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929. “Tuesday, October 29, was the most devastating day in the history of the New York stock market, and it may have been the most devastating day in the history of the markets.”1 On that day, the © The Author(s) 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3_1

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A. N. Greco

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOIA) fell almost 23%, triggering a staggering market loss of more than $8 billion in value (the equivalent of more than $120.4 billion in 2020 dollars).2 But it was just one in a series of momentous events that undermined the very foundations of American society. Between 1929 and 1933, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP; the GDP is the sum of the market values, or prices, of all final goods and services produced in an economy during a period of time) declined 45.56%; unemployment rose from 3.2 to 24.9%; the population increased at relatively modest rates, but well below the averages during the 1920s.3 By late 1929, and into the early 1930s, bread lines emerged in large cities and small townships. There was an increase in the number of vagrants; and thousands of large and small businesses closed their doors. Farms were abandoned because of the steep declines in prices, and more than 9000 banks failed.4 Table 1.1 has some of the economic statistics. As the jobless population grew, President Herbert Hoover’s administration faced steep declines in US Government receipts, declining from Table 1.1 Impact of the Great Depression 1929–1941: Gross Domestic Product, unemployment, and the US Population (current US dollars) US Gross US Domestic % Unemployment population % Year Product (GDP) Change rate (%) total Change 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941

$104.6 billion $92.2 billion $77.4 billion $59.5 billion $57.2 billion $66.8 billion $74.3 billion $84.9 billion $93.0 billion $87.4 billion $93.5 billion $102.9 billion $129.4 billion

5.30% −11.85% −16.05% −23.13% −3.87% +16.78% +11.23% +14.27% +9.54% −6.02% +6.98% +10.05% +25.75%

3.2 8.7 15.9 23.6 24.9 21.7 20.1 16.9 14.3 19.0 17.2 14.6 9.9

121,767,000 123,076,741 124,039,648 124,840,471 125,578,763 126,373,773 127,250,232 128,053,180 128,824,829 129,824,939 130,879,718 132,122,446 133,402,471

1.04% 1.07% 0.78% 0.64% 0.59% 0.63% 0.69% 0.63% 0.60% 0.77% 0.81% 0.95% 0.96%

Source The Statistical Abstract of the United States; various years. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

1 The US Confronts the Great Depression and World War II …

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$4058 million in 1930 to $1924 million in 1932. Table 1.2 has the details. However, Hoover resisted calls from city, county, state, and federal officials to have the US Government combat the growing unemployment problem by financing public service jobs. Hoover maintained that local and state governments should pay for them. When Americans lost jobs, and the ability to pay rents or mortgages, many abandoned their homes and apartments and moved into shantytowns (known as Hooverville’s).4 The 1932 presidential campaign was between Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). FDR campaigned on a platform addressing “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” Roosevelt easily won, and he became the President on March 4, 1933. At his inauguration, Roosevelt declared that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. But FDR faced herculean challenges. He confronted a massive banking crisis; and staggering unemployment meant that between 13 and 15 million workers had no jobs. FDR convinced the Congress to declare a nationwide “bank holiday” to provide the government time to create viable strategies and structures to address the debilitating Depression.5 Table 1.2 US government receipts and expenditures 1929–1941 (current US$ million) Year

Total receipts

Total expenditures

Surplus or deficit (−)

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941

$3862 $4058 $3116 $1924 $1997 $2955 $3609 $3923 $5387 $6751 $6295 $6548 $8712

$3127 $3320 $3577 $4659 $4598 $6541 $6412 $8228 $7580 $6840 $9141 $9468 $13,653

$734 $738 −$462 −$2735 −$2602 −$3586 −$2803 −$4304 −$2193 −$89 −$2846 −$2920 −$4941

Source https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2019-TAB/pdf/BUDGET2019-TAB/pdf. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

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FDR’s “New Deal,” in its first 100 days, convinced Congress to pass a tremendous number of laws to address and defeat the ravages of the Depression. Some of these laws addressed or created: (a) reforms in the banking system; and banking deposits were insured up to a certain limit; (b) regulations regarding the stock market including the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market; (c) home mortgages were protected; (d) agricultural and industrial production were stabilized; (e) the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was initiated, and it provided federally funded jobs for unemployed Americans; (f ) the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was launched to address wide spread unemployment, and it employed more than 4 million men and women building and repairing roads, bridges, parks, playgrounds, etc.; and (g) the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which also employed millions of Americans, built hydroelectric dams to bring power to the rural South. Other major pieces of legislation included: (a) the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which guaranteed employees “the right to selforganization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection,” (b) the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) led to a massive reduction in farm supply in order to raise prices and increase farmers’ income, (c) the Communication Act of 1934 was created (47 U.S.C. §151), and (d) the Social Security Act of 1935 created a “safety net” for retired and unemployed people.6 By 1935 and 1936, government receipts increased from $2955 million in 1934 to $3923 million in 1936. Table 1.3 has information about total US Government receipts. FDR was re-elected President in 1936. While many of the New Deal “alphabet” agencies were successful, the Depression again undermined parts of the New Deal and American society in 1937–1938,7 triggering another round of declines in government receipts (as indicated in Tables 1.2 and 1.3). However, a partial recovery from the economic misery of the Great Depression only arrived after 1940, when mobilization for World War II caused a huge increase in US industrial production as well as an uptick in employment tallies.

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1 The US Confronts the Great Depression and World War II …

Table 1.3 US total receipts 1934–1941 (current US$ million)

Year

Individual income taxes

Corporate income taxes

Social insurance and retirement receipts

1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941

$420 $527 $674 $1092 $1286 $1029 $892 $1314

$364 $529 $719 $1038 $1287 $1127 $1197 $2124

$30 $31 $52 $580 $1541 $1593 $1785 $1940

Excise taxes

Other

Total

$1354 $1439 $1631 $1876 $1863 $1871 $1977 $2552

$788 $1084 $847 $801 $773 $675 $698 $781

$2955 $3609 $3923 $5387 $6751 $6295 $6548 $8712

Source https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2019-TAB/pdf/BUDGET2019-TAB/pdf. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%. Complete data for 1929–1933 was not available

The US Government and American Society: 1938–1941 While FDR and the nation were concerned about the devastating Depression and domestic issues, Roosevelt and ultimately the American people were compelled reluctantly to pay attention to foreign matters. In March 1936, Hitler began remilitarizing; and, in 1938, Germany absorbed Austria and portions of Czechoslovakia. Japan invaded China in 1937.8 In the 1930s, isolationism and an antipathy toward war in Europe and Asia were strong political forces in the United States because of the impact of major losses during World War I; and the devastating impact of the Great Depression created a strong anti-war current in the United States. Consequently, because of the events in Europe and Asia, the US Congress passed the Neutrality Act which prohibited travel by Americans on belligerent ships, the arming of US merchant ships, or trading with belligerents.9 However, FDR was a political pragmatist; he decided that it was imperative for the United States to start to rebuild what was, at best, a mediocre military infrastructure that had been neglected after World War

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I and during the Great Depression. Funding was authorized for the WPA to build “modern” US Army camps and airfields; but the Army (and its Army Air Corps; the AAC; although the AAC was generally called the Air Force by most Americans before and during the war) and the US Navy were understaffed, underfunded, and under-armed (when compared to the military forces of several European nations and Japan). In May 1939, the US Senate blocked aid to England and France. On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein wrote to FDR alerting the President about the advanced state of nuclear research in Germany. This letter triggered ultimately the creation of the Manhattan Project.10 However, everything changed dramatically on September 1, 1939 with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, and the ensuing declarations of war from France and England.11 These events launched the Second World War. As the war in Europe intensified, especially with significant losses by England and France, these developments impacted ultimately the United States. On November 3, 1939, Congress lifted the arms embargo. In April 1940, Germany defeated France; and France surrendered in June 1940. Clearly, FDR was concerned that, in 1939, that the “vast and powerful” British Navy, and its colonies, could fall under German control. These events prodded FDR to increase military production, which impacted: the GDP (which increased from $87.4 billion in 1938 to $129.4 billion in 1941); the unemployment rate (19.0% in 1938 and 9.9% in 1941); and increases in government receipts ($6751 million in 1938 and $8712 million in 1941).12 See Tables 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 for the details. By May 1940, American public opinion changed with “more favorable” support for England and France; although there were segments of the US population that remained isolationist or supported Germany. However, the Congress increased defense spending; and in, August 1940, the US enacted a military draft. American men started to report to military camps in October 1940; women were not subject to the draft. In September 1940, Japan joined the Axis (of Germany and Italy). The draft and increased industrial production of military products (guns, ships, uniforms, etc.) meant that many jobless American workers were absorbed into defense jobs and the US military.13

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In 1940, Roosevelt, defying a tradition dating back to George Washington that presidents “had a two-term limit,” ran for a historic third term; and he was reelected. In December 1940, FDR in a radio fireside chat announced that the United States would be the “arsenal of democracy.”14 In January 1941, the United States created the LendLease program to provide arms and ships to England in exchange for US military bases in English controlled areas. Military events in Europe remained of great concern to FDR, especially in June 1941 when Germany invaded Russia. In August 1941, FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill drafted the Atlantic Charter.15

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 However, all of FDR’s talks and plans changed dramatically on December 7, 1941, at 7:55 a.m. (local time) when the Japanese attacked American military facilities at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The devastation was horrific: 2403 Americans were killed; and 1143 were wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk or run aground, including five battleships (e.g., the U.S.S. Arizona) that were moored on what was called “battleship row.” Support ships near the battleships also sustained major damages.16 The U.S.S. Arizona was totally destroyed, and it became a symbol and a rallying cry for millions of Americans who were urged to “remain calm and get even.” What remains of this great ship is today a war memorial, constructed in 1962 and accessible only by boat. The Arizona Memorial attracts more than 2 million visitors annually.17 The United States was now in World War II (WW II), which triggered a massive military build-up. America’s dormant factories were transformed into full war production, absorbing all available workers. WWII ended the Great Depression. On December 8, 1941, FDR asked the Congress to declare war against Japan. In his speech, FDR made the following remarks. Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval

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and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack… Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense… I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.18

The Congress voted to declare war against Japan with an 88-0 vote in the US Senate; and a 388-1 vote in the US House of Representatives (Representative Jeannette Rankin from Montana voted against the House resolution; she did not run for reelection in 1942).19 On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.20 Now the United States faced enemies in both the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and the Pacific Theaters of Operations (PTO).

War on the Battlefield and the Homefront FDR, General George C. Marshall (Chief-of-Staff of the US Army), and Admiral Ernest J. King (Commander-in Chief of the US Navy and Chief of Naval Operations) realized quickly that the strategy to gain victory on the battlefield also required a multi-pronged structure to achieve victory on the home front. General Marshall and Admiral King worked tirelessly with military commanders and the eclectic governmental agencies created to generate

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domestic support for the war, to monitor and manage rationing, to create effective war bond drives, scrap drives, etc. For example, Marshall and the Army crafted a close working relationship with various components of the media and entertainment industries, especially Hollywood’s production of documentaries and war themed films.21

Issues of Concern in December 1941 and 1942 Americans were incredulous and horrified about the attack at Pearl Harbor and the recent military disasters. However, after December 7, 1941, generating total support for the war placed a heavy burden on every existing US Government departments and agencies as well as the torrent of new commissions and agencies created during the war. The Government had to convince every American, and the US population in 1940 was 133,402,471, to support the war effort and to understand and accept: 1. the complete mobilization of the US economy; 2. severe wartime rationing of food, clothing, and shoes; wage and price controls (to curtail the ravenous impact of inflation); and the need to conduct large-scale scrap drives of rubber, paper, tin cans, and scrap metal for the war effort; this was a massive recycling endeavor supported by Americans of all ages; the War Production Board (WPB) allocated scarce resources of aluminum and rubber; 3. the impact and dislocation on families and communities with +16.5 million men and women drafted in or enlisted in the military forces of the nation; and severe labor shortages because of the number of Americans in the US armed forces; 4. the impact of massive, horrendous US military casualties: the US sustained 407,316 military deaths; and 617,278 members of the military were wounded; 5. the staggering cost to wage war in Europe and the Pacific: the war cost the US Government $296 billion in 1945 dollars; and +$4.219 trillion in inflation adjusted 2019 dollars; and an extensive and intense marketing campaign to encourage Americans to buy US war bonds;

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convincing Americans to pay US income taxes (e.g., Internal Revenue Service tax law revisions increased the numbers of those paying some income taxes from 7% of the US population in 1940 to 64% by 1944); and justifying the need to have significantly higher I.R.S. tax rates (reaching up to 94% for income over $200,000 in 1944 or $2.915 million in 2019 dollars); stringent US Government censorship policies; major concerns about sabotage on the docks and in war plants and anti-war propaganda; the internment of Japanese-American citizens; and segregation in the US military and in American communities.

The US Government did not have a blueprint, an existing template, that could be utilized to achieve their goals. In a sense, they were making it up as they went along, creating what was the largest, most successful marketing campaign in the history of the United States. And these efforts were, at best, a very difficult undertaking.

Notes 1. Galbraith, John Kenneth. 2009. The Great Crash 1929, 111. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. However, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and to a degree Galbraith, maintained that the Depression started in August 1929; see https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions. html. 2. Bureau of Economic Analysis. National Income and Product Accounts Tables. https://www.bea.gov/sch/pdt/2012/08%20August/0812%20gdpother%20nipa_series.pdf. 3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Historical National Population Estimates: July 1, 1900 to July 1, 1999; Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census. gov/population/estimates/nation/popclockest.txt. 4. Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. https://hoover.archives.gov; https://hoover.archives.gov/research/collec tions/hooverpapers/descriphooverpapers.

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5. Dallek, Robert. 2017. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 133–166. New York: Viking. Also see Schlesinger, Arthur S. 2003. The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919 –1933, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume I , 401–463, 479–550. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Leuchtenberg, William E. 2009. FDR and the New Deal: 1932–1940, 15–45, 87–131. New York: HarperCollins. 6. Schlesinger. 2003. The Coming of the New Deal: 1933–1935, 109–177, 299–356. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Also see Schlesinger. 2003. The Politics of Upheaval: 1935 –1936 , 83–116, 161–253. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 7. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/cycles/rec essions.html. 8. Keegan, John. 1989. The Second World War, 10–53.e. New York: Penguin Books. Also see Taylor, A. J. P. 1996. The Origins of the Second World War, 102–186. New York: Simon & Schuster; Taylor. 2001. English History 1914 –1945, 389–454. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 9. Dallek. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 26, 39–43. 10. Greco, Albert N. 2019. The Growth of the Scholarly Publishing Industry in the U.S.: A Business History of a Changing Marketplace, 1939 –1945, 22–23. Cham, Switzerland. 11. Keegan. The Second World War, 54–126. 12. Kaiser, David. 2014. No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation Into War, 19–334. New York: Basic Books. 13. Dallek. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 119–120. 14. Wortman, Marc. 2016. 1941: Fighting the Shadow War, 158. New York: Grove Press. 15. Dallek. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 256. 16. Hamilton, Nigel. 2014. The Mantle of Command: FDR at War: 1941– 1942, 43–75. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. For information about the USS Arizona, see Borneman, Walter R. 2019. Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Abroad the USS Arizona, 131–208. New York: Little, Brown. 17. Pearl Harbor National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service). https:// www.nps.gov/valr/index.htm. 18. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Library of Congress. “Speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, New York.” https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc1986022.afc198 6022_ms2201/?st=text. 19. U.S. Senate. Declaration of War Against Japan WW II; S.J. Res 116. https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc1986022.afc1986022_ms2201/?st=

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text; U.S. House of Representatives. Talley Sheet for Declaration of War Against Japan. https://history.house.gov/Records-and-Research/FeaturedContent/Tally-Sheet. 20. Piehler, G. Kurt, and Sidney Pash, eds. 2010. The United States and the Second World War, 1–9. New York: Fordham University Press. Also see O’Neill, William L. 1992. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight Abroad in World War II , 33–74, 105–153. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 21. Debi and Irwin Unger with Hirshson, Stanley. 2014. George Marshall: A Biography, 131–181. New York: HarperCollins.

2 Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Domestic Policies, Executive Orders, and the Home Front During World War II

Abstract Transforming the US economy from producing consumer packaged goods (CPGs; e.g., food, beverages, cosmetics, and cleaning products), clothing, shoes, refrigerators, washing machines, etc., to manufacturing B-17 heavy bombers, tanks, warships, munitions, etc., was a gigantic undertaking. This chapter evaluates: the efforts of President Roosevelt, through a series of his Executive Orders, and his administration to create of a number of major agencies and commissions to remake the entire US economy; and to convince Americans on the home front to accept rationing, censorship, wage and rent and price controls, etc. This was, clearly, a daunting task never undertaken in the history of the United States on such a massive scale. Keywords The home front during World War II · FDR · Executive orders · Office of war information · Office of censorship · Office of Scientific Research and Development · Inflation

Executive Orders and the Home Front What did the FDR and the US Government do once war started on December 7, 1941? Clearly, the nation, and its military, were not © The Author(s) 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3_2

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prepared to fight a massive, global war on land, on the seas, and in the air, tasks that seemed unsurmountable and full of unknown, and, in reality, unknowable risks. Once war was declared against Japan on December 8, 1941, and ultimately German and Italy on December 11, 1941, the Congress passed and FDR signed on December 18, 1941, “An Act to Expedite the Prosecution of the War Effort,” commonly called the War Powers Act of 1941.1 The terms and conditions of this Act were as follows. First, Roosevelt was granted unprecedented authority to wage the war. Second, he could reorganize the US Government to maximize war efforts. Third, FDR and his associates could censor the US mail to curb enemy attempts to gain valuable information about the war mobilization endeavors.2 FDR and the Congress realized that this Act was crafted quickly, and it needed amending. So, Congress on March 27, 1942 passed the Second War Powers Act.3 This Act authorized the president to allocate all necessary resources for national defense, including: the acquisition of any land in the United States for military use; naturalization regulations for noncitizens in the US military; and procedures regarding any warrelated contracts. This Act was utilized to grant unprecedented authority to develop the Manhattan Project.4

The Pressing Need for Revenues Since Roosevelt had the authority to create war policies, he needed the revenues to support his strategies. Once the United States entered World War II, many of the insidious economic woes experienced between 1929 and 1939 were put aside; but they were never forgotten by the Americans who worried constantly during those years about what was “the business of life.” As early as 1940, the private economy started to gain steam when FDR began what was a slow “mobilization” of the US military. However, in 1940–1941 and during World War II, the US Government’s Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and related offices (including the US Post Office through the sale of war stamps) were responsible for generating enough revenues to cover the cost of mobilization and ultimately

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Table 2.1 US Government receipts and expenditures 1942–1946 (current US million dollars) Year

Total receipts

Total expenditures

Surplus or deficit (−)

1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$14,634 $24,001 $43,747 $45,159 $39,296

$35,137 $78,555 $91,304 $92,712 $55,232

−$20,503 −$54,554 −$47,557 −$47,553 −$15,936

Source https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2019-TAB/pdf/BUDGET2019-TAB/pdf. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

Table 2.2 US total receipts 1942–1946 (current US million dollars)

Year

Individual income taxes

Corporate income taxes

Social insurance and retirement

Excise taxes

Other receipts

Total receipts

1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$3263 $6505 $19,705 $18,372 $16,098

$4719 $9557 $14,838 $15,988 $11,883

$2452 $3044 $3473 $3451 $3115

$3399 $4096 $4759 $6265 $6998

$801 $800 $972 $1083 $1202

$14,634 $24,001 $43,747 $45,159 $39,296

Source https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2019-TAB/pdf/BUDGET2019-TAB/pdf. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

the monumental costs of the war. Treasury was successful. Increases in total receipts increased 168.58% between 1942 and 1946; however, total expenditures exceeded significantly all receipts in spite of a series of vigorous tax policies that impacted many individuals and business firms. Table 2.1 has a list of receipts, expenditures, and deficits for these years. Table 2.2 lists the various components of income taxes and other receipts for these years.

The Creation of Domestic Policies and Agencies During World War II War powers and revenues were critical, but FDR needed realistic strategies and relevant structural components in order to wage war effectively.

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Roosevelt was many things, a clever and wise politician; and his inclination was to follow some of the successful procedures he crafted to combat the Great Depression.5 He created agencies, commissions, and offices; many of them had concrete goals; and others were, at best, a little vague and lacking in immediate strategies. He started with a series of Executive Orders to get the nation on a war footing. Roosevelt was president longer than any other president (March 4, 1933–April 12, 1945; Roosevelt died in office during the early days of his fourth term as President). So, it is not surprising that he issued more Executive Orders (3522) than any of those who proceeded FDR (e.g., George Washington issued eight; Abraham Lincoln 48) or followed him in the White House (Harry S. Truman 907; Dwight D. Eisenhower 484; Ronald Reagan 381; Bill Clinton 308).6 While literally hundreds of Executive Orders were issued by FDR during World War II, some of the important ones had a direct impact on the war and specifically on the US home front. To implement the various Executive Orders, the US Government created a plethora of agencies and commissions that rivaled the number issued during the New Deal years to fight the Depression. Some of the important ones include the following. The War Production Board (WPB) was established in 1942 by FDR’s Executive Order 9024. The WPB was in charge of the massive transformation of the nation’s industrial capacity into an effective war production operation. With +16.5 million men and women serving in the armed forces, American war production needed to employ a vast number of civilians. This meant that the unemployment rate that topped 23.6% in 1932 declined to 14.6% in 1940, dropping to 4.4% in 1942, 1.9% in 1943, and 1.2% in 1944. These developments impacted directly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP; +34.22% between 1942 and 1946). Table 2.3 has the details. During the war, WPB had the authority to: create allocations for important war materials products, including metals and rubber; and determine what consumer items were not produced (such as refrigerators and washing machines) so that needed war materials could be manufactured. The WPB was also in charge of creating policies to control wages and prices.7

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Table 2.3 Impact of World War II 1942–1946: Gross Domestic Product, unemployment, and the US population (current US dollars) US Gross Domestic US Product % Unemployment population % Year (GDP) Change rate (%) total Change 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$166.0 $203.1 $224.6 $228.2 $222.8

+28.28% +22.35% +10.59% +1.60% −0.10%

4.4 1.9 1.2 1.9 3.9

134,859,553 136,739,353 138,397,345 139,928,165 141,388,566

1.09% 1.38% 1.21% 1.10% 1.04%

Source The Statistical Abstract of the United States; various years; Lebergott, Stanley. 1972. “The American Labor Force.” In American Economic Growth, edited by L. E. Davis et al., 213. New York: Harper & Row. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

The Office of Price Administration (OPA), in the Office of Emergency Management, was created by FDR’s Executive Order 8875. Government expenditures, utilizing deficit spending, appeared to eradicate many of the problems of the depression era. But this deficit spending placed inflationary pressures on the country. Physical rationing and other controls were used by the government to dampen private spending and investment. Thus, deficit spending of WWII required private sacrifices. Nonetheless, the direct belief of many was that the government had the power to control aggregate demand and promote full employment inside the US economy.8 The US economy during World War II exhibited clearly command economy features. OPA had the authorization to control prices and rents; and OPA issued ration points, ration tokens, and ration books in order to control the demand for consumer goods. The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 was created to address and control the pernicious impact of inflation. This Act addressed the pressing need for: price controls and stabilization, especially regarding agricultural products, consumer goods and services, and real property; and the need for Americans to increase their personal savings.9 Table 2.4 has statistics regarding the growth in personal savings. The War Shipping Administration (WSA) was tasked with the responsibility of purchasing and operating civilian shipping during World War II, including the building of large ships and smaller vessels (e.g.,

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Table 2.4 Personal savings and private investments 1940–1946 (current US dollars) Year

Personal savings

Gross private domestic investment

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$4.4 billion $11.5 billion $28.6 billion $34.6 billion $38.7 billion $31.1 billion $15.5 billion

$13.6 billion $18.1 billion $10.4 billion $6.1 billion $7.8 billion $10.8 billion $31.1 billion

Source The Statistical Abstract of the United States; various years. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product accounts, Tables 1.1.5 and 2.1

lifeboats) for the utilization by the US military (Army, Navy) other US Government departments and agencies; some of these ships were provided to America’s allies during the war.10 The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWM) was established by Executive Order 9347.11 This was an independent agency headed by former Supreme Court of the United States Associate Justice James F. Byrnes; Byrnes was also a former US Senator. He had the monumental responsibility for the coordination of all US Government departments and agencies during the war. The creation of this Office was an exceptionally unusual move by FDR who often created agencies with limited powers “since sharing powers went so strongly against his [FDR’s] grain. He hated it when the press called Byrnes ‘Assistant President’ and ‘Chief of Staff,’ titles awarded Byrnes….”12 However, because of Brynes’ efforts, total military expenditures increased at a staggering rate between 1940 and 1945 (+3787.35%). This impacted the percentage of the GDP allocated to the war effort. Table 2.5 lists these developments. The production of aircraft, weapons, and ships was a major reason why the US military was prepared to fight massive campaigns on land and on the seas. Table 2.6 lists some of the equipment output during the war. The Office of War Information (OWI) was created by FDR’s Executive Order 9182; and its mission was to supervise and coordinate all wartime information from the Federal Government and the military to the American public (e.g., radio, newspapers, magazines) in order to

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Table 2.5 US World War II expenditures and manpower mobilization 1940–1946 (current US dollars)

Year

GDPGDP ($ billions)

Total military ($ billions)

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$102.9 $129.4 $166.0 $203.1 $224.6 $228.2 $227.8

$1.66 $6.13 $22.1 $43.98 $62.95 $64.53 $43.20

Expenditures % of GDP

Numbers in armed forces (thousands)

Nonagricultural labor force (millions)

1.61% 4.74% 13.31% 21.65% 28.03% 28.28% 19.86%

458 1,801 3,859 9,045 11,452 12,123 3,030

38.0 41.3 44.5 45.4 45.0 44.2 46.9

Source The Statistical Abstract of the United States; various years. Historical Statistics, series Ba 475, 483, Ca 10, Dd 498, Ea 638, 639; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 1.1.5. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

win the war at home.13 This meant that OWI’s domestic operations concentrated on: public service announcements, a series of filmed documentaries and newsreels that depicted life during the war, which were shown in America’s motion picture theaters: radio programming; and extensive photographic units. In addition, OWI worked closely with the nation’s Hollywood studios to make sure that films portrayed America and its fighting forces in a positive manner, especially war films. Almost all of the Hollywood studios (only Paramount was a hold-out) cooperated with OWI enabling OWI to examine scripts before they were put into production.14 Hollywood, from the mid-1930s and during the entire World War II years, was used to complete censorship by the “Production Code,” which was administered by Joseph Breen in the Hays Office. The “Production Code” was created by the studios; and this meant that every script, every spoken word, every theme, and every image in every film was censored.15 OWI was a controversial office; some critics chafed under the OWI’s regulations; others were concerned that OWI was FDR’s public relations office. But OWI faced numerous complex problems especially in large urban areas. For example, John Strausbaugh in Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers During World War II wrote extensively about the inherent difficulties in persuading some Americans in its efforts to

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Table 2.6 Selected list of military equipment production during World War II: 1941–1946 Equipment Aircraft P-51 Mustang P-47 Thunderbolt P-38 Lighting B-17 Flying Fortress B-24 Liberator B-29 Superfortress F4F Wildcat F6F Hellcat Other Aircraft Infantry M1 Garand M1 Carbine Tanks Ships Battleships Large Aircraft Carriers Small Aircraft Carriers Escort Carriers Large Cruisers Heavy Cruisers Light Cruisers Destroyers Destroyer Escorts Landing Crafts

Total produced 15,586 15,686 9470 12,726 18,188 3898 7885 12,275 14,710 4,028,395 6,221,220 88,410 10 18 9 110 2 10 33 358 504 82,028

Source Klein, Maury. 2013. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America For World War II, 515–526. New York: Bloomsbury Press; The American Economy During World War II. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-americam-economy-during-world-war-ii; Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War. https://www.nationalww2museum. org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/america-goes-war-takecloser-look

“market” the war. Strausbaugh pointed out that, in spite of the overwhelming support for the war in the nation’s largest city, New York had sizable contingents of individuals who espoused anarchism, communism, antiwar, pro-German, and anti-Semitism hate rhetoric.16 Overall, OWI provided valuable information to the American people in order to impact public opinion regarding the war and its impact on daily life on the home front.

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The Office of Censorship was established on December 18, 1941 in Executive Order 8985. President Roosevelt’s statement when he signed this Order was thoughtful and direct. All Americans abhor censorship, just as they abhor war. But the experience of this and of all other nations has demonstrated that some degree of censorship is essential in wartime, and we are at war. The important thing now is that such forms of censorship as are necessary shall be administered effectively and in harmony with the best interests of our free institutions. It is necessary to the national security that military information which might be of aid to the enemy be scrupulously withheld at the source. It is necessary that a watch be set upon our borders, so that no such information may reach the enemy, inadvertently or otherwise, through the medium of the mails, radio, or cable transmission, or by any other means. It is necessary that prohibitions against the domestic publication of some types of information, contained in long-existing statutes, be rigidly enforced. Finally, the Government has called upon a patriotic press and radio to abstain voluntarily from the dissemination of detailed information of certain kinds, such as reports of the movements of vessels and troops… I have appointed Byron Price, Executive News Editor of the Associated Press, to be Director of Censorship, responsible directly to the President….17

This Office’s convoluted mission was to: work with various government and military offices and the nation’s radio, newspaper, magazine, and motion picture film studios; provide relevant information to the American people; and handle the unenviable task of protecting important and sensitive wartime information. Its goal was, clearly, to censor all communications entering and leaving the United States (including its territories). However, while the Government had the legal authority to seize control of the nation’s radio industry, because of the terms and conditions set forth in the Communications Act of 1934,18 FDR, the entire US Government, and the Office of Censorship decided wisely to work voluntarily with the radio industry and the advertising and news media. The Office of Censorship created campaigns to generate support for price controls, rationing, mobilization, etc. Clearly, many of these

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programs were critical to the war effort; and many were questioned by a large contingent of Americans who, for the first time in more than a decade, had a job and money to spend; but there was a paucity of consumer goods available for purchase. In addition, the Office of Censorship created and released a series of detailed but relatively short voluntary “Codes of Wartime Practices for the American Press.” The basic goal of the Codes was to make sure that the enemy did not have access to any information that could be used against the United States, everything from FDR’s travel schedules to Hype Park or Warm Springs, Georgia, production problems in a Ford plant manufacturing B-24 heavy bombers, weather reports, military construction activities in remote areas (e.g., Los Alamos), train schedules of troop movements, etc. This meant, for example, a newsroom could run a potential story by the Office of Censorship to make sure the radio station, newspaper, or magazine complied with the spirit of the Codes. While there were some unfortunate violations of the Codes, overall the nation’s eclectic, fragmented news industry complied with both the Codes.19 The Office of Civilian Defense (CD) was created in Executive Order 8757 to handle the exceptionally sensitive task of protecting American communities and citizens on the home front. The office worked with various federal and state agencies; and about 11 million civilian volunteers were trained to handle or respond to a war emergency, from maintaining blackouts, especially in areas on the US coast), fire protection (if areas were bombed by enemy forces), possible air raids on the East and West Coasts or Hawaii, to the landing of German saboteurs (from U-Boats) on the East Coast.20 The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was created by Executive Order 8807; and its mission was to coordinate all scientific research for the branches of the US military.21 While OSRD handled a number of substantive scientific research projects, ranging from weapons to medical research, OSRD’s S-1 Section, later renamed the Manhattan Project, was in charge of the development of America’s atomic bombs, thus making this office one of the nation’s top secret operations and one of supreme importance in ending the war in the Pacific.22

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Executive Order 9066 Of all of FDR’s Executive Orders during his presidency, the most controversial was 9066, which authorized the Secretary of War to prescribe military areas and authorized the US Army to evacuate any persons considered to be a threat to national security. The following is Roosevelt’s statement regarding this Executive Order. Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104). Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas. I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area hereinabove authorized

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to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies. I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services….23

Because of this executive order, more than 129,000 Japanese–American citizens were relocated into ten armed military camps; this controversial order was deemed legal in a 6-3 decision in the Korematsu v. U.S. 326 U.S. 214 (1944) case before the Supreme Court of the United States.24

Conclusion Because of the proliferation of these and other Executive Orders,25 FDR and the nation now had both a strategy and the necessary basic structural elements in order to win the war abroad and at home. What was needed was the implementation of these Executive Orders. The administration was compelled to transform a series of ideas and goals into realistic working offices and agencies that would convince the American public, and influence public opinion, in the government’s efforts to “market World War II.” This meant that Americans had to understand and accept the fact that tremendous sacrifices were needed in order to defeat the country’s enemies. This was clearly a formidable task that taxed the limits of FDR’s resources and, at times, his patience.

Notes 1. U.S. Public Law 55 Stat. 838. http://legislink.org/us/stat-55-838. 2. Ibid. Also see Daniels, Roger. 2016. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939 –1945, 13, 236, 455. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press;

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5.

6.

7.

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Hamilton, Nigel. 2014. The Mantle of War: FDR at War, 1941–1942, 99–135. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The Library of Congress. Second War Powers Act, 1942; 50a U.S.C. §§ 633–645. https://www.loc.gov/item/uscode1946-006050a008. Ibid. Also see Dallek, Robert. 2017. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 521–564. New York: Viking. General Groves, Leslie M. 1962. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, 3–18. New York: Da Capo Press. Black, Gregory D. 1989. “Hollywood Censored: The Production Code Administration and the Hollywood Film Industry.” Film History 3 (3): 167–189. The National Archives. “Executive Orders.” https://www.federalregister. gov/presidential-documents.executive-orders. “Executive orders are official documents, numbered consecutively, through which the President of the United States manages the operations of the Federal Government. The text of Executive Orders appears in the daily Federal Register as each Executive order is signed by the President and received by the Office of the Federal Register.” The National Archives. “Executive Orders Disposition Tables.” https://www.Archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1942.html. Herman, Arthur. 2013. Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II , 153, 164–165, 175, 193–198, 252–254. New York: Random House. Also see Klein, Maury. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II , 371–376, 382–385, 395–398, 447–453. New York: Bloomsbury Press; Wilson, Mark R. 2016. Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II , 3–4, 89–93, 144. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; United States War Production Board. Records, 1941–1945. http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/delive r~law00045. O’Neill, William L. 1993. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home & Abroad in World War II , 82–85, 133. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Also see Adams, Michael C. C. 1994. The Best War Ever: America and World War II , 63–89. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Statement by the President on Signing the Emergency Price Control Act, January 30, 1942”. https://archive. org/details/4926593.1942.001.umich.edu/page/67. Also see The Office of Price Administration. “Records of the Office of Price Administration.” https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/188. html; Bartels, Andrew H. 1983. “The Office of Price Administration and the Legacy of the New Deal, 1939–1946.” Public Historian 5 (3): 5–29;

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Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1941. “The Selection and Timing of Inflation Controls.” Review of Economics and Statistics 23 (2): 82–85; Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1952. A Theory of Price Controls, 80–116. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Daniels. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939 –1945, 244–245. Land, Frederick C. 2001. Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding Under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II , 55–113. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Also see U.S. Maritime Commission. “Shipbuilding Under the U.S > Maritime Commission, 1936– 1950.” http://www.usmaritimecommission.de; Leighton, Richard M., and Robert W. Coakley. “The War Department—Global Logistics and Strategy 1940–1943, Army Ships.” http://patriot.net/~eastind2/shipping2/ Shipping.html. Also see Wardlow, Chester. “The Technical Services— The Transportation Corp: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations, United States Army in World War II.” https://Iccn.loc.gov/99490905; Connery, Robert. 1951. The Navy and Industrial Mobilization in World War II , 11–45, 67–99, 121–145. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Office of War Mobilization. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fedrecords/groups/250.html. Also see Eiler, Keith E. 1997. Mobilizing America: Robert P. Patterson and the War Effort, 1940 –1945, 98–147. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; Heale, Michael. 1999. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The New Deal and the War, 67–89, 101–154. New York: Routledge; Koistinen, Paul A. C. 2004. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940 –1945, 44–193. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas; Nelson, Donald M. 1946. Arsenal of Democracy: The Story of American War Production, 24–133. New York: Harcourt, Brace; Quist, Arvin S. “Security Classification of Information.” https://fas.org/ sgp/library/quist/chapter_4.pdf. O’Neill. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home & Abroad in World War II , 98–99. Also see Higgs, Robert. 1992. “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s.” Journal of Economic History 52 (1, March): 41–60. Winkler, Allan. 1978. The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942–1945, 14–88, 121–156, 189–195. New Haven: Yale University Press. Also see The Office of War Information. “Records of the Office of War Information (OWI) in the National Archives.” https://www. archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/208.html; Steele, Richard W. 1970. “Preparing the Public for War: Efforts to Establish a National

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15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

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Propaganda Agency, 1940–1941.” The American Historical Review 75 (6, October): 1640–1653. Koppes, Clayton R., and Gregory D. Black. 1990. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies, 48–81. Berkeley: University of California Press. Black, Gregory D. 1989. “Hollywood Censored: The Production Code Administration and the Hollywood Film Industry.” Film History 3 (3): 167–189. Goldstein, Richard. 2010. Helluva Town: The Story of New York City During World War II , ix–xi, 213–218. New York: Free Press. Executive Order 8985. https://www.federalregister.gov/citation/82-FR8985. Also see The Office of Censorship. “Records of the Office of Censorship.” https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/ 216.html#216.2.1; Schmeckebier, L. F. 1942. “Organization of the Executive Branch of the National Government of the United States: Changes Between November 15, 1941 and March 31, 1942.” The American Political Science Review 36 (3, June): 482–491; Also see United States Government Historical Reports on War Administration. “A Report on the Office of Censorship.” http://bl-libg.ads.iu.edu/gpd-web/historical/Reportontheo fficeofcensorship.pdf; Bernath, Brianna. “Censorship: A Necessary Evil?” https://blogs.shu.edu/ww2-0/1942/04/10/censorship-a-necessary-evil. The Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. https://it.ojp. gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1288. This Act “allows the President to suspend or amend rules and regulations upon proclamation ‘that there exists a war or a threat of a war or state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency or if he deems it necessary in the interests of national security or defense. The President may prioritize defense or security communications, authorize government use or control of communications facilities, and suspend or amend rules and regulations applicable to any or all stations or devices capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations” 47 U.S.C. §606 (c), (d). Code of Wartime Practices for American Broadcasters Edition of June 15, 1942. https://archive.org/details/OWICode1942-06-15. The National Archives. “Executive Orders.” https://www.federalregister. gov/presidential-documents.executive-orders. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). https://www. loc.gov/rr/scitech/trs/trsosrd.html. Records from OSRD are available at: https://archives.gov/research/gyude-fed-recorfds/groups/227.html. Also see

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Stewart, Irwin. 1948. Organizing Scientific Research for War: The Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, 17–121. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 22. The S-1 Committee was established in 1942; and S-1 created the framework for the Manhattan Project (officially it was the Manhattan Engineering District, MED, located at 270 Broadway, on the 18th floor, in New York City). On January 19, 1942, FDR authorized the planning for the atomic bomb; and the Manhattan Project received the highest security clearance to acquire materials, land, and scientists under the command of General Leslie M. Groves, with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer supervising the atomic research. The S-50 Project was created to produce enriched uranium using liquid thermal diffusion; See Abelson, Philip. 1939. “Cleavage of the Uranium Nucleus.” Physical Review 55 (4): 418; Rhodes, Richard. 1986. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 38–146; 201–236, 307–312, 383–384. New York: Simon & Schuster; Manhattan Project Chronology. https://www. atomicarchive.com/History/mp/chronology.shtml; Order Establishing the National Defense Research committee. https://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/ PSF/BOX2/A13V01.HTML; Greco, Albert N. 2019. The Growth of the Scholarly Publishing Industry in the U.S.: A Business History of a Changing Marketplace 1939 –1946 , 40–41, 48–60. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 23. Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Executive Order 9066.” https://www.fdrlibrary. org/executive-order-9066. Also available at Pub L. 77-503. http://legisl ink.org/us/pl-77-503. Also see The National Archives. “Japanese Relocation During World War II.” https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/ japamese-relocation. 24. Supreme Court of the United States. “Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).” https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educat ional-activities/facts-and-case-summary-korematsu-v-us. “Fred Korematsu, 23, was a Japanese-American citizen who did not comply with the order to leave his home and job, despite the fact that his parents had abandoned their home and their flower-nursery business in preparation for reporting to a camp. Korematsu planned to stay behind. He had plastic surgery on his eyes to alter his appearance; changed his name to Clyde Sarah; and claimed that he was of Spanish and Hawaiian descent. On May 30, 1942, about six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested Korematsu for failure to report to a relocation center. After his arrest, while waiting in jail, he decided to allow the American Civil

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Liberties Union to represent him and make his case a test case to challenge the constitutionality of the government’s order. Korematsu was tried in Federal Court in San Francisco, convicted of violating military orders issued under Executive Order 9066, given five years on probation, and sent to an Assembly Center in San Bruno, CA. Korematsu’s attorneys appealed the trial court’s decision to the US Court of Appeals, which agreed with the trial court that he had violated military orders. Korematsu asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear his case. On December 18, 1944, a divided Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, decided that the detention was a ‘military necessity’ not based on race.” 25. The National Archives. “Executive Orders.” https://www.federalregis ter.gov/presidential-documents.executive-orders. Other major Executive Orders included the following: (a) 8248: creation of the Office for Emergency Management; also, in this Office was the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board. 8802: prohibited ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation’s defense industries; (b) 9006: certifying the Territory of Hawaii as a Distressed Emergency Area; (c) 9014: withdrawing public land for use of the War Department (N.B.: after World War II, the War Department was changed to the Department of Defense); (d) 9017: establishment of the National Labor Board; (e) 9040: defining additional functions and duties of the WPB; (f ) 9054: establishing a War Shipping Administration in the Office of the President; (g) 9074: directing the Secretary of the Navy to take action necessary to protect vessels, harbors, ports, and waterfront facilities; (h) 9088: prescribing regulations concerning civilian defense; (i) 9089: prescribing regulations governing the use, control, and closing of stations and facilities for wire communications; (j) 9093: certifying the Island of Puerto Rico as a Distressed Emergency Area; 9103: providing uniform control over the publication and use of Federal statistical information which would give aid and comfort to the enemy; (k) 9112: authorizing financing contracts to facilitate the prosecution of the war;

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(l) 9125: defining additional functions, duties, and powers of the WPB and the Office of Price Administration (OPA); (m) 9135: establishing the Interdepartmental Committee for the voluntary payroll savings plan for the purchase of War Savings Bonds; (n) 9139: establishing the War Manpower Commission in the Office of the President and coordinating certain functions to facilitate the mobilization and utilization of manpower; the Selective Service System was placed within this commission; (o) 9163: establishing a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and providing for its organization into units; (p) 9165: providing for the protection of essential facilities from sabotage and other destructive acts; (q) 9172: establishing a panel for the creation of emergency boards for the administration of railroad labor disputes; (r) 9215: authorizing the Secretary of War to assume control of certain airports; (s) 9218: authorizing the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in the Office of Emergency Management to acquire and dispose of property; (t) 9241: extension of the provisions of Executive Order 9001 of December 27, 1941, to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) United States Joint Chiefs of Staff; (u) 9280: delegating authority with respect to the nation’s food program; (v) 9347: Office of War Mobilization.

3 The US Government and the Advertising, Radio, Newspaper, and Magazine Industries Confront the War

Abstract The entire advertising community, along with the radio, newspaper, and magazine industries, were committed to providing Americans on the home front with timely and accurate information about the perils the nation faced after Pearl Harbor and until the end of hostilities in August 1945. However, they also confronted serious issues of “censorship” because the US Government issued a series of “voluntary” guidelines regarding what could and should not be conveyed to the American public. The newspaper and magazine industries were concerned about any erosion in their prized First Amendment protection; however, radio was excluded from First Amendment protection because of the terms and conditions of the Communications Act of 1934; and advertisements would not receive First Amendment protection until after the end of World War II. Yet it was clear that advertising, radio, newspapers, and magazines essentially complied with the “voluntary suggestions” from various government agencies and departments during this period of great uncertainty. This chapter outlines the “voluntary” guidelines; and how these media industries complied with and contributed to the war effort.

© The Author(s) 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3_3

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Keywords Advertising industry · Black market · Censorship · Communications Act of 1934 · Home front · Newspapers · Magazines · Price controls · Radio · Rationing · Recycling · Wage controls

The Advertising Industry Before World War II Since the dawn of time, the purpose of a business has been to understand and satisfy the wants and needs of consumers. And this was true in the pre-revolutionary period and after the United States was created on July 4, 1776. A vibrant, but local, advertising community existed in the major cities during the colonial period and after the United States became a nation. The primary advertising formats were local newspapers, that covered the main cities as well as small towns in the county or region, and a cluster of nascent magazines. Eventually, these small but focused advertising companies (or departments in newspapers and magazines) developed a series of principles based on England’s advertising procedures as well as specific strategies crafted in the colonial and Federalist periods. These basic business-to-consumer advertising practices were refined as the nation grew; they include the following. First, advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. But barter is also used as a form of “payment.”1 Second, advertising objectives can be classified according to whether the aim is to inform, persuade, inspire, entertain, or remind; and specific objectives vary with a specific product, the target market, and constantly changing business and economic conditions. To reach most consumers, the substantive advertising objectives included encouraging the purchase of larger-size units, building trial among nonusers, and attracting switchers away from competitors’ brands. As for retailers, the basic advertising objectives included persuading and encouraging retailers to carry new items, higher levels of inventory, off-season buying, stocking-related items, promotions, brand loyalty, and entry into new retail outlets. The sales force’s objectives included encouraging support of a new product or model and stimulating off-season sales.2

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Second, this meant building awareness and credibility for a product or service utilizing the most cost-effective media to deliver the desired number of advertising exposures in a newspaper or magazine to the target audience3 ; consideration is needed to ascertain the ad exposure’s reach, frequency, and impact (generally the number of units sold after the advertisement appeared). So, the advertising team had to ascertain a consumer’s stated needs, real needs, and unstated, delight, or secret needs. Third, the ad must indicate or illustrate a set of meaningful differences to distinguish the company’s offering from a competitors’ product or service. This is called “product differentiation.”4 This means stressing the product’s: form, features, state in the product life cycle, market share, competition, performance, conformance, durability, reliability, reparability, style, or design. If these goals are achieved, and, if the company allocates the right amount for advertising in the correct newspaper or magazine, then the ad has a carryover effect that lasts beyond the current advertisement period. This means that advertising is really an investment that builds up an intangible asset called brand equity. Clearly, the American advertising industry was able to utilize many of these advertising strategies and structures to sell hundreds of products and services in the years before World War II, including: fresh meats and produce; consumer packaged goods (CPGs; i.e., packaged food, beverages, cosmetics, and cleaning products); clothing; automobiles; gas; oil; sewing machines; authors; etc. It should be noted that advertisements did not have First Amendment protection until after the end of World War II; and radio, because of the licensing terms and conditions of the Communications Act of 1934 never had complete First Amendment protection.5 However, all of the practices and procedures listed above were crafted over the years to target consumers and consumer products. But the war changed everything; and the entire advertising community had to refocus its strategies on a new and unnerving crisis and devise the structures to “market the war” to every American consumer.

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The Advertising Community Confronts World War II: Their World Was Turned Upside Down After December 7, 1941, the entire American economy and society were transformed. The complete mobilization of the war effort required training, feeding, housing, and supplying +16.5 million military personnel. While many US factories in mid-1941 were operating in an “under capacity” environment, capacity was increased to meet stringent war demands; and this meant that jobs, previously handled by men and women now in the military, had to be filled by women, older men, and males too young or physically unable to serve. During the war, most of the major US economic indicators turned positive; and was viewed favorably by advertising industry executives since this meant that consumers were willing to buy package goods, staples, and certain entertainment products and services, items advertisers were eager to highlight in ads. Total advertising revenues jumped 66.17% between 1939 ($2.01 billion) and 1946 ($3.34 billion). The radio, newspaper, and magazines surged 83.74% during those same years (1939: $1.23 billion; 1946: $2.26 billion). The US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) posted torrid tallies +141.11% (1939: $92.3 billion; 1946: $222.3 billion). Table 3.1 has the annual datasets. Ultimately, the unemployment rate cratered to the historical low of 1.2% in 1944 while the total population posted an 8.03% increase (1939: 130,870,718; 1946: 141,388,566 because of the “baby boom”; and these children were called “baby boomers” by social scientists). The increases for males (+7.48%) and females (+8.58%) during those years was impressive. In addition, wages, wholesale prices, and personal income increased sharply; consumer credit (total, revolving, and nonrevolving) also increased.6 Table 3.1 has the economic details. Table 3.2 has population data.

Rationing of Consumer Products While advertising revenues increased, the Roosevelt Administration faced historic and unnerving war demands related to the blight of inflation. Consequently, it was necessary for the US Government to create

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Table 3.1 US advertising expenditures: 1939–1946 (US$ billions)

Year

Total advertising expenditures

Total advertising expenditures: radio, newspapers, and magazines

US Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Advertising percentage of GDP(%)

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$2.01 $2.11 $2.25 $2.16 $2.49 $2.70 $2.84 $3.34

$1.23 $1.31 $1.40 $1.35 $1.64 $1.79 $1.92 $2.26

$92.2 $101.4 $126.7 $161.9 $198.6 $219.8 $233.1 $222.3

2.2 2.1 1.8 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.3 1.5

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 855–857. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970 N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

Table 3.2 US population 1939–1946 Year

Total

Males

Females

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

130,879,718 132,122,446 133,402,471 134,859,553 136,739,353 138,397,345 139,928,165 141,388,566

65,713,339 66,352,363 66,920,133 67,596,729 68,545,741 69,377,719 70,035,073 70,631,171

65,166,379 65,770,083 66,482,338 67,262,824 68,193,612 69,019,626 69,893,092 70,757,395

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. “National Intercensal Tables.” https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/ pre-1980-national.html N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%. Excludes Alaska and Hawaii since they were not states

wage and price controls; and the Office of Price Administration (OPA) rationed certain consumer products that were needed by the military. During the war, the following items were rationed:

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• typewriters (the armed forces needed thousands of typewriters for every domestic and foreign military theater of operations); • rubber (foreign sources were cut off during the war); • gasoline (to curtail demands for rubber tires, gas was rationed to diminish the utilization of cars and trucks); • new automobiles and bicycles (used by military forces, especially at airfields in Europe and in parts of Asia); • footwear (military boots were a necessity); • silk (used in parachutes); • nylon (clothing); • fuel oil (military equipment and bases); • stoves (military mess tents and mess halls); • food products: coffee, one pound every five weeks since foreign sources of coffee were cut off during the war; sugar, ½ pound per person per week; meat; lard, shortening and food oils; cheese; butter; margarine; processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen); dried fruits; canned milk; firewood and coal; jams, jellies, and fruit; and butter were rationed by November 1943 (to feed US troops and also sent to the allies).7 This was a monumental, unparallel undertaking to create a national rationing system with local ration boards. The US Government issued every American including young children (in 1942 there were 2,325,004 infants and 13,272,050 children between the ages of 1 and 6) a series of ration books for specified products; and, during the last phase of the war, the rationed list was trimmed to reflect diminished military needs. In addition, there were removable ration stamps with points. So, it would take a certain number of points, perhaps 6 points, along with money, perhaps 25 cents, to buy a product, perhaps one pound of sugar. There were two goals behind the ration system: (1) to make sure the military had all of the supplies it needed to wage war and (2) to curb the always present fear of inflation.8 Also, every American was urged to create a “Victory Garden,” even in cities, to grow vegetables to supplement the point system. To purchase legally a product, perhaps cheese, an individual needed a valid ration book with the appropriate stamp. It was illegal to buy

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a rationed item without also giving the grocer the right ration stamppoints for a product, perhaps beef. However, there was an “active” black market, notably for meat and gasoline which were in short supply, for individuals who wanted consumer goods but lacked the appropriate ration book and/or stamp-points.9 While the rationing system worked, it was not very popular among many Americans. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans were working and had money to buy products that were unaffordable during the Depression. This meant that the advertising companies, along with the radio, newspaper, and magazine industries, faced four almost unfathomable challenges. First, radio and printed newspapers and magazines had advertising time or ad lines to sell various consumer products that were, in reality, in short supply because of rationing. Second, the American public wanted war news; and radio, newspapers, and magazines operated under a “voluntary” system of news censorship. Third, newspapers and magazines used oil-based ink and printing paper that were rationed. Fourth, the radio, newspaper, and magazine industries were understaffed because many of their highly skilled employees were in the military. This was especially severe in newspaper and magazine printing operations since they relied on the cumbersome letterpress system of hot lead essentially developed by Johannes Gutenberg in about 1450 and “modernized” by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884 with the invention of the linotype machine.

The Advertising Council These issues prompted the advertising community to create of the Advertising Council, Inc. on February 26, 1942. On June 25, 1943, the name was changed to the War Advertising Council. The goals from the start were crystal clear to: “remove the distaste for advertising that now exists among many influential people”10 ; encourage American men and women to join the armed forces; support war bond sales and drives; support the “Loose Lips, Sink Ships” and the “Keep It Under Your Stetson” campaigns to make sure the enemy did not obtain any useful information about war mobilization, troop or military trains, and the

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location of military installations; support the Red Cross and its blood drives; develop effective ad posters, including the famous “Rosie the Riveter” poster; and urge every American to conserve and recycle products needed in the war effort. By the termination of the war, the entire advertising community donated $1 billion in ad space and airtime for these campaigns (worth about $26.13 billion in 2020 dollars).11 While hard-pressed, these three industries coped rather successfully with the demands they faced during World War II.

The Radio Industry: For the Duration While newspapers and magazines have centuries of experience gauging the wants and interests of readers, radio was the youngest media format; however, radio “united” the nation in a way that newspapers or magazines never did during the war. The first US radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA; and this AM station was launched on November 2, 1920 and it still is in business today. Westinghouse created KDKA to sell their radios. KDKA’s programs were an immediate success since KDKA provided listeners with: entertainment (e.g., music and the famous “soap operas”); information (e.g., local, regional, or national news); and education (e.g., health programs, cooking recipes). It was the first US radio station to program local news, national political news, sports, and religious services.12 KDKA’s diverse format worked and it attracted listeners. KDKA’s success sparked the development of radio stations in the United States; by 1922, there were 30 stations in the United States, growing to 618 in 1930. This growth sparked the launch of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the nation’s first radio network. Radio united the nation since individuals in major cities (e.g., Boston), small towns in Western Pennsylvania (e.g., Beaver Falls), and rural areas in Iowa (e.g., Walford) or Alabama (e.g., Eufala) listened to the same comedy show (e.g., Jack Benny; Bob Hope; Fibber McGee and Molly), drama (e.g., Mister District Attorney), musical show (e.g., Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall; Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour), or heard the same war news (e.g., Edward R. Murrow or H.V. Kaltenborn),

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albeit at different times during the evening. Radio provided programming consumers wanted. The key marketing business and marketing strengths of radio during World War II were: • • • • •

a strong entertainment format and geographic market connections; US Government regulatory barriers to enter; high elasticity of demand for advertising; high public sector involvement; relatively low capital requirements, fixed costs, production costs, and distribution costs; • moderate marketing, labor, and equipment expenses; • most content is acquired through national radio networks or news services; and • high dependence on advertising revenues but often stabilized with long-term contracts with flexible cost-per-thousand (CPM) rates for nonpeak hours. By 1940 the total number of radio stations topped 847, reaching 1215 in 1946 (+43.45%). The number of radio sets increased 34.86% during those years, although the US Government did not release data for 1943–1945. The number of households with radio grew 19.29% during those years. However, the total number of households in 1940 stood at 34,949; so, radio had an 81.55% market share penetration. What was also important was the fact that 90% of US households in 1940 were family households; and 47.2% had children living at home. This resulted in radio “reaching” a massive number of distinct demographic groups of great interest to advertisers (men; women; children 6–12 and teenagers). In addition, radios were played in numerous retail stores (e.g., Curtis’ Central Market in Bay Head, NJ), gas stations (e.g., the Imperial Oil Esso Gas Station in Kansas City, Kansas), food and drug store establishments (e.g., Smith’s Food and Drugs food market in Los Alamos, NM), etc., making radio’s “reach” far more important than just the household tallies.13 Table 3.3 highlights the growth in the number of stations between 1940 and 1946. But the real reach of an AM station was rather large. During the day, the typical AM radio station during the war years, and depending on

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Table 3.3 The US radio industry 1940–1946: number of stations, radio sets, and households with radio

Year

Number of commercial AM radio stations

Number of radio sets produced

Number of households with radio sets

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

847 897 925 912 924 955 1215

11,831 13,542 4307 N/A N/A N/A 15,955

28,500 29,300 30,600 30,800 32,500 33,100 33,998

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 796. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970 N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

the power of its transmission, reached listeners anywhere from 25 to about 100 miles from its radio transmission tower; however, at night the radio signal bounces off the ionosphere because of “incident skywave propagation” extending significantly a station’s geographical reach.14

Radio During the War Radio covered the outbreak of the war on December 7th and throughout the war; and it became the dominant media format during the war. This increased demand for radio news and programming triggered sharp increases in radio’s advertising. Between 1940 and 1946, total advertising surged 110.19%. While the results for radio network’s ad revenues were up an impressive 76.99%, national “spot ads” posted 133.33% results; “spot ads” ran in selected markets, perhaps only in Texas or California, rather than running in every market. However, the best increases were for local ads, +161.67% during those years. Table 3.4 has the details. Roosevelt and his advisors were well-aware of the tremendous influence and power of national and local radio; and they used that format effectively during FDR’s 1932 election, reelections in 1936, 1940, and 1944, and his famous “fireside chats” about the New Deal policies and

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Table 3.4 US radio advertising revenues 1940–1946 ($ millions)

Year

Total advertising revenues

Network advertising revenues

National spot advertising revenues

Local advertising revenues

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$216 $247 $260 $314 $394 $424 $454

$113 $125 $129 $157 $192 $198 $200

$42 $52 $29 $71 $87 $93 $98

$60 $70 $73 $86 $114 $134 $157

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 797. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970 N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

programs.15 Members of his administration were very concerned that radio, with its national and global reach and influence could broadcast information about the president’s travel plans, troop movements, etc., that could impact adversely the war effort. After the war began, Attorney General Francis Biddle looked into these concerns and he reviewed the Communications Act of 1934. The following lists some of the relevant terms and conditions of The Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. Background. The Communications Act of 1934 combined and organized federal regulation of telephone, telegraph, and radio communications. The Act created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to oversee and regulate these industries… Of particular interest to the national security, law enforcement, and intelligence communities, the Act… Allows the President to suspend or amend rules and regulations upon proclamation ‘that there exists a war or a threat of a war or state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency or if he deems it necessary in the interests of national security or defense. The President may prioritize defense or security communications, authorize government use or control of communications facilities, and suspend or amend ‘rules and regulations applicable to any or all

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stations or devices capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations.” 47 U.S.C. § 606 (c), (d)…16

Could the President seize control and run the radio industry in the United States during the war? “Four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as a formality Bryon Price requested a ruling from the Justice Department on whether, as Director of the Office of Censorship, he could censor or close America’s radiotelegraph companies… Attorney General Francis Biddle agreed that Price… could control the nation’s 900 commercial radio stations…Biddle had opened the door to a takeover of everything from the NBC, CBS, and Mutual networks to the mom-andpop independent stations that spun records and broadcast cattle and hog prices….”17 While Biddle’s decision was legal because of the Communications Act of 1934, it presented FDR with a political quagmire that his political enemies could use against him in Congress, in the press, and in public opinion. Roosevelt insisted that “voluntary” guidelines were to be issued. On June 15, 1942, the Office of War Information (OWI) issued the first of several “Code of Wartime Practices for American Broadcasters.” This document set forth the Government’s “voluntary” censorship practices. This meant that every radio station was cautioned not to reveal any information that could be used by the enemy against the United States including news or public interest reports about: the weather; military troop or equipment movements; ship conveys; military and naval installations and fortifications; the military production of war materials (e.g., gasoline, quinine, copper, etc.); “secret military designs, formulas, or experiments, secret manufacturing processes or secret factory design, either for war production, or capable of adaption for war production…”; causalities; radio quiz programs or interviews of people on the street; radio dramatic shows that could confuse or panic the public about air raid warnings; German or Italian foreign language or music programing; the location of important historical documents (e.g., an original copy of the Constitution of the United States was moved during the war to Fort Knox, KY from Washington, DC to safeguard it against possible German sabotage); or the movement of the President or other major administration officials via the railroad.18

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The Impact of Radio’s Code The radio industry realized that noncompliance with the 1942 “voluntary” guidelines, which were augmented several times during the war, could trigger a Government takeover of a station, a network, or the entire industry. However, in reality the Government had very few realistic legal options to handle any noncompliance incidents, and there were dozens of such events during the war. The most common response from the Government was a letter outlining its concern(s), and recommending that, in the future, more diligence was needed to insure that the enemy did not have access to any material information that could aid the enemy during the war. Clearly, every radio network, radio station, and its employees tried to follow the guidelines; and, overall, they complied basically with the guidelines. However, these “voluntary” policies made their job rather difficult because they had to work around procedures that impacted directly their programming of popular shows, interviews, and even the weather delay for a New York Yankees baseball game against the Boston Red Sox.

Radio and the War Effort Radio’s entertainment shows helped boost morale during months of distressing war news about military setbacks in North Africa, the Philippines, the horrendous casualties sustained by the 8th Air Force in Europe, and the military campaigns in the Pacific. Radio news programs always highlighted the successful public exploits of various military enlisted personnel and officers, notably the success of American pilots against the enemy.19 It was not very easy for most Americans to laugh after Pearl Harbor; but Bob Hope’s pithy comments and jokes, which sometimes ruffled feathers at the NBC network, helped a nation stricken with a palpable fear of invasion, sabotage, the potential bombing of cities and towns on the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, and the appearance of a Gold Star in the window of a neighbor. The wife or parent of a G.I. killed in the war

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received a Gold Star from the government, and a Gold Star was placed in the apartment or house window to indicate that this family sustained the loss of a loved one. Fortunately for business historians of the media and entertainment industries during these turbulent times, the Library of Congress (LOC) has extensive radio archives. For example, the LOC has 150,000 sixteeninch lacquer disks of radio programs from NBC which dates from the early days of radio through the 1980s. While the majority of the programs originated in New York City, LOC has programs from Chicago and Los Angeles; and these disks cover all of the major radio program formats, including: opera, symphony music, news broadcasts, public affairs, and comedy shows. After December 7, 1941, the number of recorded programs in the LOC archives increased significantly. For example, in 1944, more than 9000 programs were in the LOC archives.20 Bob Hope became a national icon during the war because of his shows (some of which were held at military bases in the United States) and his numerous USO trips into war zones to entertain the troops. The LOC has Hope’s radio Pepsodent Shows, which also included Hope’s “stock company” of stars including Jerry Colona, Hope’s microphone, his network logbooks, scripts, show casts, etc.21

Radio’s Impact Radio became the thread, in essence a powerful lifeline in what was a major turning point in the history of the United States, that connected workers from the rubber mill on Pennsylvania Avenue having dinner at Pryor’s Drugstore’s soda fountain in Morrisville PA with office clerks in Eugene or having lunch at Huber’s on 3rd Avenue.22 Listeners heard at about the same time on April 12, 1945 that FDR had died; and that Harry S. Truman, recently inaugurated as the Vice President in January 1945, was now the President of the United States. Most listeners felt shocked when the radio announced the news. They also felt connected, in a way that is difficult to understand today, to people ordering a sandwich at Mike’s Deli on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx with a postal

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clerk in Los Angeles CA ordering coffee at Tam O’Shanter on Los Feliz Boulevard.23 During the war, radio was pervasive, powerful, and, in so many different ways, the medium all Americans relied on for their daily news about the fall of Berlin, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the end of the war on September 2, 1945.24

The Newspaper Industry: The Link that Connected People in a City or a Small Town The first newspaper published in the American colonies was The Boston News-Letter, published on April 24, 1704. “John Campbell, a bookseller and postmaster of Boston, was its first editor… In the early years, it was filled mostly with news from London… [Eventually] the newspaper was filled with items listing [local] ship arrivals, deaths, sermons, political appointments, fires, accidents and the like.”25 The oldest newspaper in continuous operation in the United States was The Hartford Courant, launched on October 29, 1764, by James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s older brother.26 There was a vibrant newspaper industry during the American Revolution, playing a substantive role in rallying Americans to the cause of liberty, especially papers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Virginia. As the population of the new nation grew, so did the number of newspapers, probably reaching about 150 when Washington was inaugurated President. These papers covered some national events; but the primary focus was on local or regional news emphasizing births, deaths, retail sales, land sales, celebrations, agrarian information (perhaps the price of wheat), elections, religious information, etc.27 During the early years of the twentieth century, newspaper chains were created, including the influential Hearst newspapers in Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, etc.28

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The Basic Marketing and Economic Structure of Newspapers: 1939–1946 The cost of creating newspaper content is sunk at the start; and subsequent expenses of manufacturing and distribution are relatively small. The basic strategy was: to make the newspaper product price inelastic; and to stimulate unit volume sales since, on the margin, the contribution to profit of each additional unit sold is high. The cost of creating the proprietary content was often the most difficult variable to predict and control. This meant generating circulation and advertising revenue streams. During (and after) the war, there were two types of circulation revenues: (a) paid revenues; in reality “pre-paid; the newspaper was sent to a paid subscriber through the mail or delivered by carriers to a home or office and (b) newsstand revenues; individual copies were sold by an individual at a street corner or sold at a newsstand. While circulation was critical in calculating cost-per-thousand (CPM) ad rates, advertising is critical to the success of any newspaper since ads generated more dollars that the various circulation revenue streams. This meant selling advertising space (called “advertising lines or ad lines” in the newspaper industry) to ad agencies and/or companies; and unfortunately, advertising was sensitive to changes in the national, regional, or local economic situation. There were two types of newspaper ads: (a) display, sometimes called “retail”; perhaps an ad for Macy’s with artwork and information about a new product (a dress) or a service and (b) a classified advertisement; i.e., ad lines offering for sale a product or service, perhaps the rental of an apartment in Fresno, CA during the war. Newspaper content is highly perishable. So, the speed of delivery (to homes, apartments, offices, newsstands) is of the utmost concern to publishers. But the speed of delivery drives up costs, an economic fact that impacted profits during the war.

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Number of Newspapers By 1939, the United States had 13,314 newspapers. Of that total, 10,360 (77.01%) were weekly newspapers; 2086 (15.67%) were daily papers, that is a paper published Monday through Saturday; and 368 (2.76%) semi-weekly papers. This growth was triggered by newspapers serving large urban and regional populations. While there was an increase in 1941 (14,284; +7.29%), the total slipped every year until 1946 in spite of the fact that the demand for war news increased during the year. The declines were attributable to a variety of disparate factors: many newspaper employees were in the US military; and paper, ink, and related supplies were rationed. This prompted many consumers to rely on radio for news. However, in spite of the decline in the number of US newspapers, total newspaper circulation increased during the years between 1939–1946 (+28.38%): 1939: 39,670,682; 1940: 41,131,611; 1941: 42,080,391; 1942: 43,374,850; 1943: 44,392,829; 1944: 45,954,838; 1945: 48,384,188; and 1946: 50,927,505.29 Table 3.5 has detailed statistical data about the number of newspapers. Table 3.6 lists the top 20 largest cities in the United States in 1940. Table 3.5 US newspaper industry 1940–1946: number of newspapers

Year

Total number of newspapers

Number of semi-weekly newspapers

Number of weekly newspapers

Number of daily newspapers

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

13,314 14,284 14,100 13,456 12,889 12,791 12,804

368 337 408 356 308 283 286

10,360 11,617 11,474 10,957 10,504 10,430 10,424

2086 2153 2131 2043 2006 2004 2020

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 810. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970 N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%. Annual revenues were not available in The Statistical Abstract of the United States for the years 1939–1946

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Table 3.6 Population of the 20 largest urban places: 1940 Rank

Citya

Population

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

New York City, NY Chicago, Il Philadelphia, PA Detroit, MI Los Angeles, CA Cleveland, OH Baltimore, MD St. Louis, MO Boston, MA Pittsburgh, PA Washington, DC San Francisco, CA Milwaukee, WI Buffalo, NY New Orleans, LA Minneapolis, MN Cincinnati, OH Newark, NJ Kansas City, MO Indianapolis, IN

7,454,995 3,396,808 1,931,334 1,623,452 1,504,277 878,336 859,100 816,048 770,816 671,659 663,091 634,536 587,472 575,901 494,537 492,370 455,610 429,760 399,178 386,972

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https:// www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%. Population includes residents of the city and excludes suburban areas a Excludes Honolulu (population 179,326) since Hawaii was not a state in 1940

During the war, newspapers worked with various US Government departments (perhaps Treasury or War) or agencies (perhaps the Office of Censorship) in order to place war correspondents into combat zones. Some of the war correspondents included: the famous Ernie Pyle, Margaret Bourke-While, Marguerite Higgins, Robert Capa, and Howard K. Smith, who worked for United Press, and was later joined by Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, William Shirer, Charles Collinwood, Larry Lesueur, and others who became known as the “Murrow Boys.” The news services also obtained and printed photographs, maps (there was intense consumer demand for maps about war and combat zones; Americans wondered where in the world was Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima?); and articles from Europe and the Pacific.

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In addition, newspapers listed information about local men and women in the US military, including sad news about the death of local soldiers and sailors. They did this while continuing to cover local news, including supporting war bond drives, paper and metal collection operations, and listing relevant information about how to maintain Victory Gardens, war era recipes (perhaps cookies made without sugar), sports, election results, radio programming lists, the comics, crossword puzzles, and human interest topics, perhaps the opening of a new library.

The Magazine Industry: America’s Photographic Window to the War and the Home Front While business historians know precisely about the launch of the first radio station or who published the nation’s first newspaper, a debate exists regarding who published the first magazine in Colonial America. John Tebbel (our preeminent publishing historian) and Mary Ellen Zuckerman attempted to answer this knotty question. Many scholars attribute this endeavor to the ubiquitous Benjamin Franklin, who did create the name for the first magazine. However, it was the Philadelphia printer and Franklin’s rival Andrew Bradford who on February 13, 1741 used Franklin’s magazine title and launched American Magazine, or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies. Franklin launched his own competing magazine three days later; and, with a stronger brand name, and brand equity, Franklin claimed the mantle as the founder of the US magazine industry.30 Once the nation was established, there was a rather slow growth in the number of magazines. Tebbel and Zuckerman outlined this situation, pointing out the inherent financial risks associated with these early magazines. Unfortunately, “reliable statistics are difficult to come by… the number of magazines rose from about 100 in 1825 to about 600 in 1850….”31

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The Basic Marketing and Economic Structure of Magazines: 1939–1946 Advertising strategies utilized by magazines during the war years resembled closely those employed by newspapers, albeit with some significant differences. Magazines stressed both paid subscriptions and singlecopy sales offering advertisers a competitive CPM; however, magazines emphasized library sales (and librarians were often very reluctant to cancel a magazine subscription because this triggered a “break in the serial”), a strategy that only some major newspapers were able to utilize. Because of intense competition for readers, many magazines between 1939 and 1945: added new features or sections, including: how to handle wartime rationing or create a productive Victory Garden; broadened a title’s reach into new city or regional markets, especially towns experiencing a sharp influx of war production employees (perhaps Detroit and Wayne County because of the Ford airplane plants); increased circulation while reducing operating expenses (because of the rationing of ink and paper, etc.); developed new revenue streams (perhaps creating news or photographic services); and offered reduced subscription rates for “special” categories of readers. Magazines used two types of binding formats; some were “saddle stitched” (i.e., the pages were stapled together); or perfect or glued binding (i.e., a magazine had a finished glued left border). There were a number of different magazines (which are also called “serials” by librarians) available for readers during the war, including: consumer or general interest titles, perhaps the famous Saturday Evening Post or Time; business-to-business (called B-2-B in the industry; e.g., Variety or Publishers Weekly); special issues (i.e., an issue of Life devoted to the end of the war or the death of FDR); and scholarly journals (perhaps The New England Journal of Medicine). Magazines were mailed to paid subscribers, and they were sold in a variety of retail establishments, including: food markets and grocery stores; bookstores (there were very few of them during the war); drugstores; bus, train, and airplane terminals; and general newsstands. Generally, women comprised the largest group of magazine readers.

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The Number of Magazines In 1940, there were 6432 magazines in the United States. Of that total, 1399 (21.75%) were weekly titles, 427 were semi-monthly (6.64%), 3456 were monthlies (53.73%), 241 had biweekly publication schedules (3.75%), and 833 were released quarterly (12.95%). While there was a sharp increase in the total number of magazines by 1942 (+1414.65%), the war’s rationing and the influx of people into the US military impacted this sector, which experienced declines in the total number of magazines in1943–1945. This downward trend was reversed in 1946. Table 3.7 has the details. During the war years, only a very small cluster of magazines had a circulation of more than 1 million. In 1940, 12 magazines had a circulation between 1 million and 1.99 million, 9 were between 2 million and 2.99 million, and only 5 exceeded the 3 million total (including Reader’s Digest with its 3,471,000 circulation). This pattern was also evident between 1941 and 1942, with modest increases during those years, although Reader’s Digest topped 5,084,000 in 1942. By 1945, there were 16 magazines in the 1.0–1.99 million circulation rage, 10 between 2.0 and 2.99 million, and Table 3.7 The US magazine industry: 1940–1946 Total number of Year magazines

Total number of weekly magazines

Total number of semimonthly magazines

Total number of monthly magazines

Total number of bimonthly magazines

Total number of quarterly magazines

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

1399 1449 1609 1489 1456 1359 1331

427 222 248 215 226 246 253

3456 3966 3983 3826 3500 3503 3595

241 277 288 274 235 309 345

833 595 601 586 588 573 595

6432 7141 7374 7040 6672 6569 6693

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 810. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970 N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

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6 at +3.0 million circulation; and Reader’s Digest reached 8,769,000 that year (and 8,980,000 in 1946).32 Because of the intense interest in the war, general magazine advertising revenues increased between 1939 and 1941 (+19.17%). Although there was a slight decline in 1942, magazines generated sizable advertising revenues in 1942 through 1946, up 120.01%. These titles dominated all magazine advertising revenues because of consumer demand for articles and photographs. Table 3.8 has the growth rates. The famed Curtis Publishing Company was a dominant magazine company generally accounting for about 20% of all magazine revenues during the war. Table 3.9 has the details. This publishing house achieved a high level of financial success because of its portfolio of titles, including The Saturday Evening Post; Ladies’ Home Journal; The American Home; Jack and Jill (a juvenile title); and The Country Gentleman. However, the influence and reach of The Saturday Evening Post was legendary, due partially to the illustrated covers by Norman Rockwell. Rockwell’s covers portrayed small-town life and people (especially from his own small town of Stockbridge, MA) during the war. Rockwell Table 3.8 Gross national advertising in general magazines 1939–1946

Year

General magazines

Total all magazines

Percent of general magazines of total magazine revenues (%)

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$141,648,000 $158,276,000 $168,809,000 $164,171,000 $214,334,000 $254,048,000 $286,371,000 $361,189,000

$150,838,000 $165,644,000 $178,508,000 $173,593,000 $227,265,000 $268,944,000 $302,817,000 $379,437,000

93.91 95.55 94.57 94.57 94.31 94.46 94.57 95.19

Source U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. The Statistical Abstract of the United States 1950. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/ 1950/compendia/statab/71ed.html. Also see https://www.census.gov/library/pub lications/1947/compendia/statab/68ed.html, https://www.census.gov/library/pub lications/1948/compendia/statab/69ed.html, https://www.census.gov/library/pub lications/1949/compendia/statab/70ed.html, https://www.census.gov/library/pub lications/1951/compendia/1951statab.html N.B. All numbers rounded off and may not always equal 100%

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Table 3.9 Advertising revenues of Curtis Publishing Company: 1939–1946 Year

Curtis Publishing Company advertising revenues

Percent of total Us advertising (%)

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

$33,485,338 $36,659,444 $39,335,594 $35,438,845 $44,062,678 $48,057,253 $51,707,078 $73,197,785

22 22 22 20 19 18 17 19

Source The Curtis Publishing Company; financial and advertising revenues. https://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/findingaid3115curtispubl ishing.pdf

generally did one cover per month. But his covers of “The Four Freedoms” (“Freedom of Speech”; “Freedom of Worship”; “Freedom from Fear”; and “Freedom from Want”) were a phenomenal success. “After their publication, The Saturday Evening Post received 25,000 requests for reprints. In May 1943, representatives from The Saturday Evening Post and the US Department of the Treasury announced a joint campaign to sell war bonds and stamps. They sent the Four Freedoms paintings along with 1000 original cartoons and paintings by other illustrators and original manuscripts from The Saturday Evening Post on a national tour.”33 A wonderful collection of Rockwell’s illustrations are located in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.34

Newspapers and Magazines and the Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press and Radio Newspapers and magazines confronted the same issues as radio in their quest to provide readers with the news while maintaining a critical and inherently complex balance between printing the news and photographs and making sure they did not provide any useful information to the enemy. While the vast majority of newspapers (perhaps about 90%),

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and, to a degree, magazines, did not support FDR’s election in 1932 or reelection in 1936, the President was concerned about the importance of the First Amendment and insuring that vital war information did not reach Japanese or German spies in the United States or the Western Hemisphere. So, the Office of Censorship released a series of “voluntary codes.” The Code addressed a complex question. Would a printed article help the enemy? So, the Code covered: “everything published — newspapers, press services, periodicals, magazines, books, newsletters, reports, directories, almanacs, trade and financial papers….” Publications were asked to pay special attention to anything related to: the US military production, fortifications, forces, ships, or planes; war plans and war plants; enemy attacks; combat casualties “until made available by the War or Navy Department or next of kin”; military intelligence or secret plans or facilities; “advance information on routes, times, and methods of travel by the President, movements of ranking Army, Navy, and Marine officers; maps or photographs; or combat zone interviews.”35

The Home Front’s Constant Concerns Americans heard on the radio and read in newspapers and magazines about sabotage and spies operating near war production facilities or major transportations hubs, especially railroad lines connecting war plants with military bases. Radio, newspapers, and magazines warned Americans constantly to be alert to anything suspicious. Morrisville, PA (1940 population: 5493) was a small town on the Delaware River across the river from Trenton, NJ; but in the 1940s Morrisville had an important rubber and plastics production factory; and running through the town was the Pennsylvania Railroad line that connected Washington, DC with New York City. During the war, on nice days an elderly naturalized American citizen, who emigrated from Germany after World War I, lived near Piscopo Brothers Garage on South Pennsylvania Avenue in Morrisville. He often walked to the small grocery store on Green Street to buy a cup of coffee and a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes. He would climb the stairs to

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the Pennsylvania Railroad station, and he watched the trains, passenger trains as well as trains loaded with soldiers and military vehicles. After a few days, residents who lived near the railroad tracks were concerned about this individual watching trains almost every day; they notified the local police who contacted the F.B.I. The F.B.I. visited this elderly man, and they ascertained that he was not a spy passing information to German spies; he was retired and lonely; and he liked watched trains to pass the time. Unfortunately, many men, women, and children during the war, especially in towns with war plants or close to the ocean, worried about espionage, air raids, loved ones in the service, and local kids who used to deliver the newspaper (in Morrisville generally The Trentonian or The Trenton Times) but were now in Europe or the Pacific fighting the enemy. The proliferation of Gold Stars in apartment or house windows unnerved many of them. After all, there was a war on. So, in the end, local citizens were worried about this elderly man watching trains; and the followed the instructions they heard on the radio or read in the local newspapers. They called the police. In reality, watching trains to pass the time was just a rather ordinary event in what was anything but ordinary times.36

The Impact of Radio, Newspapers, and Magazines on the Home Front: A Study of a Small Town Bay Head, NJ During the War An analysis of the impact of radio on small towns in the United States revealed the tremendous reach and influence of this media format. Looking specifically at Bay Head, NJ, this small town had 499 residents in 1940; in 2020 the population was 977 according to the Census Bureau. Bay Head is situated in Ocean County; and the County’s 1940 population was 37,706. Bay Head is on the Barnegat Peninsula (also known as Barnegat Bay Island), a long, narrow barrier island that separates Barnegat Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The town has 0.582 square miles of land and 0.118 square miles of water. Bay Head is between Point Pleasant Beach (1940 population: 2059), Point Pleasant Boro (1940

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population: 2082) to the north and Manaloking (no 1940 population data since it is part of Brick Township) to the south. Bay Head and Manaloking are considered the “Gold Coast” of the New Jersey shore. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean; Bay Head has about two miles of shoreline facing the Atlantic and about two miles to the east-facing Barnegat Bay. During the day, residents listened to news and music from WCAPAM in Asbury Park (a 1000-watt radio station about 12.7 miles to the north of Bay Head) or WBRB-AM in Red Bank (about 23 miles to the north; this station closed in 1942 because of a fire). On most evenings, radios in Bay Head picked up broadcasts of Red Skelton, Fibber McGee & Molly, Eddie Cantor, Joan Davis & Jack Haley’s “Village Store,” or the very popular Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy show from various New Jersey stations in Camden (WHAT-AM or WCAM-AM; Camden is across the Delaware River from Philadelphia), Philadelphia (WPENAM; about 65 miles to the west), Bound Brook (WJZ-AM; about 49 miles to the north), or Trenton (WTNJ-AM or WOAX-Am; 47 miles to the east). However, many Bay Head residents listened eagerly at night to the big radio stations in New York City (about 70 miles to the north) that operated all night playing music and the news, including WNAC-AM or WOR-AM. And the most popular station was clearly WNEW-AM (an early advertising tag line for the station was “the NEWest Thing in Radio”), which launched the “Milk Man’s Matinee” in 1935. On air personalities (i.e., disk jockeys; WNEW was possibly the first US radio station to use disk jockeys) played music (e.g., songs by Frank Sinatra and the wonderful Glenn Miller Orchestra) and the news from Midnight until 6:00 a.m. This popular show was listened to by men and women working the late-night shift, perhaps local bakers at Mueller’s on Bridge Avenue, clerks stocking the shelves at the A & P on Main Street or Curtis’ Central Market (on the corner of Main Avenue and Mount Street) in Bay Head, or members of the Bay Head Fire Department cleaning their gear and worrying about an enemy landing on the beach. During the day, some listeners in Bay Head tried, often unsuccessfully, to pick up other programs from WNEW, including their morning drive time (i.e., 6:00–9:00 a.m.) show “Anything Goes with Gene Rayburn”); and Martin Block’s influential “Make Believe Ballroom,” which was

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launched in 1935. Block made sure that the very popular Sinatra, often doing a remote from the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, reached Block’s growing audience.37 Radio stations, working closely with key US Government departments and agencies during the war, entertained Bay Head listeners with music, comedy, and quiz shows; and radio also informed Bay Head citizens about the need to recycle paper and metal, the importance of making sure blackout curtains and shades were down at night because of German submarines off the New Jersey coast (which attacked the United States and allied ships), sabotage on the New York City docks, news about D-Day (the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944), and local events. During the war, many Bay Head citizens subscribed to the major magazines of that era, including The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Life, and Time. These publications contained articles and photographs about the nation’s political and social life as well as war news. For example, residents read closely the detailed articles (with photographs) in Time about General MacArthur (in Time’s December 29, 1941 and March 30, 1942 issues), America’s Ally Joseph Stalin (January 4, 1943), General George C. Marshall (January 4, 1944), and the nation’s new President Harry S. Truman (April 23, 1945). Life magazine, on the other hand, stressed photographs and generally short articles about life during the war on the home front and in the war zones. Examples included: the April 18, 1942 photographic essay about a bombardier in the US Air Force: steel workers producing a critical war product (August 9, 1943); female US Air Force pilots flying planes from the production plan to military bases (July 19, 1943); the Republican National Convention (July 10, 1944); and a religious issue for Christmas (December 25, 1944). The Saturday Evening Post ’s articles about Americana, humor, and superb illustrations were also immensely popular in Bay Head.38 However, magazines (along with the radio networks) really had a national orientation, which meant that, while they played a pivotal role in American society, they did not provide residents with local news about births, deaths, ads about sales at the A & P, radio programs at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, library programs, high school sports, highway construction detours, election results, town council decisions, the success

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of a recent paper drive, and, unfortunately, the names of local men killed in France. To fill this information void, Bay Head residents were dependent on local newspapers published in Asbury Park or nearby Point Pleasant, NJ. This meant that most Bay Head residents read The Asbury Park Press (still in business today) and The Ocean County Leader (which “became” The Ocean Star a weekly newspaper in Point Pleasant; it is in business today). These papers wrote about the basic issues, concerns, and sacrifices of average citizens in what was a typical small town in the 1940s. Local news and ads were pivotal in their daily lives providing information about: the military, recruitment, and the draft; rationing; Victory Gardens and the “food for victory” campaign. There were the constant reminders that “food is a weapon, don’t waste it,” and you must “make it do or do without.” Other key articles addressed the fact that “millions of troops are on the move, is your trip necessary,” and the “do with less so they [soldiers and sailors] will have more.” Massive salvage and recycling efforts were stressed. “Share your cars and spare your tires” and “dollars for defense.” There were lists of war production jobs for women; and reports that war plants needed to produce naval vessels, including “America Needs Higgins Boats” (used during the D-Day invasion of France), landing crafts, lifeboats. Civilian defense operations were reported in great detail. For example, Toms River is the county seat; and their Defense Council released information, including posters, that they created a rather sophisticated system of hospitals and first-aid stations in case of a war-related emergency.39 Clearly, men, women, and children all faced challenges. But a major burden fell onto mothers. They had to cope with stringent rationing and a rather complex ration book. They had to make sure their children had food on the table and suitable clothing for hot summers and cold winters living on the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. They faced the constant fear of the death of a husband serving on a ship in the Pacific and neighbors in combat in Italy. So, The Asbury Park Press ran numerous articles for women working in war production plants including: “war-working lunches”; “butter-saver spread and biscuits”; and how to make bread and cheese potato puffs at home. With more than 16 million Americans in the US military, including 400,000 women, women were needed to

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work in war plants and other companies. More than 19 million women were employed outside of the home, including 5 million women who entered the workforce for the first time; and 65% of all aircraft factory employees were women. The Toms River Post Office recruited women as postal clerks; and Ocean County was the focal point of weapons testing programs. So, women working in a war plant read The Asbury Park Press articles about suitable clothing that would not get caught in machines, shorter “defense haircuts” (as represented in the famous “Rosie the Riveter” poster), etc. Other important local news articles in The Asbury Park Press included: “the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense points out that the safest place in an air raid is at home”; scrap drives; local heroes in the military (“shore gunner injured in Wilhelmshaven raid”; “last letter from Lt. Fiander praised efforts of homefront”); and “evaporated milk supply assured.” There were numerous articles about life on the home front (“the 5th war loan is on; every bond is a blow for victory”; “coffee supply deemed ample”; radio programs for local New Jersey stations; and “5 carloads of coal reach city [Asbury Park] to alleviate shortage.” There were articles about labor shortages: “we urgently need carpenters, bricklayers, cement finishers, and painters for indoor hospital work at Ft. Dix, 9 hours a day, 6 days a week.” Ads about sales at the local A & P on Main Avenue were always closely read (“fresh butterfish 19 cents a pound; bing cherries 29 cents a pound”). The paper also reproduced war posters, including the “Rosie the Riveter” poster.40 The Ocean County Leader covered the small Ocean County towns during the war. They listed, for example, the 26 Bay Head men in the service, and the 85 county residents who died in the war including Albert Forsyth, the only Bay Head resident killed during the war. Articles appeared frequently about how specific towns responded to the war, the importance of local defense councils, war bond drives, dates and application forms for war ration books, girl scout meetings, etc.41 Baseball was of importance to the average Bay Head citizen. Just after the Declaration of War, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wrote FDR on January 14, 1942 asking to keep baseball going during the war. The next day FDR wrote Landis that “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going…[and for Americans] off of their work even more than before…to

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have a change for recreation and for taking their minds off their work…if 300 teams use 5000 or 6000 players, these players are a definite recreational asset to at least 20,000,000 of their fellow citizens—and that in my judgment is thoroughly worthwhile.”42 So, during the war baseball received FDR’s “green light” because it was, after all, the “national past time.” In 1944, baseball came to New Jersey when two New York baseball teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants, held spring training in the Ocean County, NJ Park. During the war, Charles Tillson was a young boy in Bay Head; and he witnessed first-hand the impact the war had on daily life. In an interview, Charles described how his other families and his friends at the Bay Head Elementary School coped with the war.43 Charles described how the local Catholic and Protestant churches played a major role in counseling their members about the war and the tragic loss of life. He also outlined his daily activities in the town’s small school that he attended, which had three classes in one room (i.e., first, second, and third grades) with one teacher (the war’s draft created a shortage of teachers). Charles and his school mates participated in the numerous paper and scrap metal drives; the town’s mothers worked with the Red Cross rolling bandages and visited local hospitals. Charles remembered that a small cluster of men received a deferment working at Bay Head’s war boat production facility making more than 1000 lifeboats for the US military. Other men, too old for the military, supported their families and worked at the Ferry Lumber Yard, the town of Bay Head (Charles’ father worked for the town during those years), one of the five grocery stores, or the pharmacy on the corner of Main Avenue and Mount Street. Men volunteered at the local fire department; and both men and women joined the Civil Defense unit because many men were in the armed services. So, these male and female volunteers made sure blackout curtains were used at night; and men and women (sometimes accompanied by a high school student) patrolled on the town’s boardwalk and sometimes on the beach.44 An armed sailor on horseback from the Coast Guard Auxiliary Squadron from Sea Girt or Point Pleasant also patrolled the Bay Head beach on horseback at night (often with trained dogs) looking for German subs, saboteurs, or American or allied survivors of

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sub attacks.45 Large blimps, stationed in Lakehurst, patrolled the Bay Head coastline sometimes dropping depth charges several miles out in the Atlantic Ocean on German subs. There was a US Coast Guard tower and facility, with more than two dozen military personnel, at the Coast Guard station on Mount Street. After the end of the war, Charles, his family, and most of the town went to the big parade in Point Pleasant, although the local Bay Head pharmacist started some small “celebrations” in the town on V-J Day (Victory Over Japan). How did Bay Head’s town leaders cope with the war? Fortunately, all of the typed town council minutes between January 1942 and December 1946 were reviewed. Obviously, the daily obligations of the town, including police and fire concerns as well as budgetary issues (the town’s general revenues in 1942 stood at $107,240.87), were impacted by the war; and this necessitated some major changes in how the town operated. The minutes included some fascinating details about the war’s direct impact on this town. In May 1942, the local electric company was notified by Bay Head to turn off all lights along the town’s boardwalk on East Avenue because of fears of German sub attacks or the landing of saboteurs. In August 1942, the monthly meeting was interrupted by a “yellow air raid warning” which triggered a black-out in the town, unsettling some residents who feared bombardment from a German submarine. By March 16, 1943, the council was concerned about military restrictions on the beach area, especially the use of the town’s long, elevated boardwalk by civilians. Because of a shortage of town employees, the council on September 21, 1943 addressed the pressing issues related to the almost total depletion of the borough fire company, around the clock police protection, and trash collections. By November 16, 1943, the council was compelled to address vacancies on the local Civil Defense board, constant storm damage to the beach, boardwalk, and bulkheads, an issue that remained a town council concern into October 1944 and 1945. The war had a long way to go before the end of hostilities. But the town council was making plans to honor all residents who served in the war; and it was decided on December 7, 1943, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, that a public Honor Roll be created listing the names of all who

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served. This issue was also discussed at council meetings into the Summer of 1945 with additional plans to honor those who served and their families. The Honor Roll sign was erected in front of the town’s fire station, where it stood for decades. In October 1945, the council supported the national campaign of $115,000,000 for the USO-National War Fund; Ocean County’s goal was $32,500. During the war years, Bay Head was managed effectively with modest increases in taxes and creating surplus revenue accounts to cover any “rainy day” issues (including needed repairs on the borough hall roof ). One of the most interesting accounting issue listed in the monthly minutes centered on the Internal Revenue Service’s §128 provision for a “V-Tax”; every employee paid a surtax to support the war effort; and during the war the “V-TAX’s” personal exemption fell from $2500 to $2000 for married couples.46 When the war ended, residents of this small town experienced a postwar transformation in their daily existence. Veterans returned home; they resumed their old jobs, or found new ones; and people purchased cake, pies, and cookies at Mueller’s or meat and canned goods at Curtis’ Central Market. Volunteers again participated in town life at the churches and the fire station. After V-E Day (May 8, 1945) adults and children stood on the beautiful beach and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean with pleasure. They no longer feared menacing German subs patrolling off the NJ coastline looking to sink an American ship.

Notes 1. O’Barr, William M. 2005. “What Is Advertising?” Advertising & Society Review 6 (3). https://doi.org/10.1353/asr.2006.0005. 2. Presbrey, Frank. 2000. “The History and Development of Advertising.” Advertising & Society Review 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.1353/asr.2000.0021. 3. O’Barr, William M., Rishad Tobaccowala, John Partilia, and Irwin Gotlieb. 2009. “Media and Advertising.” Advertising & Society 10 (2). https:// doi.org/10.1353/asr.0.0030. Also see Kuna, David P. “The Concept of Suggestion in the Early History of Advertising Psychology.” The History of

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the Behavior Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6696(197610)12:4% 3c347::AID-JHBS2300120406%3e3.0.CO;2-M. Scott, Linda M. 2016. “Advertising Artistry.” Advertising & Society 16 (4). https://doi.org/10.1353/asr.2016.0000. Also see Little, Becky. “Digging Up Ads from World War II—When They Pushed Products No One Could Buy.” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141207-worldwar-advertising-consumption-anniversary-people-photography-culture. Unlike today, in the years before and during World War II, commercial advertisements did not have First Amendment’s protection. See Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52, 54, 86 L. Ed. 1262, 62 S. Ct. 920 (1942). In this landmark case, which was later overruled by the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court stipulated that the Constitution imposed no restraint on the government as to the regulation of “purely commercial advertising.” Also see the Communications Act of 1934. https://transition.fcc.gov/Rep orts/1934new.pdf. “An ACT To provide for the regulation of interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio, and for other purposes.” Van Engen, Abram. 2011. “Advertising the Domestic: Anne Bradstreet’s Sentimental Poetics.” Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 28 (1): 47–68. Also see Lears, Jackson. 1995. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America, 261–394. New York: Basic Books; Ogilvy, David. 1987. Confessions of an Advertising Ma, 89–128. New York: Atheneum; Stole, Inger L. 2001. “The Salesmanship of Sacrifice: The Advertising Industry’s Use of Public Relations During the Second World War.” Advertising & Society 2 (2). https://doi.org/10.1353/asr.2001.0008; Jensen, Ric. 2009. “To What Extent Did American Corporation Publish ‘Brag Ads’ During World War II?” Advertising & Society 10 (2). https://doi. org/10.1353/asr.0.0027; Powel, Harford. 1942. “What the War Has Done to Advertising.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 6 (2, Summer): 195–203; Belden, Clark. 1944. “Wartime Public Relations—A Survey.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 8 (1, Spring): 94–99. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1941. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 423–434. Washington: Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1942. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 441–453. Washington: Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1943. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 412–424. Washington: Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1944–1945. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 432–444. Washington: Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department

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of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1946. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 472–462. Washington: Bureau of the Census; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1947. The Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1–92, 285–301, 464–477. Washington: Bureau of the Census. Also see The Federal Reserve. “Consumer Credit Outstanding Levels.” https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/HIST/ cc_hist_sa_levels.html; The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Banking and Monetary Statistics 1914–1941.” https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htd ocs/wp/2003/2003-006.pdf; Ohanian, Lee E. 1997. “The Macroeconomic Effects of War Finance in the United States: World War II and the Korean War.” The American Economic Review 87 (1): 23–40; Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. 1980. From New Deal Banking Reform to World War II Inflation, 129–176. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Field, Alexander J. 2008. “The Impact of the Second World War on U.S. Productivity Growth.” Economic History Review 61 (3): 673–694; Schwartz, Anna Jacobson. “Money Supply.” https://www.econlib.org/lib rary/Enc/Moneysupply.html. 8. The National World War II Museum. https://www.nationalww2museum. org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-startersus-military-numbers. 9. Dallek, Robert. 2017. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 443–469. New York: Viking. Also see Daniels, Roger. 2016. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939 –1945, 227–270. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Aside from consumer goods, certain medical supplies and medicines were also rationed because of the staggering number of war casualties; see Iverson, Kenneth V., and John C. Moskop. 2007. “Triage in Medicine, Part II.” Health Policy and Clinical Practice/Concepts 49 (3, March): 277; Cantril, Hadley. 1948. “Opinion Trends in World War II: Some Guides to Interpretation.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 12 (19, Spring): 30–44. 10. Blum, John Morton. 1976. V Was for Victory, 23, 96, 226–227. San Diego: Harcourt Brace &Company. Also see the National Park Service. “Sacrificing for the Common Good: Rationing in WWII.” https://www.nps. gov/articles/rationing-in-wwii.htm; Maxwell, James A., and Margaret N. Balcom. “Gasoline Rationing in the United States II.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 61 (1, November): 125–155; Leontiff, Wassily. 1946. “Wages, Profits, and Prices.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 61 (1, November): 26–39; Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1946. “Reflections on Price Controls.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 60 (4, August): 475–489; Sargent, Thomas,

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12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

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George Hall, Martin Ellison, Andrew Scott, Harold James, Era DablaNorris, Mark De Broeck, Nicholas End, Marina Marinkov, and Vitor Gaspar. 2019. Debt and Entanglements Between the Wars, 289–315. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. The Advertising Council. “The Story of the Ad Council.” https://www.adc ouncil.org/About-Us/The-Story-of-the-Ad. Also see Griffin, Robert. 1983. “The Selling of America: The Advertising Council and American Politics.” The Business History Review 57 (3, Autumn): 388–412; Hollins, Hunter. 2015. “The War Bond Poster: State Fundraising and National Cohesion Through Mass Media During the World Wars,” 35–50. http://www.shfg. org/resources/Documents/FH%207%20; Stole, Inger. “The Business of Government Is Advertising: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Washington and the War Advertising Council.” https://www.emeraldinsight. com/full/10.1108/JHRM-01-2018-0005. Hodges, James. “Born in War, Ad Council Still Strives; Public Service Ads Have Garnered Billions for Society.” https://adage.com/article/news/ born-war-ad-council-thrives-public-service-ads-garnered-billions-support/ 86206. Also see Advertising Age. “Ad Age Advertising Century.” https:// adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advert ising-century-timeline/143661. Public Broadcasting System (PBS). “KDKA Begins to Broadcast in 1920.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt20ra.html. Also see Albarran, Alan B., and Gregory G. Pitts. 2001. The Radio Broadcasting Industry, 17–47. Boston: Allyn & Bacon; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 41–43. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. Also see Craig, Steve. 2004. “How America Adopted Radio: Demographic Differences in Set Ownership Reported in the 1930–1950 Censuses.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 48 (2): 179–195. Witvliet, Ben A., and Rosa Ma Alsina-Pages. “Radio Communication Via Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Propagation: An Overview.” Telecommunications Systems 66 (2, October): 295–309. Dallek. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life, 199–230. The Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. https://it.ojp. gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1288. Sweeney, Michael S. 2001. Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II , 7. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Also see Landry, Robert J. 1943. “The Impact

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of OWI on Broadcasting.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1, Spring): 111–115; Bruner, Jerome S. 1943. “OWI and the American Public.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1, Spring): 125–133; feller, A.H. 1943. “OWI on the Homefront.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1, Spring): 55–65; Hawkins Jr., Lester G., and George S. Pettee. “OWI—Organization and Problems.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1, Spring): 15–33; Perry, John. 1942. “War Propaganda for Democracy.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 6 (3, Autumn): 437–443; Davis, Elmer. 1954. “OWI Has a Job to Do.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1, Spring): 5–14. Office of War Information. https://archive.org/details/OWICode194206-15. In 1931, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 5-4 decision in “Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S.697 (1931)” that “prior restraint on speech are generally unconstitutional, such as when they forbid publication of malicious, scandalous, and defamatory content”. https://supreme. justia/cases/federal/us/283/697. Horten, Gerd. 2002. Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda During World War II , 41–85, 116–146. Berkeley: University of California Press. Also see Sweeney. Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II, 100–134; Bruning, John R. 2020. Race of Aces, 3–41, 89–115, 355–378. New York: Hachette; Winkler, Jonathan Reed. 2016. “Blurred Lines: National Security and the Civil-Military Struggle for Control of Telecommunications Policy During World War II.” Information & Culture: A Journal of History 51 (4): 500– 531; Ackerman, William C. 1948. “U.S. Radio: Record of a Decade.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 12 (3, Autumn): 440–454. The Library of Congress. “NBC Resources Held by the Recorded Sound Section.” https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/recnbc.html#history. Also see the Library of Congress. “Collections Overviews—Special Materials Formats.” https://www.loc.gov/acq/devpol/colloverviews/radio.html; Grimes, William. “On and Off the Radio: NBC Donates Memories.” https://www.newyorktimes.com/1992/04/27/arts/on-and-off-the-radionbc-donates-memories.html. The Library of Congress. “Bob Hope and the American Variety Radio.” https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bobhope/radio.html. Sterling, Christopher H. 2003. Encyclopedia of Radio, vol. 2, 28–29, 34– 58, 201–237. New York: Routledge. Also see Victory Radio. “The Charms Candy Company’s WCAP, Asbury Park, NJ.” http://www.vistoryradio. com/station_histories/wcap_charms_candy.html.

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23. Jakes, Bill. 1978. The Airwaves of New York: An Illustrated Histor y, 20–56. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Also see Sopronyi, Judy P. “Watching the Radio: Music, News, and Entertainment Crackled Warmly from Radio Speakers in Living Rooms Across the Country—Uniting Wartime Americans in Common Cause and Culture.” http://www.americainwwii.com/ articles/watching-the-radio; Radio Graphic. “The Living Room Fixture.” www.radioscribe.com/formats.html; Metromedia. “Legacy WNEW-AM History.” www.metromediaradio.net/online-jazz-music-metromedia-radio/ legacy-wnew-1130-am-history. 24. Carnes, Mark C. 2007. Columbia History of Post-World War II America, 240–259. New York: Columbia University Press. Also see Scott, Carole E. “The History of the Radio Industry in the United States to 1940.” https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-history-of-the-radio-ind ustry-in-the-united-states-to-1940. 25. Tutors, Varsity. “America’s First Newspaper.” https://www.varsitytutors. com/earlyamerica/firsts/americas-first-newspaper. 26. Connecticut History. “The Oldest U.S. Newspaper in Continuous Publication.” https://connecticuthistory.org/the-oldest-newspaper-incontinuous-publication. 27. Mott, Frank Luther. 1962. American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States, 1690 –1960, 41–189. New York: Macmillan. 28. Nevins, Alan. 1959. “American Journalism and Its Historical Treatment.” Journalism Quarterly 36 (4): 411–422. 29. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 499–500. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census Bureau. Also see Internet Archives. “Newspapers’ and Periodicals’ Revenues Structure.” https://web.archive.org/web/20121022032937/https://spread sheets.google.com/pub?key=raemdiClQoFQADnOXSqNpJQ&output= html. 30. Tebbel, John, and Mary Ellen Zuckerman. 1991. The Magazine in America: 1741–1990, 3–4. New York: Oxford University Press. 31. Ibid., 10–13. Tebbel and Zuckerman wrote extensively and brilliantly about the various magazine genres launched between 1741 and 1990, including: political; literary magazines for ladies; ethnic titles; etc. Some of the important magazines launched during World War II included: Seventeen (in 1944); Ebony (in 1945); and Guideposts (also in 1945). Magazines are called, ironically, “books” by magazine professionals. Also see Daly,

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34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

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Charles P., Patrick Henry, and Ellen Ryder. 1997. The Magazine Publishing Industry, 4–8. Boston: Allyn & bacon. Peterson, Theodore. 1956. Magazines in the Twentieth Century, 58, 217. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. The Norman Rockwell Museum. “The Four Freedoms.” https://www. nrm.org/2012/10/collections-four-freedoms. Also see The Norman Rockwell Museum. “Norman Rockwell in the 1940s: A View of the American Homefront.” https://www.nrm.org/2009/10/norman-rockwell-in-the1940s-a-view-of-the-american-homefront-2. For information about the Saturday Evening Post, see “Saturday Evening Post Illustration Archives 1923–1975.” http://curtispublishing.com. The Norman Rockwell Museum. https://www.nrm.org/?gclid=EAIaIQ obChMIm5-16b_H5wIVzZ6zCh3mxgX3EAAYASAAEgJOnvD_BwE. Also see https://www.nrm.org/exhibitions, https://www.nrm.org/collectio ns-2. United States Government. Office of Censorship, Washington, DC. “Code of Wartime Practices for The American Press and Radio [May 15, 1945].” https://archive.org/stream/OWICode1945-05-15-nsia/OWI Code1945-05-15_djvu.txt. Also see Aswell, Paul L. “Wartime Press Censorship of the U.S. Armed Forces: A Historical Perspective.” https:// apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a227383.pdf. After the war, my father was a town councilman in Morrisville, PA; and he was the police commissioner. He was aware of the events surrounding the elderly man who watched trains; and he told me about what the police did, and how the matter was resolved with the F.B.I. Metromedia Radio. “Legacy WNEW-AM History.” www.metromediara dio.net/online-jazz-music-metromedia-radio/legacy-wnew-1130-am-his tory. Also see Albarran, Alan B., and Gregory G. Pitts. 2001. The Radio Broadcasting Industry, 24–39, 144, 161. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. The Ocean County Library in Toms River, NJ has an extensive collection of these magazines. The Point Pleasant Historical Society’s “local World War II Index” collection was also very useful. http://www.pointpleasanthi story.com/museum.htm. The Asbury Park Press. Online articles of interest cited in the article were published on: February 22, 1942; March 26, 1942; October 22, 1942; December 27, 1942; January 14, 1943; August 8, 1943; July 21, 1943; August 6, 1943; October 10, 1943; November 1, 1943; November 16, 1943; November 26, 1943; January 12, 1944; June 17, 1944; August 5, 1944; August 22, 1944; November 16, 1944; January 21, 1945; February

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3, 1945; April 13, 1945; May 6, 1945; June 6, 1945; June 17, 1945; August 15, 1945; September 3, 1945; and September 7, 1945. Complete copies of The Asbury Park Press (available online) and The Ocean County Leader (available on microfilm at the Ocean County Library in Toms Rover, NJ) between December 7, 1941 and September 2, 1945, were analyzed for this book. 40. Ibid., Also see Rockoff, Hugh. “Keep on Scrapping: The Salvage Drives of World War II.” NBER Working Paper 13418. http://nber.org/papers/ w13418. The Smithsonian’s excellent collection of posters from World War II, including “Rosie the Riveter” and their article “Responsibility.” http://www.smithsonianEducation.org; The New Jersey Almanac. https:// www.newjerseyalmanac.com/world-war-ii.html; Rockoff, Hugh. “Keep on Scrapping: The Salvage Drives of World War II.” NBER Working Paper 1341. http://nber.org/papers/w13418; National Women’s History Museum. “Working in the Defense Industry.” https://www.womens history.org/resources/general/working-defense-industry; National Women’s History Museum. “On The Home Front.” https://www.womenshistory. org/resources/general/home-front; PBS. “Family.” https://www.pbs.org/ thewar/at_home_family.html; The National Archives. “America on the Homefront.” https://www.archives.gov/boston/exhibits/homefront; Alves, Andre, and Evan Roberts. “Rosie the Riveter’s Job market: Advertising for Women Workers in World War II Los Angeles.” https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648367; Minnesota History Center. “Women and the Home Front During World War II: Overview.” https://libguides. mnhs.org/homefront; Fetter, Daniel K. 2016. “The Home Front: Rent Control and the Rapid Wartime Increase in Home Ownership.” The Journal of Economic History 76 (4, December): 1001–1042; Landdeck, Katherine Sharp. 2020. The Women with Solver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II , 3–65, 221–358. New York: Crown. 41. The Ocean County Leader. In 1940, there were 33 municipalities in Ocean County. Microfilm articles are available; but the quality of the microfilms made it difficult to get specific dates for various issues. 42. Murder, Craig. “President Roosevelt Gives ‘Green Light’ to Baseball,” https://baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/roosevelt-sendsgreen-lightletter. Also see Obermeyer, Jeff. 2018. “War Games: The Business of Major League Baseball During World War II.” Nine (1, Fall): 1–27. During the war, hundreds of baseball players served in the U.S. military

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44.

45.

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including: Bob Feller; Joe DiMaggio; Yogi Berra; and Ted Williams (who also served during the Korean War). The interview with Mr. Tillson took place in the Bay Head Fire Department on December 12, 2019. Mr. Tillson is a long-standing member of that department; and he exhibited the department’s impressive World War II Civil Defense memorabilia. The National World War II Museum. “Gender on the Home Front.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gender-homefront. During the war, there were military facilities and war production facilities in local NJ locations, including: Asbury Park (Naval reserve pre-midshipmen’s school; Navy V-12 training school; Naval Convalescent hospital); Lakehurst (airship squadrons; Naval supply center parachute riggers). See U.S. Naval Activities World War II by State. “New Jersey.” https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/USN-Act/ NJ.html; and the excellent collection of war photographs at the New Jersey Museum of Boating (located in Bay Head), www.njmb.org. During the war, German submarines landed saboteurs (each German group had $50,000 in cash to conduct sabotage at war plants) on the shore of Amagansett, NY and Ponte Verde Beach, Fl. Some of these Germans were born in the United States and taken to Germany as young children. Others had worked in the United States before the war. See American History Magazine. “World War II: German Saboteurs Invade America in 1942.” https://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-sab oteurs-invade-america-in-1942.htm; Klein, Christopher. “When the Nazis Invaded the Hampton.” https://www.history.com/news/5-attacks-on-u-ssoil-during-world-war-ii; Barlow, Bill. “The History of Submarine Warfare off the Jersey Coast.” https://whyy.org/articles/the-histpry-of-submarinewarfare-off-the-jersey-coast; Larsen, Erik. “The Night World War II Came to the Jersey Shore.” https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2014/02/ 27/the-night-world-war-ii-came-to-thejersey-shore/5880601. Internal revenue Code. §124 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1940. https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SRpt77-990.pdf.

4 The US Government and the Entertainment Industries Confront the War: Motion Pictures, Music, and Book Publishing

Abstract During the dark, dismal, and threatening days of World War II, Americans needed entertainment products to take their minds away from the daily depressing war news on the radio and in newspapers and magazines. During the war, the US motion picture industry (Hollywood) released important films addressing significant themes, including: how the home front confronted personal and family sacrifice and other war related concerns about rationing and sabotage; war movies about the various branches of the US military (every branch had its movies); escapist western movies; and a cluster of films with religious themes. Many Hollywood stars, directors, and technical production experts served in various military branches during the war. The music industry provided hopeful and escapist tunes that captured the spirit of the war and home front. The book industry published trade books to entertain and inform (and in some instances educate) consumers; and the US Government released about 122 million small yet rather durable paperback books in the Armed Services Editions (ASEs) for military personnel (and putting The Great Gatsby back into print), effectively creating a new postwar market of readers for both hardcover and paperback books.

© The Author(s) 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3_4

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Keywords Armed Services Editions · Book publishing · Entertainment products · Hollywood · Hollywood Canteen · Hollywood stars in US Military · Home front · Motion pictures · Music · Paperback books · Trade book publishing · USO · War movies

The Motion Picture Industry: Early Development and the Creation of the Studio System The early developmental cinema work was done in Europe. However, the pioneering efforts of Thomas Edison in the late nineteenth century to develop a workable motion picture (or film) camera set the stage in the United States for what became the center of a dynamic, global industry. The early films were silent; the first American sound film was The Jazz Singer in 1927 with Al Jolson; and the first US films were made in Ft. Lee NJ and in New York City. Because of a variety of complex business issues, the early “film moguls” decided to find a more hospitable location to make motion pictures; and they relocated to a small community known as Hollywood, CA. Once ensconced in the 1920s in a more pleasant business and weather environment, these motion picture entrepreneurs created the famed Hollywood studio system, essentially based on the assembly line process created by Henry Ford. The studios built production facilities (later called sound stages), office buildings, and back lots (for outdoor scenes); and they had all of the important creative people under iron-clad contracts, including: directors; producers; screen writers; musicians; actors; actresses; and the technical people who handled casting a film, production, lighting, sound (after 1927), editing, special effects, and dubbing. The larger studios handled domestic exhibition since they owned first run (i.e., the first showing of a new film) motion picture theaters in most of the nation’s largest cities; and concessions were an important revenue stream to these studios. Also, international sales, marketing, and distribution were also pivotal financial revenues that augmented domestic sales for the studios. To Hollywood, the “domestic” market included both the United States and Canada; and Canada usually represented about 10% of “domestic” revenues. Second

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run and third run theaters (i.e., theaters that exhibited a film a week or several weeks after the debut of a film) generally were not owned by a studio.1 Warner Bros. was established in 1923 by the three Warner brothers; the “Bros.” abbreviation was used to save money in printing letterheads and envelopes. The Walt Disney Company was also launched in 1923. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed in 1924 through the merger of several film entities; and it was known as MGM to the public but simply Metro to people in the industry. Paramount was formed in 1927 also through the merger of several film entities. RKO (Radio-KeithOrpheum) was launched in 1928; and 20th Century Fox was created in 1935. Other studios in business before World War II included: Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, Monogram Picture Corporation, Selznick International Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Pictures, and Republic Pictures.2 These studios created what has been called the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” The “big five major” studios (knows simply as the “majors” included Metro, RKO, Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount) along with a few of the smaller studios held a dominant 96% market share of domestic box office revenues in the years before World War II.3

Basic Business Model A major studio in the years 1939–1945 made and distributed, on average, 52 films annually; since the “majors” owned movie theaters in important cities, they had to supply a new film every week. Many of these theaters were large and rather elegant theaters with impressive seating capacity; and some theaters had more than 1000 seats. This meant that new film output had to be maintained. This high new motion picture output was both a big plus and a potential minus to the major studios; a plus since they could influence consumer preferences if a studio had a “stock company” of well-known and appealing stars (e.g., Clark Gable); and it was a minus since it put a tremendous strain on the writers, directors, actors, actresses, etc., to produce an acceptable product at a rather fast pace. The failure rate for

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films was always high; on average, of every ten films released, seven lost money, two broke even, and one was a hit. So, Hollywood became a “hit driven” business very early in its storied history. Ticket prices reflected the impact of the depression.4 In 1939, the average movie ticket for a new release in a first-run theater cost 23 cents; in 1940 it reached 25 cents, and 80 million Americans went to the movies that year; and, because of wartime prosperity, in 1946 tickets topped 42 cents.5 The research of Arthur De Vany and W. David Walls, in one of the most important articles about this industry, outlined the basic business model utilized by Hollywood since the creation of the studio system in the 1920s. First: “the hard part about understanding the motion picture industry is coming to grips with the way demand and supply operate.” Second: “film audiences make hits or flops; and they do it, not by revealing preferences they already have, but by discovering what they like.” Third: “this means that supply must respond sequentially… Pricing must be equally flexible.”6 De Vany and Walls restated and accepted, using sophisticated quantitative methods, the fundamental Hollywood business theory made famous by screenwriter Bill Goldman. “Nobody knows anything.”7 So, if a new film lost money this week, there was always a new film next week; and the international market sometimes turned a domestic financial failure into a financial success.8 Clearly, Hollywood production was always a risky business, similar to the odds in a gambling casino. However, a film had the opportunity to generate gigantic profits; the best example during the years 1939–1946 was the award-winning but highly controversial film Gone With the Wind . The film ran 3 hours and 58 minutes, and it had a first run that lasted an unprecedented “three” years (the film opened in December 1939 and ran into 1942). The film generated impressive box office rentals between 1939–1942; however, first-run ticket prices averaged only 23 cents in 1939. If adjusted for inflation between 1939 and 2020, and the 2020 average ticket price of $9.11, this movie generated the equivalent of $1.895 billion in 2020 dollars.9

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Lack of Copyright Protection The motion picture industry was not protected by the First Amendment before and after World War II. In “Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio,” the Supreme Court ruled in 1915 in a 9-0 decision that “the exhibition of motion pictures is a business, pure and simple, originated and conducted for profit… not to be regarded, nor intended to be regarded by the Ohio Constitution, we think, as part of the press of the country, or as organs of public opinion…”10 This decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1952 in the “Joseph Burnstyn, Inc. v. Wilson” case, which provided First Amendment protection for movies.11

Hollywood Censorship: The Hays Office and Joseph Breen Lacking copyright protection meant that a city (e.g., Chicago) or a state (e.g., New York), concerned about voter complaints regarding content and images in certain Hollywood films, created censorship boards to monitor Hollywood’s output (often using the police to screen films).12 While these local and state developments were unsettling, the big fear in Hollywood was that the US Government would create a national censorship board. Censorship board momentum increased sharply in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and this became a major public relations and financial issue in Hollywood since it meant dealing with dozens of censorship boards and editing a specific film to meet the standards of different jurisdictions.13 In order to address and undercut local and state censorship efforts, the Hollywood studios asked Will Hays, the former Postmaster General of the United States and President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors, to create and enforce a Motion Picture Production Code (knowns as the Hays Code or the Code in Hollywood). The Code was in effect from 1934 into the 1950s.14 Under Hays’ leadership, the Code

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stipulated what images, words, and innuendos were unacceptable. “Hollywood studios banded together under former Postmaster General Will Hays to come up with a list of 36 self-imposed ‘Don’ts and Be Carefuls’… There was an updated, much-expanded list of ‘don’ts’ and ‘be carefuls,’ with bans on nudity, suggestive dancing, and lustful kissing. The mocking of religion and the depiction of illegal drug use were prohibited, as were interracial romance, revenge plots, and the showing of a crime method clearly enough that it might be imitated…”15 The actual daily administration of the Code was handled by Joseph I. Breen, who approved all scripts, and he had the power to change scripts. In fact, the “Hays Office” was often called the “Breen Office” since it was the “transit point for Hollywood cinema as essential as the laboratories processing the 35 mm film stock.” For the most part, the studios complied with the Code because it was good for business rebounding as the impact of the Great Depression began to lessen. While all of the studio heads bristled about censorship under Breen’s control, in reality Breen’s office “maintained the gold standard by helping the major studios refine the substance, polish the surface, and corner the market.”16

The Years 1939–1941: Hollywood’s “Golden Age” The start of World War II in Europe impacted American society, and Hollywood was not immune from the fear of war that engulfed the nation. After all, the films released between 1939 and the end of 1941 represent a “golden” era of films in the “golden age” of the studio system; and the studios released 296 movies during those years. According to the industry research of the American Film Institute (AFI), the studios released some of the greatest films in the industry’s history during those years, including: Citizen Kane (year released 1941; generally considered the greatest film ever made in the history of movies); Gone With the Wind (1939); The Wizard of Oz (1939); The Grapes of Wrath (1940); The Maltese Falcon (1941); Philadelphia Story (1940); Fantasia (1940); Stagecoach (1939); and Wuthering Heights (1939).17

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America Enters World War II Hollywood was concerned after December 7, 1941. The studio heads had an intense fear of the Nazis; and the outbreak of war in Europe disrupted its most important international market. Of equal concern was a deep-seated concern that Washington was interested in invoking antitrust law to dismantle the studio’s ownership of theaters and its inherent control over the exhibition of films.18 Hollywood knew it had to go to war. How the studios could help the war effort remained the enigma in December 1941; but all of that changed in just a matter of a few months.

The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry The US Government’s Office of War Information (OWI) realized that images were weapons and ammunition in the war. So, OWI decided in early 1942 to issue a “voluntary” manual, The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry (known as the manual) to assist the studios in producing films that addressed pressing morale needs and critical public opinions issues about the war. The manual was released to the industry in June 1942. The original document was 49 pages long; and, during the war, 115 pages of various supplementals were issued.19 OWI stated in the manual that “there have been many requests from the motion picture industry for basic information on government aims and policies in the war effort. To meet that demand, the Office of War Information has established an office in Hollywood. The purpose of this office is to assist the motion picture industry… Its set-up is purely advisory… The office also stands ready to supply the industry with pertinent information for films which are contemplated or in production… and, in general, to serve as a liaison agency between Hollywood and Washington in obtaining government assistance or information of any sort.”20 To clarify matters, OWI outlined the basic premises of the manual. “The overwhelming majority of the people are behind the government in its war program, but they do not have adequate knowledge and understanding of this program…The motion picture should be the best

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medium for bringing to life the democratic idea… It is a challenge to the ingenuity of Hollywood to make equality real the democratic values which we take for granted.”21 OWI provided a series of recommendations that the studios, and especially the screenwriters, could consider when preparing a film for production including: “emphasize the American heritage, the historical development that has made us what we are… What then is at stake? It is the liberation from fear and want…”22 Other sections of the original manual included political and philosophical information about: the enemy; the United Nations and peoples; work and production; the home front; and the fighting forces.23 However, the real influence of the manual rested on what happened in Hollywood with the daily application of the manual. During the war, governmental agencies and departments worked with the radio, newspaper, and magazine industries within their “voluntary codes.” But the government did not get involved on a daily basis with these entertainment formats because there were too many of them, literally thousands spread out in all 48 states (and Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico). The motion picture industry, however, offered OWI an intriguing opportunity. First, all of the studios were in the general area of Hollywood. Second, there was a rather small number of studios. Third, the film companies were headed by a group of entrepreneurs, and many of them had deep personal connections to Europe. Fourth, the majority of the key people at the studios were willing if not eager to work with OWI and the War Department to make war themed films. Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black addressed this issue in Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies. These authors maintained that “officials of the Office of War Information… sat in on story conferences with Hollywood’s top brass, reviewed the screenplays of every major studio (except the recalcitrant Paramount), pressured the movie makers to change scripts and even scrap pictures when they found objectionable material, and sometimes wrote dialogue for key speeches. OWI attained considerable influence with the Office of Censorship which issued export licenses for movies…”24 Hollywood had worked rather successfully under the restrictions set in the production code; and the total number of Americans who went

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to the movies each week increased. For example, attendance in 1934 was 60 million reaching 85 million in 1939.25 So, every major studio, except Paramount, was willing to work closely with OWI and grant voluntarily to OWI certain review procedures in exchange for unparalleled support from the Government in the making of movies. Jack Warner from Warner Bros. had an exceptionally close working relationship with General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, Chief, United States Army Air Force; during the war, it was officially the US Army Air Force; but everyone called it the Air Force, hence the name of the famous film Air Force. Warner Bros. released more war pictures than any other studio.26

Hollywood’s War Films: I’ll Being Seeing You Some of the memorable Hollywood films with war themes included: Across the Pacific ; Action in the North Pacific ; Air Force; Bataan; Bombardier ; Casablanca (ranked as one of the American Film Institute’s top three movies); Crash Drive; Destination Tokyo; Guadalcanal Diary; Lifeboat ; Sahara; Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo; Wake Island ; etc. Hollywood also received governmental assistance in the filming of important war documentaries and their need for a steady flow of newsreels for their theaters.27 While the war films were immensely popular, many of the early ones were not realistic. Showing the bodies of dead G.I.s was prohibited in photographs or newsreels until Life magazine, in its September 20, 1943 edition, published the dead bodies of three G.I.s, which impacted Americans and strengthened their resolve to “stay calm and get even.”28 Eventually, the impact of newspaper, magazine articles, and newspaper and magazine photographs impacted how Hollywood portrayed the brutal nature of combat in Europe and the Pacific campaigns.

Those Who Served Many Hollywood stars including Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda served in the military. Gable, after the death of his wife Carol Lombard who was killed in an aircraft crash while on a War Bond

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drive, enlisted at the age of 41 in the Air Force (well beyond the draft age during the war). He attended Officers’ Candidate School (OTS), and he was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group in England to make films about aerial gunnery. However, he volunteered for combat duty, making five B-17 bombing missions over Germany. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. Herman Goering placed a bounty on Gable if he were captured by the Germans. Stewart also was in the Air Force, and he was a pilot before the war; and he flew 20 combat missions in the B-24 heavy bomber in Europe; and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal, and an Oak Leaf Cluster. Both Gable and Stewart were aware of the harsh fact that 75% of all bomber flight crews in Europe never made it pass their 15th mission. Fonda, along with Gable and Stewart, did not want to be in Hollywood war movies. At the age of 37, Fonda enlisted in the US Navy. Since he had attended two years of college at the University of Minnesota, he was eligible for OTS; however, he decided to be an enlisted serviceman, assigned to the Quartermaster School and then to a destroyer. He later applied to be an officer; and he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade. He served in the Pacific working on naval plans and air operations. He was awarded the Bronze Star; and he remained in the Naval Reserve with his good friend John Ford.29 By the “end of 1944, more than 6,000 Hollywood workers (about 25% of Hollywood’s total work force before the war), including 143 directors, had signed on for active duty… It was a sense of duty.”30 They were joined by a list of five great directors (John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, John Houston, and George Stevens) who made important documentaries about the war and their personal experiences. John Ford won Academy Awards, and he worked with William (“Wild Bill”) Donovan at the Office of Strategic Services in 1941 (the OSS; which became the Central Intelligence Agency after the war). Jack Ford served in the US Navy during the war; and he remained in the US Naval Reserve reaching the rank of Rear Admiral). He was wounded in the arm while filming The Battle of Midway (his Academy Winning documentary), and he was on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Ford always said he made westerns, but his contributions to the war efforts were very impressive.31

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Frank Capra enlisted as a Major in the Army Signal Corps; and his work on the “Why We Fight” series was very influential on the home front. He worked on The Battle of Russia and Know Your Enemy—Japan). William Wyler flew on the 25th and last mission of the famous B-17 heavy bomber (which was under heavy attack from the Germans during this flight) to record his great documentary film The Memphis Belle: The Story of a Flying Fortress). John Houston’s Report from the Aleutians; Tunisian Victory; and San Pietro; were considered works of art when they were released. George Stevens made the haunting documentary about the Nazi Concentration Camps. In addition, various production experts also served in the war, many making war training films.32

Other Movies Released During the War It was not easy for the studios during the war. Hollywood was frequently combative with the Breen Office about the production code and the OWI’s involvement in the film industry. The shortages of stars and production people were a serious problem. In addition, motion picture 35 mm film stock was heavily rationed; and there were severe restrictions on the amount of money a studio could allocate for sets. However, Hollywood helped boost morale and sell war bonds during the war. Hollywood was very successful in meeting these lofty goals while releasing 268 feature films between 1942 and 1945. Even with 16.5 million Americans in the US military, annual movie attendance between 1942–1945 averaged 85 million.33 Musicals were popular diversions for a nation in the throes of war fears, rationing, and concerns about friends and family members fighting on islands in the South Pacific and in the skies over Europe. During those years, Hollywood released some of its best films, including in 1942: Yankee Doodle Dandy (Warner Bros.; WB); For Me and My Gal (Metro); The Pride of the Yankees (RKO); in 1943: For Whom The Bell Tolls (Paramount); Stage Door Canteen (United Artists); in 1944: Meet Me in St. Louis (Metro); Since You Went Away (United Artists); Hollywood Canteen (WB); in 1945: The Bells of St. Mary’s (RKO); Spellbound

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(United Artists); Mildred Pierce (WB); Saratoga Trunk (WB); A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (20th Century Fox); and State Fair (20th Century Fox).34

The Hollywood Canteen and Bond Drives: A Dreamland of Stars To get stars and studio people more involved in the war effort, Hollywood created the legendary Hollywood Canteen in late 1942. The club provided food, dancing, and a pleasant diversion for military personnel either stationed near Los Angeles or waiting for deployment to Europe or the Pacific. An incredibly large number of film stars and musicians donated their time and effort to the Canteen including Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lauren Bacall, Count Basie, Les Brown, Cab Calloway, etc. @@Roy Rodgers rode his horse Trigger onto the Canteen’s stage to perform tricks. Servicemen danced with the film stars they watched on the silver screen when they were in high school; and G.I.s were served coffee, sandwiches, and cakes by famous radio and film personalities. The Hollywood Canteen raised $10,000 on opening night (charging non-military people $100 each) for the war bond drive. Bob Hope frequently broadcast his radio show at the Canteen; and Warner Bros. produced a film Hollywood Canteen with the Andrews Sisters singing three songs. By the time the Hollywood Canteen closed its doors, the stars distributed 6 million pieces of cake and 9 million cups of coffee; and the canteen made money, giving its final $500,000 surplus to veteran relief funds.35 In addition the stars went on nationwide bond tours.

Conclusion Hollywood did its best to market the war and help the nation get through the conflict in spite of what many studio people believed were stringent, unrealistic wartime restrictions, cost restrictions, and the impact of rationing. Some studios executives complained they had to pay their

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theater employees when they were trained what to do in case of an air raid. Yet Hollywood’s war related efforts were laudable. However, during World War II, Hollywood reached new heights. The studios operated at full capacity, even in spite of a few labor strikes; and theater attendance surged. Movie theaters hosted more than 30,000 war bond drives; and often admission to the theater was free if an individual purchased a war bond. Hundreds of film and entertainment stars volunteered their time to sell war bonds and participate in numerous USO activities; and Hollywood made money. Total motion picture industry revenues grew from $740 million in 1940 and topped $1.45 billion in 1945 (an increase of 95.95%). Table 4.1 has the annual results. Yet there was a “dark side of the moon.” When the stars left a studio, the Brown Derby, and other bistros to talk to and dance with men in the service, far too many of the personalities volunteering at the Hollywood Canteen and working for the USO were haunted by the knowledge that some of the G.I.s they talked to would not return home to celebrate the end of the war on V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day; May 8, 1945) or V-J Day (Victory Over Japan Day; August 15, 1945).36 Table 4.1 Motion picture revenues: 1940–1945 Year

Total revenues

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

$740 million $810 billion $1.02 billion $1.28 billion $1.34 billion $1.45 billion

Source Finler, Joel. 1988. The Hollywood Story, 32. New York: Crown; Sterling, Christopher H., and Timothy R. Haight. 1978. The Mass Media, 188. New York: Praeger; Schatz, Thomas. 1999. Boom and Bust: America Cinema in the 1940s, vol. 6, 234. Berkeley: University of California Press; Schatz, Thomas. 1998. “The Genius of the System.” Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, 101. London: Faber & Faber

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The US Government and Music Confront the War Music is the most pervasive and fundamental of the entertainment industries, with deep roots back into the ancient world of Athens and Rome. Americans did not invent music or most of the musical instruments used in the war years; however, Americans played a major role in the history of music. Les Paul played a substantive role in its somewhat erratic history when he invented the acoustic-electric guitar.37 Thomas Edison invented the modern phonograph in 187738 ; radio was launched in this nation in 1920; and Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer in 1927. These three developments, along with the creation of the important sheet music industry in the nineteenth century (influenced by the wide acceptance of lithography as a useful printing technology),39 musical bands, and concerts positioned the United States as an important center of music.

The Music Industry’s Basic Business Model “Phonographs, the objects on which sounds are recorded” received copyright protection in 1909 when the US Copyright law was amended. However, it took years before the record labels and copyright holders had an equitable royalty compensation system because of numerous business uncertainties related to the use of music in films and on the radio.39 Adding to the confusion about royalties was the emergence of retail music stores, an effective distribution network, a “consignment” policy (with “breakage” policies), a constant stream of new artists and song writers, steady improvements in quality, price declines, and influential record labels. In the years before and during the war, there were a small number of “major” labels, including: Columbia, Decca, EMI, and RCA.40 A realistic compensation model emerged in the years before the outbreak of the war. Royalties were based and paid on: recorded music sales (records); music played on the air, at concerts, in restaurants, etc.; music sheet publishing; synchronization fees (music on the radio and in films); and domestic licenses. In practical terms, a composer writes

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(creates) the music; tries to find a music publisher willing to publish the material; a publisher monitors and promotes the music via sheet music sales, records, etc.; and a royalty is collected and shared with the composer (or the copyright holder). Regardless where music is played, a royalty fee, as stipulated in 17 U.S.C., must (should) be collected.41 Before and during the war, music was also a hit driven business. Recording “stars” (e.g., Bing Crosby; the Andrews Sisters; the Dorsey brothers; Frank Sinatra) with proven track records were a relatively “safe” investment since they are more predictable than new acts. Marketing promotional budgets were pivotal and a major factor in the hit making process. However, the music business was one of the most uncertain and volatile of all of the entertainment formats, making the film industry look almost stable.42

The War, the Music Industry, and the Great American Songbook: “Blues in the Night” Unlike the motion picture industry, music escaped the rigors of an industry censorship code or an OWI manual. However, the OWI stressed the importance of keeping up morale, preferably with patriotic songs. While OWI had some limited success in its efforts, only about two dozen patriotic songs made the top of the influential Billboard lists. Perhaps the best example was Irving Berlin’s landmark song “God Bless America,” which was originally recorded by Kate Smith in 1938. Berlin, arguably America’s greatest songwriter, captured the spirit of his adopted country in what became Smith’s classic version; and her recording was re-released during the war, topping the charts. Berlin also wrote the hit Broadway show This Is the Army, which was turned into a motion picture.43 However, the years from the 1930s into the 1940s (and beyond) were a remarkable period. During these years, composers wrote a series of songs that comprise the bedrock of modern America music; and the era’s musical songs, generally called the great “American songbook,” captured the imagination of Americans at war and on the home front. Some of the monumental tune smiths, in addition to the highly influential Irving Berlin, included (in alphabetical order): Sammy Cahn (It’s Been a

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Long, Long Time; Saturday Night ); Hoagy Carmichael (Stardust ); Duke Ellington (Mood Indigo; It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing ); George and Ira Gershwin (My One and Only; S’ Wonderful; Porgy and Bess; Long Ago and Far Away); Jerome Kern (Ol Man River; Swing Time); Johnny Mercer (One For My Baby; Satin Doll , and Mercer, a very popular and successful singer, sold more than 12 million records); and Cole Porter (I Concentrate on You).44 Complementing these writers were a number of popular singers and musicians, including: Bing Crosby (with top hits between 1942–1945); The Ink Spots; Ella Fitzgerald; Doris Day; The Andrews Sisters; and the big bands of the era, including: Glen Miller (before he enlisted in the Air Force, Miller had top ten songs on the charts in 1941–1943); Harry James; Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey; and Les Brown.45 Many of the popular songs that reached the charts during the war tended to emphasize sentimental songs, many of which had poignant and in some instances haunting lyrics including: We’ll Meet Again; I’ll Being Seeing You; Sentimental Journey; A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square; There Are Such Things; I’ll Be Seeing You; I’ll Walk Along; Till the End of Time; White Cliffs of Dover; The Last Time I Saw Paris. In addition, there were hundreds of upbeat songs (e.g., I’ve Got A Gal in Kalamazoo; Pistol Packing Mama; Swinging on a Star; Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive; and songs from Broadway musicals were positive including Oklahoma (this was the first Broadway show to use songs to develop and extend the plot). There were many “war themed” songs that were not in the patriotic genre (e.g., American Patrol; Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy; G.I. Jive).46

Music Entertainment and the US Military In addition to a tremendous outpouring of songs on records and the radio, the music industry also contributed directly to the war effort. The armed services-maintained orchestras or bands to entertain military personnel.47 The music industry worked with the United Service Organizations (always called the USO) providing music for dances and camp shows. Dozens of musical artists volunteered for various USO tours, including: Bing Crosby, Artie Shaw, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, and Frank

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Sinatra. The USO hosted more than 400,000 performances for those in the service.48 A leader in USO tours was Bob Hope. Sam Lebovic remarked that “in the summer of 1944, Bob Hope hopped from island to island in the South Pacific to entertain the troops. It was an emotional, as well as dangerous, journey for Hope and his colleagues. He logged over 30,000 miles and gave more than 150 performances. Accompanying Hope on the trip were guitarist Tony Romano, singer Frances Langford, dancer Patty Thomas, and gag-writer Barney Dean.”49 Another important music contribution was the “V-Disc” [the Victory Disc]. Starting a few months after the nation entered the war, the Armed Services Radio Service (ASRS) sent V-Discs, which were 33 rpm vinyl transcription disks, to military personnel. A popular V-Disc was Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” (V-Disc 441B), sung by Bing Crosby.50 The Library of Congress archives contain detailed information about the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS; when television became popular, the LOC changed its name to include television). During the war, the ASRS provided radio programs “to service members and families overseas. It obtains informational and entertainment radio programs from commercial networks and syndicators or specially produces them and distributes them to stations and outlets around the globe. The Library has more than 300,000 electrical transcription discs from 1942, [when the ASRS organization began] through 1998 when the service stopped distributing hard copies of its programming. Hundreds of musical, educational, and dramatic programs are included in the collection; news broadcasts and local programs are not.”51

Conclusion Music was important during the war because of songs on radios and in motion pictures and, equally important, the availability of sheet music used in homes or institutional use. The Army and Navy maintained bands to entertain the troops not near a USO or a camp show. And

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hundreds of musicians and musical entertainers volunteered their time and talents to boost morale at home and in dangerous war zones. Musicians and singers served in the military during the war, including Les Paul and John Coltrane. A future star, Tony Bennett, saw combat in Europe. Perhaps the most famous musician to serve was Captain Glenn Miller. Miller enlisted in the Air Force (the Navy turned him down), managed the Army Air Force Band, and he conducted the “Sustain the Wings” radio show. Miller was killed (officially listed as “Missing in Action;” MIA) while flying from England to France on December 15, 1944.52 During World War II, singers and musicians served and died in the war. But the great “American Songbook’s” melodies lingered on. Today the Sirius XM satellite radio network devotes channels to the music of this era, including a 1940s channel and the popular Seriously Sinatra channel which plays songs by Jo Stafford, Ella Fitzgerald, and Doris Day.

The US Government and Book Publishers Confront the War In 1640, the first book printed and published The Bay Psalm Book in what is now the United States (it was in the British colony of Massachusetts). Its initial print run was about 1700 copies; and it was a success, selling out the complete print run. This religious book was the nation’s first “best seller.”53 Book printing and publishing was a robust industry in colonial America and during the Revolutionary and Federalist eras. A small cluster of Americans (mainly in the Boston-New York-PhiladelphiaVirginia region) had access to and read important books imported from England, France, and other European nations. Some of these European authors (e.g., John Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau), were known as the “philosophes;” and their theories about the “Enlightenment” impacted many colonists in America. For example, a number of the Founding Fathers, including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, often cited British law and the ideas of the “philosophes” when they debated ideas in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

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of the United States.54 So, certain philosophical books, as well as an understanding of British law, played a substantive role in the development of the nation and its early intellectual and legal framework. British law influenced the wording of the nation’s first copyright law in 1790, which was based on the British Statute of Anne.55

Basic Business Model: Before and During the War During its long history, many book publishing houses operated on tight margins. John Tebbel, the historian of the US book publishing industry, remarked that “in 1928, the $3.00 novel had become an established fact…” But the impact of the Great Depression saw a decline in new title output (in 1928: 10,354 new titles; 1934: 8198; −20.82%). According to Tebbel, novel prices also declined from $3.00 to between $2.00 and $2.50.56 Because of the Depression, book publishing became a consignment business; copies of a book, perhaps a new work by Christopher Morley, that did not sell could be returned to the publisher for a full refund (most publishers today still employ a consignment system). In addition, book publishing labored under the book trade’s code created by the New Deal’s National Relief Administration (NRA) guidelines.57 Yet in spite of dreadful business conditions during the Great Depression, the industry survived. Editors continued to review manuscripts (mms.). If a manuscript looked promising, an editor offered a contract to the author; and the terms and conditions often contained “boilerplate” language (i.e., items found in almost every contract) regarding: an advance (a must for some authors during the depression), royalty payments (rarely lavish), a multi-book deal (available only for the most successful of authors; perhaps Ernest Hemingway), etc. An interesting example was Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a best-seller in 1939. The publisher’s sales representatives (before the war, all of them were men) called on the small number of bookstores trying to convince the owner to buy, perhaps ten or twenty copies at a discount off the book’s suggested retail price (SRP; discount rate were closely guarded by publishers then and today). The bookseller determined the book’s actual

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selling price. For example, Macy’s sold Gone With the Wind (known in the book trade as GWTW ) for only $1.84.58 The Book of the Month Club (BOMC) was created in 1926 by Harry Scherman in New York City. BOMC was a book subscription service providing books to individuals who lacked access to a bookstore. BOMC’s membership lists were sizable, making it a major book distribution channel before and after the war. Publishers talked with BOMC about selecting a title, perhaps John Gunther’s Inside Asia, as the club’s main selection in a specific month.59 Another revenue stream for book publishers was Hollywood. If a studio optioned and then produced and distributed a film version of a book, perhaps Rebecca, book sales could increase sharply, which is what happed for Rebecca. Other very successful motion pictures based on books before and during the war included The Grapes of Wrath, The Song of Bernadette, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Guadalcanal Diary, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Throughout the history of the United States, and certainly just before and during war, book publishers released books in three major categories: trade, educational, and scholarly and professional. Trade books were the first and largest category, and they included: adult, juvenile and children’s, and religious. These books were hardcover fiction and nonfiction books. A very small number of paperbacks were available with the introduction of Pocket Books in 1939. The second book category comprised hardcover educational books in two subcategories: K-12 textbooks (i.e., Kindergarten to Grade 12); and higher education (college) textbooks. The third and generally the smallest category included hardcover scholarly and professional hardcover books published by university presses (e.g., Oxford) and commercial scholarly and professional publishers (e.g., John Wiley). They included: scientific, technical, and medical books; titles in the humanities and the social sciences; and legal, tax, and regulatory books. Trade books, and especially fiction books and a cluster of nonfiction titles, were the most successful titles in terms of new title output and sales revenues. America was then, and remains today, a “hit driven best seller” nation; and publishers and editors were always looking for the next successful bestselling author, in essence another Richard

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Llewellyn (author of How Green Was My Valley), A. J. Cronin (The Keys of the Kingdom), or Lloyd C. Douglas (The Robe). Bestseller revenues supported the sales of books that “underperformed” financially on a list.60 A significant number of book publishers were launched in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. was founded in 1807 during the administration of Thomas Jefferson. However, John Tebbel wrote that, in 1940, there were a small cluster of “major” trade book publishing firms that comprised what were called the “old houses.” These houses were: Doubleday & Co., Macmillan, Harper & Row, Alfred A. Knopf, E. P. Dutton, Henry Holt, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Random House, Viking Penguin, Simon & Schuster, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Houghton Mifflin, Little, Brown, Charles Scribner’s Sons, Dodd, Mead & Co., World Publishing, and Prentice Hall. They published hard cover books not paperbacks. Paperbacks were produced in the nineteenth century into the early part of the twentieth century; but they were rather small in title output and revenues before 1939.61 Many of these old houses released some of the greatest novels in the history of the United States. The Charles Scribner’s Sons (established in 1846) book list included some of the literary giants of the twentieth century: F. Scot Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Unfortunately, the channels of book distribution were, at best, rather haphazard in the 1930s. The total number of retail establishments selling books remained small. Kenneth C. Davis wrote that, in 1931, books were sold in about “five hundred or so legitimate bookstores… Thus, only half of the books produced by American book publishers sold more than twenty-five hundred copies. The Book of the Month Club, founded in 1926, and other book clubs took up some of the slack and could reach hundreds of thousands of readers.” To Davis, America in the years during and after the Great Depression was a vast literary wasteland since most of the small number of bookstores were located in the nation’s 12 largest cities (primarily New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC); 66% of American counties lack any bookstore.62 A successful book provided the working capital to sign a new author, pay employees, and cover the always escalating costs of printing, paper,

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and binding. However, “more than 180 million books were printed in the United States in 1939…”63 This meant that far too many books were destined to be returned to or never shipped from the publisher’s warehouse.

During the War: Reading Habits Changed In spite of business and distribution issues, publishers were optimistic. In 1939 Simon & Schuster’s Richard L. Simon, M. Lincoln Schuster, and Leon Shimkin, along with Robert de Graff, launched their new Pocket Books imprint, a mass-market paperback series. The initial Pocket Books’ list included ten titles, including fiction reprints (James Hilton’s Lost Horizons; Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights) and a juvenile title (Felix Salten’s Bambi).64 Louis Menand, writing in The New Yorker about “Pulp’s Big Moment,” described the impact Pocket Books had on American reading habits. It was not just the paperback business model of inexpensive (25 cents), portable, and lively titles; it was the Pocket Books distribution strategy. “Bookstores were clustered in big cities, and many were really gift shops with a few select volumes for sale. Publishers sold a lot of their product by mail order and through book clubs…There were, however, more than seven thousand newsstands, eighteen thousand cigar stores, fifty-eight hundred drugstores, and sixty-two thousand lunch counters, not to mention train and bus stations…”65 So, Pocket Books’ distribution strategy was to: focus on this cluster of eclectic retail establishments; place their titles into these establishments at attractive discounted prices; and promote aggressively the product. In essence, Pocket Books utilized the basic “4 Ps” strategy: product, price, placement, and distribution to impact dramatically the book industry in the United States just before the war and in the following decades. In 1939–1940 publishers released 21,968 new books and new editions (1940 total was +6.47% over 1939). Unfortunately, the impact of the war impacted negatively these publishers; they sustained a steep decrease in the number of important editors, publishers, and sales personnel. They also faced the severe rationing of paper and oil-based printing inks.66

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Table 4.2 New book title output Year

Total

New book

New editions

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

10,640 11,328 11,112 9525 8325 6970 6548 7735

9015 9515 9337 7786 6764 5807 5386 6170

1625 1813 1775 1739 1551 1163 1162 1565

Source U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, 808. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colo nial-1970.html

Between 1942–1946, these houses suffered an −18.79% in the output of new books and new editions. Table 4.2 has the data. While fiction titles tended to dominate book sales in the years before the war, nonfiction books by major authors were popular in 1939– 1941, including bestsellers by Edna Ferber’s A Peculiar Treasure , Oscar Levant’s A Smattering of Ignorance, Winston S. Churchill’s Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Clifton Fadiman’s Reading I’ve Liked . Once America entered the war, new nonfiction themes emerged. Some dealt with the war including Marion Hargrove’s See Here, Private Hargrove, W. L. White’s They Were Expendable (made into a 1945 film by John Ford), and Richard Tregaskis’s Guadalcanal Diary (turned into a 1943 movie). Yet more humorous books made the bestseller lists including Bob Hope’s I Never Left Home. Many readers wanted books with more “substantial” themes or issues, which explained the successes of Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough’s Our Hearts Were Young and Gay or Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s Cross Creek. In spite of the war and its impact, the US book publishing industry continued to sell books to Americans looking for information, entertainment, or inspiration. But some book industry publishers failed to understand that the US Government’s decision to supply free paperbacks to US military personnel would change the fabric of publishing for the next seventy-five years.67

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The War “Saved” the US Book Industry During the Depression, many Americans dropped out of school, often in the 8th grade, in order to work and help support their families. While many Americans read newspapers, magazines, and books, many did not. The US Army had to process the largest number of recruits between 1940–1945; and General George C. Marshall and his staff were concerned about the educational and reading levels of individuals who enlisted or were drafted. The following is a report prepared by the Army addressing some of these issues. “The development of the US Army in World War II was hampered by the poor quality of education received by potential soldiers… A military force of sufficient size and fighting capability would have to be forged from the stock of young men born in the good times of the 1920s and toughened during the nearly decade-long Great Depression…”68 To address this concern the Army and the other armed service initiated educational training programs for: individuals who lacked literacy; and for recruits who had skills or some higher education training. While recruits were kept busy during and after basic training, there were periods of free time, the services were concerned about the negative impact of boredom as well as certain questionable activities among many recruits (including gambling and drinking). In a stroke of genius, in 1943 the services decided to provide free paperbacks to every member of the US military to keep them busy. The hope was that reading would minimize the impact of boredom, help get their minds away from the horrors of war, and help educate, inform, and entertain the troops.69 The War Department entered into contracts with about 70 book publishers. These publishers created the Council on Books in Wartime (CBW). The CBW launched the famous and exceptionally important Armed Services Editions (ASEs) program. Backlist titles (i.e., not a new book on a publisher’s list but a previously published title from the publisher’s backlist) were scrutinized carefully by the CBW but not by the War Department or any of the services. This meant there was no governmental or military censorship of any ASE book. So, CBW alone deemed that certain titles were unsuitable for military personnel; and they were rejected for the ASE series.

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The CBW also made sure that every ASE was small enough to fit into a G.I.’s pocket; and these books were saddle-stitched (i.e., stapled) rather than the traditional perfect binding (i.e., glued) system so they would not fall apart in hot, humid climates in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Unit manufacturing costs were contained, costing about 10 cents each to produce.70 Titles selected by CBW included popular fiction genres (westerns were always well received by G.I.s) and quiz books. However, serious literary books were included on the ASE list, including Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. Many out of print (OP) books were selected; and one of the more famous OP titles was The Great Gatsby, which was out of print in 1940 when F. Scott Fitzgerald died. More than 150,000 of this title was printed in the ASE series, prompting the perceptive Ian Ballentine to publish it when Ian created Bantam Books in the Summer of 1945.71 Erin Allen at the Library of Congress wrote that “when books went to war, many American soldiers and sailors discovered the joy of reading. Between 1943 and 1947, nearly 123 million copies of flat, wide and easily pocketable paperbacks were distributed by Army and Navy Library Services—free of charge—to US service members around the world… A total of 1324 titles were published in the series. The Library of Congress holds one of only a few complete sets that survive today….”72 It is estimated that 122,951,031 copes of the ASEs were produced; manufacturing costs (printing, paper, and binding) cost about 10 centers per copy for a total of $12,295,105.10. CBW paid a royalty of 1 cent per copy; and the publishers were paid $1,229,510.31. While some of the books were not covered by any copyright law (e.g., Shakespeare), certain authors, or their estates, shared in what was a windfall.73 But the publishers and authors had no way of knowing that the ASEs sparked an interest in reading books that continued into peacetime; and that the appeal of the paperback ASEs would trigger what become known as the “paperbacking” of America.

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Entertainment in Bay Head During the War Residents of small towns went to movies almost weekly during the war; and men, women, and children in Bay Head, NJ loved to go to the town’s movie house The Lorraine. It was a rather small theater on Bridge Street in an old wooden building; and it was typical of the thousands of theaters in small American towns. It was an important community gathering place where the tribulations of the war could be forgotten for 120 minutes. The Lorraine was a privately owned theater. It exhibited films generally several weeks after a motion picture’s first run was over. Ticket prices at the Lorraine, according to Charles Tillson an usher at the small theater, was about 10 cents during the war years. The Lorraine showed cartoons, newsreels, and a diverse number of films. Westerns were always successful hits by residents of all ages including John Ford’s Stagecoach. The Andy Hardy movies were popular because of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland; and the Tarzan films always well received. Children loved seeing the re-issue of Disney’s Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs; and sentimental films filled the theater during the war including Mrs. Miniver . Of course, war movies were exhibited at The Lorraine including the immensely successful Casablanca, Air Force, and John Ford’s They Were Expendable. The Lorraine remained a movie “palace” for a number of years after the end of the war; it was later converted into a series of small shops; it was destroyed in a hurricane in 2012; and the magnificent Charley’s of Bay Head restaurant was built on the theater’s former site. Before the war, residents listened to music on records, on the radio, at home, or in Curtis’s Central Market. Uplifting songs were always popular during the war in Bay Head. But the mood was dark in 1942–1943 because of wartime setbacks; and some of the songs that people listened to in the A & P on Main or Mueller’s on Bridge reflected that sentiment including Bing Crosby’s evocative I’ll Be Seeing You, Dinah Shore’s I’ll Walk Alone, and Perry Como’s Till the End of Time. People in Bay Head, as in countless thousands of small towns, read hardcover fiction and nonfiction books from the local libraries and especially the selections from the BOMC for entertainment and inspirational

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reasons. Some of the popular titles in this small town included Christopher Morley’s Kitty Foyle, Ernie Pyle’s Here Is Your War (Pyle was a famous war correspondent killed during the war), and Bennett Cerf ’s Try and Stop Me. Bay Head had a number of churches during the war, and books with religious themes were popular, including Lloyd C. Douglas’ The Robe and John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano. So, people in this small NJ town, and throughout the United States, always thought about loved ones in the service, the recently returned wounded G.I. who used to deliver packages for the drug store on Main, or the neighbor who moved to another town in NJ to work in a factory making war supplies. But sitting in The Lorraine and watching Humphrey Bogart confronting the Germans in Casablanca (killing Major Strasser which always generated a hearty applause from the audience) provided moments of relief and encouragement to the mothers at home trying to grow a Victory Garden in a hot August with low rainfall or put food on the table while working with a convoluted rationing system.

Notes 1. Channel Thirteen. “The Early History of Motion Pictures.” https://www. pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pickford-early-history-motionpictures. 2. Schatz, Thomas. 1998. “The Genius of the System.” Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, 14–159. London: Faber & Faber. Also see Thomas, Bob. 1994. Walt Disney: An American Original , 67–120. Glendale, CA: Disney Editions. 3. Finler, Joel W. 1998. The Hollywood Story, 40, 364–367. New York: Crown. 4. Gomery, Douglas. 1980. “Rethinking U.S. Film History: The Depression Decade and Monopoly Control.” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 19 (2) (May): 6–11. Also see Litman, Barry R. 1998. The Motion Picture Industry, xi–21. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 5. National Association of Theater Owners (NATO). “Average Annual Ticket Prices.” https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price. Also see Fuller,

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7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

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Kathryn H. 1996. At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture, 34–159. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. De Vany, Arthur, and W. David Walls. 1996. “Bose-Einstein Dynamics and Adaptive Contracting in the Motion Picture Industry.” The Economic Journal 106 (439) (November): 493. Debruge, Peter. “With One Line, William Goldman Taught Hollywood Everything It Needed to Know.” Variety. https://variety.com/2018/ film/opinion/william-goldman-dies-appreciation-1203030781. “William Goldman, the Oscar-winning writer of screenplays for ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ … coined the best line in the history of Hollywood, and it wasn’t even for one of his movies. ‘Nobody knows anything.’ If you work in this business — and Goldman was clear-eyed about the fact that the film industry is an industry first, where art and ideas must serve the bottom line, or perish— it’s worth getting those three words tattooed on your forearm. Or cross-stitched onto a throw pillow for your agent’s couch….” Bakker, Gerben. 2003. “Entertainment Industrialized: The Emergence of the International Film Industry, 1890–1940,” Enterprise & Society 4 (4) (December): 579–585. National Association of Theater Owners (NATO). “Average Annual Ticket Prices.” https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price. Also see Variety. “Opening the Variety Vault.” https://variety.com/2010/biz/news/openingthe-variety-vault-1118024050. Variety is one the nation’s preeminent entertainment daily newspapers. Access to this unbelievable collection of 105 years of Variety articles require an annual subscription of $600.00. Because of Variety’s restrictions, the actual web site with access codes were not listed in this citation. Supreme Court of the United States. “Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio.” 236 U.S. 230. https://supreme.justia.com/ us/236/230/case.html. Also see Jowett, Garth S. 1989. “‘A Capacity for Evil:’ The 1915 Supreme Court Mutual Decision.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 9 (1): 59–78; John Wertheimer. 1993. “Mutual Film Reviewed: The Movies, Censorship, and Free Speech in Progressive America.” American Journal of Legal History 37 (2): 158–189; The Constitution of the United States. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/con stitution-transcript. Supreme Court of the United States. “Joseph Burnstyn, Inc. v. Wilson;” 343 U.S. 495. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/343/495.

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12. Erickson, Mary P. 2010. “In the Interest of the Moral Life of Our City: The Beginning of Motion Picture Censorship in Portland, Oregon.” Film History: An International Journal 22 (2): 148–169. 13. Willen-Keller, Laura. 2008. Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 35–111. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 14. Mondello, Bob. “Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 Years On.” https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189. Also see Springhall, J. 1998. “Censoring Hollywood: Youth, Moral Panic, and Crime/Gangster Movies of the 1930s.” Journal of Popular Culture 32 (3): 135–154. 15. Doherty, Thomas. 2007. Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration, 6–7, 11, 77–96. New York: Columbia University Press. 16. Ibid., 97–120, 123–151. 17. The American Film Institute. “The 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.” https://www.afi.com/afis-100-years-100-movies. Also see Feffer, Mary Gertina. “American Attitude Toward World War II During the Period From September 1838 to December 1941.” https://ecommons. luc.edu/luc_theses/997; Berinsky, Adam J., Eleanor Neff Powell, Eric Schickler, and Ian Brett Yuhai. 2011. “Revisiting Public Opinion in the 1930s and 1940s.” PS: Political Science and Politics 44 (3) (July): 515– 520; Frost, Jennifer. 2010. “Dissent and Consent in the ‘Good War:’ Hedda Hooper, Hollywood Gossip, and World War II Isolationism.” Film History: An International Journal 22 (2): 170–181; Welky, David. 2009. The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II , 113–177, 213–347. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 18. The Sherman Antitrust Law and the Clayton Antitrust Act. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a federal statute which prohibits activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace. The Sherman Act was amended by the Clayton Act in 1914. The Sherman Act is codified in 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–38. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ sherman_antitrust_act. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, codified at 15 U.S.C. 12–27, outlaws the following conduct: price discrimination; conditioning sales on exclusive dealing; mergers and acquisitions when they may substantially reduce competition; and serving on the board of directors for two competing companies. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/ clayton_antitrust_act. Hollywood was correct. While the Department of Justice did not initiate any antitrust actions against Hollywood during the war, it did pursue antitrust actions against the studio ownership of theaters

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

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in the “Paramount Consent Decree.” “The Paramount case and the resulting decrees significantly altered the structure of the motion picture industry. First, the Supreme Court ordered, and the decrees mandate a separation between film distribution and exhibition by requiring the five defendants that then owned movie theatres to divest either their distribution operations or their theatres. Going forward, the decrees prohibited those defendants from both distributing movies and owning theatres without prior court approval. Second, the Supreme Court and the decrees outlawed various motion picture distribution practices including block booking (bundling multiple films into one theatre license), circuit dealing (entering into one license that covered all theatres in a theatre circuit), resale price maintenance (setting minimum prices on movie tickets), and granting overbroad clearances (exclusive film licenses for specific geographic areas)…” Paramount, 334 U.S. 131 (1948). https://www.jus tice.gov/atr/paramount-decree-review. The National Archives. Records of the Office of War Information. Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry. https://www.arc hives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/208.html. Ibid.; the manual was not paginated. So, page numbers will be assigned to the quotes; the cover page will be number 1; this quote was from page 2. Ibid.; Section I, 4–6. Ibid., 10, 12. Ibid., 13–49. Koppes, Clayton R., and Gregory D. Black. 1990. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies, vii–viii. Berkeley: University of California Press. Also see Rollins, Peter C. 1997. “America, World War II, and the Movies: An Annotated Booklist.” Film & History: An International Journal of Film and Television Studies 27 (1–4): 96–107. Thomson, David. 2004. The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood , 200– 201. New York: Vintage. Cunningham, Douglas. 2005. “Imaging/Imagining Air Force Identity: ‘Hap’ Arnold, Warner Bros., and the Formation of the USAAF First Motion Picture Unit.” The Moving Image 5 (1) (Spring): 95–124. The National Archives. “A Reel Story of World War II,” https: www.arc hives.gov/publications/prologue/2015/fall/united-newsreels.html. Also see Wanger, Walter. 1943. “OWI and Motion Pictures.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1) (Spring): 100–110. Larsen, Cedric. 1948. “The Domestic Picture Work of the Office of War Information.” Hollywood Quarterly 3

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29.

30.

31.

32.

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(4) (Summer): 434–443; Girona, Ramon. 2010. “From the ‘Strategy of Truth’ to the ‘Weapon of Truth:’ The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry, 1942.” Public Relations Review 36 (3) (September): 306–309; Hunter, Jefferson. 2014. “Pictures and Motion Pictures in the 1940s.” The Hopkins Review 7 (1) (Winter): 93–111. Also see Slocum, J. David. 2005. “Cinema and the Civilizing Process: Rethinking Violence in World War II Combat Films.” Cinema Journal 44 (3) (Spring): 35–63. Also see Jamieson, John. 1947. “Censorship and the Soldier.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 11, 3 (Autumn): 367– 384; Friedrich, Otto. 1986. City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s, 15–24, 92–154. New York: Harper & Row; Rare Historical Photos. “Three Dead Americans Lie on the Beach at Buna 1943.” https://rarehi storicalphotos.com/three-dead-americans-buna-1943. The National World War II Museum. Actors in Uniform: From Lieutenant Henry Fonda to Mister Roberts. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/ war/articles/actors-uniform-lieutenant-henry-fonda-mister-roberts. Also see Wise, James E., and Paul W. Wilderson. 2000. Stars in Khaki: Movie Actors in the Army and Air Services, 151–199. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. Anon. “The War Years.” DGA Quarterly Magazine. https://www.dga.org/ Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1004-Winter-2010-11/Features-The-War-Years. aspx. DGA is the Directors Guild of America, which represents motion picture directors. Ibid., also see Waller, Douglas. 2011. Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, 93, 204, 214, 326, 331, 383. New York: Free Press. Anon. “The War Years.” DGA Quarterly Magazine. https://www.dga.org/ Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1004-Winter-2010-11/Features-The-War-Years. aspx. Also see Bianculli, David. “During World War II, Even Filmmakers Reported for Duty.” https://www.npr.org/2017/03/31/522175483/dur ing-world-war-ii-even-filmmakers-reported-for-duty; Wexman, Virginia Wright. 2020. Hollywood’s Artists: The Directors Guild of America and the Construction of Authorship, 98–127. New York: Columbia University Press; Valle, Orvelin. “5 Hollywood Directors Who Served and Filmed Real Wars.” https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2015/02/5-hollyw ood-directors-who-served-and-filmed-real-wars; Eyman, Scott. 1999. Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford , 229–268. New York: Simon & Schuster; Gallagher, Tag. 1986. John Ford: The Man and His Films, 190–218. Berkeley: University of California Press; Schoenberger, Nancy.

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35.

36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

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2017. Wayne and Ford: The Films, The Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero, 58, 63, 127–128. New York Doubleday. Thomson, David. The Whole Equation, 201. The National World War II Museum. “World War II and Popular Culture.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/world-war-iiand-popularculture. Also see Cramer Bronwell, Kathryn. 2019. “It Is Entertainment, and It Will Sell Bonds! 16 mm Film and the World War II Bond Drive.” The Moving Image 10 (2) (Fall): 60–82. For information about Alfred Hitchcock’s war themes movies, see an excellent book by Spoto, Donald. 1992. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, 128–134 New York: Anchor; Wood, Michael. 2015. Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much, 51–68. New Haven: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; The National World War II Museum. “World War II and Popular Culture.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ world-war-ii-and-popular-culture. The National World War II Museum. “Hollywood Hospitality at the Hollywood Canteen.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ hollywood-hospitality-hollywood-canteen. Finler, Joel. 1988. The Hollywood Story, 32. New York: Crown; Sterling, Christopher H., and Timothy R. Haight. 1978. The Mass Media, 188. New York: Praeger; Schatz, Thomas. 1999. Boom and Bust: America Cinema in the 1940s, vol. 6, 234. Berkeley: University of California Press; Schatz, Thomas. 1998. “The Genius of the System.” Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, 101. London: Faber & Faber. NPR. “Guitar Hero: Les Paul, 1915–2009.” https://www.npr.org/templa tes/story/story.php?storyId=111888401. Hull, Geoffrey P. 1998. The Recording Industry, 28. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. “Historic American Sheet Music.” https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scr iptorium/sheetmusic/about.html. Hull. The Recording Industry, 201–219. Ibid., 220–221. Ibid., 46–72. Also see 17 U.S.C. https://www.copyright.gov/title17. PBS. “Irving Berlin.” http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/songbook/ multimedia/bio_berlin.html; Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin in Russia) came to the U.S. as a young child. He created the great American songbook with a staggering outpouring of great songs, including “White

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45.

46. 47. 48.

49.

50.

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Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No BusinessLike Show Business. Also see the Irving Berlin Website. https://www.irv ingberlin.com; Billboard. “All Charts: Greatest of All Time.” https://www. billboard.com/charts. This Billboard list requires a paid subscription to access their tremendous collection of song lists. The Great American Songbook Foundation. “What Is the Songbook?” https://wwwthesongbook.org. Also see The Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook.” http://wwwpreserveourgas.org; PBS. “Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook.” https://www.pbs.org/michaelfeinsteins-american-songbook; Bloom, Ken. 2005. The American Songbook: The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs, 27–135. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. Library of Congress. “Complete National Recording Registry Listing.” https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/ recording-registry/complete-national-recording-registry-listing. Also see Library of Congress. “Great American Depression and World War II: Art and Entertainment in the 1930s and 1940s.” http://www.loc.gov/teachers/ classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/dep wwii/art. Ibid. Fauser, Annegret. 2013. Sounds of War: Music in the United States During World War II . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Kathleen E. R. 1996. “‘Goodbye, Mamma. I’m Off to Yokohama:’ The Office of War Information and Tin Pan Alley in World War II;” LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses, iv–ix, 1–126. https://dig italcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6217. Also see Smith’s God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War, 72–124. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky; Winchell, Meghan K. 2008. Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses, 11–167. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; USO. “Our Proud History: Important Dates in USO History.” http://www.uso.org/whoweare/ourproudhistory/historicalti meline. The Library of Congress. “Bob Hope and American Variety on the Road: USO Shows.” https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/bobhope/uso.html. Also see Lebovic, Sam. 2013. “A Breadth from Home: Soldier Entertainment and the Nationalistic Politics of Pop Culture During World War II.” Journal of Social History 47 (2) (Winter): 263–296. Internet Archive. “V-Disc” [Victory Disc]. https://archive.org/details/V-dis cs1-991943-1944.

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51. Library of Congress. “Recorded Sound Section—Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.” https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ awhhtml/awrs9/afrts.html. Also, Fauser. Sounds of War: Music in the United States During World War II , 15–63, 135–177. 52. Library of Congress. “Glen Miller Reported Missing.” https://www.loc. gov/item/2006688316. Also see NPR. “Glen Miller.” https://www.npr.org/ artists/15198375/glenn-miller. 53. Greco, Albert N. 2015. The Economics of the Publishing and Information Industries: The Search for Yield in a Disintermediated World , 168. New York: Routledge. 54. Berman, Harold J. 1992. “The Impact of the Enlightenment on American Constitutional Law.” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 4 (2) (January). https://digitalcommons.law.edu/yjlh/vol4/iss2/5. Also see Reck, Andrew J. 1991. “The Enlightenment in American Law II: The Constitution.” The Review of Metaphysics 44 (4) (June): 729–754; Gay, Peter. 1995. The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism, vol. 1, 423–554. New York: W. W. Norton; “Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment.” https://www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello/lib erty-slavery/jefferson-and-enlightenment. 55. The United States Copyright Office. “Copyright Act of 1790.” https:// www.copyright.gov/about/1790-copyright-act.html. The 1790 U.S. copyright law was based on the British Statute of Anne (April 10, 1710); see Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/anne_1710.asp. 56. Tebbel, John. 1987. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of American Book Publishing, 275–279. New York: Oxford University Press. Also see U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, Part I, 808. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compen dia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2=chR.pdf?#. 57. Tebbel. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of American Book Publishing, 274–279, 281–294. 58. Ibid. Also see Tebbel. 1978. A History of Book Publishing in the United States, vol. 3. 459–464. New York: Bowker. 59. Tebbel. A History of Book Publishing in the United States, vol. 3, 287–486. Also see Radway, Janice A. 1997. A Feeling for Books: The Book-of -theMonth Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire, 23–119. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

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60. Greco, Albert N., Jim Milliot, and Robert M. Wharton. 2015. The Book Publishing Industry, 3rd edition, 1–31. New York: Routledge. 61. Tebbel. 1981. A History of Book Publishing in the United States, vol. 4, 105–278. New York: Bowker. Also see New York Public Library. “History of Books and Printing.” https://www.nypl.org/node/5632; Blumenthal, Joseph. 1977. The Printed Book in America, 26–144. Boston: David R. Godine; Kaestle, Carl F., et al. 1991. Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880, 45–199. New Haven: Yale University Press; Lehmann-Haut, Hellmutt, et al. 1952. The Book in America: A History of the Making and Selling of Books in the United States, 75–424. New York: Bowker; Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1971. Guide to the Study of United States Imprints, 67–144. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University. 62. Davis, Kenneth C. 1984. Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, 15–17, 69. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Also see Madrigal, Alexis C. “A Golden Age of Books? There Were Only 500 Real Bookstores in 1931.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/agolden-age-of-books-there-were-only-500-real-bookstores-in-1931/25830; OEDb. “12 Stats on the State of Bookstores in America Today.” https:// oedb.org/ilibrarian/12-stats-on-the-state-of-bookstores-in-america-today; Tebbel, John. 1987. Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of American Book Publishing, 21–64, 127–200, 228–271, 337–407. New York: Oxford University Press; Tebbel. 1981. A History of Book Publishing in the United States, Vol. IV: The Great Change 1940 –1980, 1–98, 347–412. New York: R.R. Bowker; Radway, Janice A. 1997. A Feeling for Books: The Book-of -the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire, 23–119. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Kappel, Joseph W. 1948. “Book Clubs and the Evaluation of Books.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 12 (2) (Summer): 243–253. 63. Louis Menand. “ Pulp’s Big Moment.” https://www.newyorker.com/mag azine/2015/01/05/pulps-big-moment. 64. Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, 37–55, 63–68, 79–82, 270– 276. Also see Al Silverman. 2008. The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Publishers, Their Editors, and Authors, 256–257. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 65. Menand. “Pulp’s Big Moment.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/ 2015/01/05/pulps-big-moment. 66. Cerf, Bennett. 2002. At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf , 188– 189. New York: Random House.

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67. Publishers Weekly (PW) has excellent best-seller lists for the years 1939– 1946. Access to their archives requires a subscription. For excellent information about best-sellers, see Korda, Michael. 2001. Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900 –1999, 73–97. New York: Barnes & Noble. 68. U.S. Army. “Education, Classification, and Military Strength: A look at the Development of the U. S. Army During World War II.” https://history.army.mil/events/ahts2015/presentations/seminar6/ sem6_MarkFry_text_ImpactOfEdLevels.pdf. Also see Palmer, Robert R., Bert I. Wiley, and William R. Keast. 1991. The Ground Forces: The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, United States Army in World War II , 2. Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army; Goldberg, Samuel. 1951. Army Training of Illiterates in World War II , 34. New York: Bureau of Publications, Columbia College; Bradley, Gladyce H. 1949. “A Review of Educational Problems Based on Military Selection and Classification Data in World War II.” The Journal of Educational Research 43 (3) (November): 161. 69. Jamison, John. 1945. “Books and the Soldier,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 9 (3) (Autumn): 320–332. 70. Newman, Caitlin. “Armed Services Editions: A Few Square Inches of Home.” https://www.historynet.com/armed-services-editions-a-few-squ are-inches-of-home.htm. Also see Loss, Christopher P. 2003. “Reading Between Enemy Lines: Armed Services Editions and World War II.” The Journal of Military History 67 (3) (July): 811–834. The ASEs were 5.5 inches to 6.5 inches long and from 3.87 inches to 4.5 inches high. The ASEs were stapled on the short side of the text rather than on the traditional the long side. The dimensions changed during the war because of the availability of printing presses. 71. Greco, Milliot, and Wharton. The Book Publishing Industry, 3rd edition, 109–111. Also see Maloney, Jennifer. “How Paperbacks Helped the U.S. Win World War II.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-paperback-bookshelped-the-u-s-win-world-war-ii-1416520226; Also see Manning, Molly Guptill. 2014. When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Win World War II , 139–140. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for a description of the CBW’s decisions to not use certain books in the ASE series. 72. Allen, Erin. “Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions.” The Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2015/09/books=in-actionthe-armed-services-editions.

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73. Applebaum, Yoni. “Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books During World War II.” https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/ publishers-gave-away-122951031-books-during-world-war-ii/339893. Also see Manning. When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Win World War II , 79–80; this book contains a list of every book in the ASE series. Also see Hench, John B. 2010. Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II , 19–131. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

5 The Impact of Wartime Cooperative Relationship Between the US Government and the Media and Entertainment Industries on American Society and Consumers

Abstract Every aspect of American society was affected by World War II, including the economic structure of the nation along with advertising, radio, newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, music, and trade books. After the end of the war, television emerged as a powerful entertainment format. What was the state of the US economy in the immediate postwar years? How did the media and entertainment formats emerge from the war? What problems did they confront after the war? This chapter addresses many of the key economic issues, including the Gross Domestic Product, unemployment, the population, Domestic Consumer Expenditures, and inflation. In addition, the industries listed above are analyzed in terms of their resiliency to confront new business challenges once hostilities ended. Keywords Advertising · Atomic bomb · Books · Bretton Woods · Hollywood · Magazines · Motion pictures · Music · Newspapers · Paperback books · Postwar · Radio · Roosevelt · Television · Truman · V-E Day · V-J Day

© The Author(s) 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3_5

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Euphoria Euphoria swept the United States when President Harry S. Truman announced that May 8, 1945 would be “V-E Day” (Victory in Europe Day). V-E Day marked the formal acceptance by the Allies of Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces.1 Yet as soon as Americans realized the war was over in Europe, many citizens understood the harsh reality that the war in the Pacific was far from over.2 The entire apparatus of the US government continued to work with the media and entertainment industries to provide war information and to continue to boost morale. On August 6, 1945, Truman announced that a new bomb, sometime called the “Atomic Bomb,” had been dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, destroying large parts of that city. Americans had no idea what made this bomb so powerful; or, for that matter, how the US military developed this bomb. Three days later, Truman announced that a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, leveling large swatches of that.3 Six days later, on August 15, 1945, the President announced “VJ Day” (Victory Over Japan Day). On September 2, 1945, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri. World War II was now over.4 Citizens in the United States, including the residents of Bay Head, NJ, celebrated this victory.

Americans Asked, “What Happened?” During the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 1945, and throughout 1946, Americans stopped and pondered their victory; but they were haunted by questions. How did we win the war? How did the US military sustain such horrible casualties, in Europe and on those islands in the Pacific, and then end the war with just two bombs? What happened? As it turned out, a lot happened, and much of it was hidden from the entire US population. First, the US Government supported an expansion in scientific research under the auspices of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). Scientific research led to the development of

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radar, and the B-29 Super Fortress (that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan). New “wonder drugs” were created, penicillin was mass produced (saving the lives of countless G.I.s), quinine substitutes to fight malaria were developed, effective insecticides were developed, etc.5 In addition, the “Manhattan Project,” was created. It was under the leadership of General Leslie M. Groves and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer; and they created the atomic bombs.6 Second, the government strengthened the operations of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) under the leadership of William “Wild Bill” Donovan. The OSS conducted secret missions behind enemy lines.7 Third, there was an international economic conference, known as the Bretton Wood Conference (however, it was officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference) held between July 1st and July 22nd, 1944 in Bretton Woods, NH. About 730 delegates from all 44 of the Allied nations met to create and regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of the war. The members agreed to create the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the conference received some media coverage, the vast majority of Americans paid little or no attention to the conference that played a substantive role in international economics after the end of hostilities.8

Marketing World War II Business historians also asked what happened? What role did marketing by the US Government, working with the media and entertainment industries, play in winning the war on the home front and on the battlefield? What does victory really mean for America and the media and entertainment industries? What is the future of the United States and the media and entertainment industries after 1945 in a world dominated by the United States? These were, in reality, complex questions. The radio, newspapers, magazines, and book publishers tried to gather all available information about the war, and its diverse developments, in order to create an understandable narrative explaining what happened. But it would take

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months, and in reality years, before all, or at least many, of the events and discoveries developed during the war could be revealed to the American public.

America After the End of the War First, the United States that emerged from the throes of World War II was different from what it had been in December 1941. While US casualties were horrendous, the US experienced, during the war, some semblance of “prosperity” even with inflation. The nation’s manufacturing plants operated at full capacity accounting for about half of the world’s total manufacturing output. This was remarkable since the total US population accounted for perhaps 7% of the world’s population.9 Second, in the months after the war ended, the United States allocated billions of dollars to help rebuild and prop up Western Europe’s economies and their defenses against what had emerged as a threatening Russia.10 Third, there were other significant non-military developments during the war. On June 22, 1944, FDR signed the “G.I. Bill” to assist veterans returning home to get an education or training. The G.I. Bill impacted higher education for decades as colleges and universities hired new faculty members, launched new undergraduate and graduate academic programs, and expanded their facilities.11 The war also impacted: the nation’s cultural institutions (including libraries, museums, and music concert halls); the social fabric of American institutions (notably religious, social, and volunteer organizations, especially in America’s small towns); and even the fashion industry (especially for women styles adapted to wartime conditions, especially what was worn in war production plants, the shortage of traditional fabrics, and the length of dresses (which were shorter during the war).12

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The Impact of the War on the US Economy While the war ended on September 2, 1945, the war had a dramatic impact on postwar America. A review of the important economic indicators revealed that the nation did not suffer through another depression. There were several recessions. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reported that the first one started in February 1945 and lasted until October 1945. The second recession began in November 1948 and ended in October 1949.13 When available, data for the years 1945–1949 will be included to provide an overarching view of postwar America. The nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) sustained a modest decline between 1945 and 1946 (−0.36%). However, it picked up in 1947 through 1949. Personal Consumption Expenditures posted strong gains between 1945 and 1949 (+48.75%). National Income was also up during those years (+19.77%). Many of these gains were attributable to the population increase (+6.62%), especially the “Baby Boom” that started in 1946. However, there were some dismal economic indicators. The total number of unemployed Americans surged 226.76% between 1945 and 1949. Fortunately, the unemployment rate never approached the tallies during the depths of the Great Depression. Table 5.1 had the totals for these years. During the war, the US Department of the Treasury worried about the insidious impact of inflation. While Treasury initiated a series of curbs to control inflation, after the war the nation and its citizens did experience several years of inflationary pressures. Table 5.2 lists these developments. US Government receipts declined sharply after the war (−12.91%). This was offset by demobilization, and total outlays dropped −58.11%, This meant that while deficits were posted for both 1945 and 1946, the Truman Administration actually achieved surpluses in 1947 through 1949. Table 5.3 has the statistical totals. Because of some semblances of postwar prosperity, the country experienced an increase in the total number of US households (+23.26%). Gains were reported in every region of the nation. Table 5.4 had these tallies.

$223.00 $222.20 $241.10 $269.10 $267.20

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

$120.00 $144.30 $162.00 $175.00 $178.50

$198.30 $198.6 $216.30 $242.60 $237.50

National income 139,928 141,389 144,126 146,631 149,188

Personal (thousands) 1040 2270 2140 2064 3395

Unemployment rate (thousands)

1.90 3.90 3.60 3.40 5.50

Unemployment percent of civilian labor force (%)

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Survey of Current Business.” https://bea.gov/scb/toc/ 0812cont.htm, 8, 183 and 203. Lebergott, Stanley. “Annual Estimates of Unemployment in the United States 1900–1954,” The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 216. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2644

GDP

Year

Population Consumption Expenditures

Table 5.1 The US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Personal Consumption Expenditures, National Income, and Unemployment Rates: 1945–1949 ($ Billions) (thousands of individuals)

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Table 5.2 Annual percent increases in the US Consumer Price Index: 1945–1949 Year

Annual percent change (%)

1945 1946 1947 1948

2.27 8.43 14.65 7.74

Source US Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/ opub/mir/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consimer-priceindex-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm

Table 5.3 US Government receipts. Outlays, and surplus or deficit ($ millions) Year

Receipts

Outlays

Surplus or deficit

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

$45,259 $39,296 $38,514 $41,560 $39,415

$92,712 $55,232 $34,496 $29,764 $38,835

−$47,553 −$15,936 $4018 $11,796 $580

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 1104. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

Table 5.4 US households (millions) Year

Total

Northeast

Midwest

South

West

1940 1950

37.4 46.1

10.3 12.1

11.6 13.7

10.9 13.7

4.7 6.7

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Devaney, F. John. Tracking the American Dream: 50 Years of Housing History from the Census Bureau 1940–1990. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/Publications/pdf/HUD-7775. pdf

The total number of radio stations increased between 1945–1949. While the AM stations grew an impressive 109.83%, the growth of FM stations (+1290.57%) threatened the hegemony achieved by AM stations during the war. The real threat was not FM; it was television. Television existed before World War II, but it was not a viable format because of the war. Once hostilities ended, it achieved impressive results in terms of the number of stations, television units sold, and households with a television set. Table 5.5 has the details. Evaluating the television years, it was

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Table 5.5 Radio and television industry statistics: 1945–1949 Number of commercial radio Year stations

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

AM

FM

956 1215 1795 2034 2006

53 511 918 1020 737

Number of commercial television stations Number of sets

Number of households with radio

Television Produced in Television Sets in radio thousands sets thousands 9 30 66 108 69

N/A 15,955 20,000 16,500 11,400

N/A 6 179 975 3000

33,100 33,998 35,900 37,623 39,300

N/A 8 14 172 940

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 796. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

apparent that by 1949–1950 and 1951–1952 television’s market penetration was exceptionally impressive, with 22.1% of American households by 1950–1951 having a television set. Table 5.6 had data for these two television years. It would take some time before television would adversely impact the radio industry. The datasets for 1945 through 1949 were, overall, positive. Total revenues increased 38.46%; network revenues, on the other hand, grew a modest 6.93%, a harbinger of what was to come. Table 5.7 had radio’s totals. Newspapers also held a dominant position during the war since consumers needed access to war news. This media format began to experience the impact of television between 1945–1949. The total number of newspapers was essentially flat, +0.19%. Semi-weekly papers Table 5.6 Number of US television households by television season: 1949–1951

Year

Total

Total television households

1949–1950 1950–1951

43,100,000 44,410,000

3,380,000 9,830,000

Percent of total households with television (%) 7.80 22.10

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 796. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

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Table 5.7 Radio industry advertising revenues: 1945–1949 ($ millions) Year

Broadcast revenues

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

Total

Network

Other

$299 $323 $364 $407 $414

$101 $102 $104 $109 $108

$198 $221 $260 $298 $306

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 797. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

posted an increase; weeklies were down slightly; daily papers increased only 10 papers; the “other” category (often a statistical “dump” cluster) inched up 14 papers. Table 5.8 has the unsettling details. Newspaper executives monitored closely total newsprint paper consumption (and especially in the advertising category) because of the cost of paper. So, these totals increased after the war. However, total circulation grew only 9.22%, morning papers (often called AM papers in the business) stood at +9.17%, afternoon papers (the PMs) +9.25%, and Sunday sales were a healthy 16.93%. In the newspaper business, daily referred to papers published Monday through Saturday. Table 5.9 has the details. Magazines withstood the initial impact of television. The total number of magazines increased 15.24%. Four magazine categories also recorded increases; semi-monthly declined a modest two magazines. Table 5.10 lists the overall positive performance of this format that remained very popular in the mid- to late 1940s. Books also exhibited marketing Table 5.8 Number of newspapers: 1945–1949 Year

Total

Semi-weekly

Weekly

Daily

Other

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

12,791 12,804 12,877 12,900 12,814

233 286 284 301 326

10,430 10,424 10,523 10,511 10,386

2004 2020 2003 2001 2014

74 74 67 87 88

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 810. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

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Table 5.9 Newspaper industry: 1945–1949 Year

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

Newsprint consumption Total

Advertising

Other content

237 3995 4420 4781 5142

1667 2177 2550 2811 2977

1570 1818 1870 1970 2165

Newspaper circulation Total

Morning

Evening

Sunday

48,384 50,928 51,673 52,285 52,846

19,240 20,546 20,762 21,082 21,005

29,144 30,382 30,911 31,203 31,841

39,680 43,665 45,151 46,308 46,399

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 809. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census N.B.: Newsprint consumption in short tons. Circulation in thousands

Table 5.10 Number of magazines: 1945–1949 Year

Total

Weekly

Semi-monthly

Monthly

Bi-monthly

Quarterly

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

6569 6693 7083 7346 7570

1359 1331 1394 1498 1537

246 253 272 262 244

3503 3595 3805 3970 4073

309 345 401 412 458

578 595 609 575 635

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 810. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census N.B.: Excludes the “other” category

strength in the immediate postwar years. Total new title output, which by 1945 included both hardcover and paperback books, surged 66.34%. New books, primarily hardcover titles, were up 57.07%. However, the new editions category, dominated by the increase demand for paperback reprints, increased a phenomenal 109.29%. Both magazines and books were able to withstand the relentless surging in television after the war. Table 5.11 has the book information.

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Table 5.11 Total number of new books: 1945–1949 Year

Total

New Books

New Editions

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

6548 7735 9182 9897 10,892

5386 6170 7243 7807 8460

1162 1565 1939 2090 2432

Source US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 1975. Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, 808. Washington, DC: Bureau of the Census

Conclusion: The Media and Entertainment Industries Confront New Challenges The Roosevelt and Truman administrations, employing a variety of vastly different strategies, marketed World War II.; and it worked. It was clearly the biggest, most successful marketing campaign in the nation’s entire history. It impacted directly every American, every community, and every business from large corporations (e.g., Boeing) to small “Mom and Pop” candy stores in Denver or New Orleans. America won the war with the help and support of the media and entertainment industries; and these industries were helped unquestionably by the government since they experienced a period of impressive growth. Yet within a relatively short period of time, strains materialized that revealed some deep fissures in the business foundations of certain industries.

Formats That Gained Market Share After the War Overall, the advertising industry posted strong gains after the war because companies had goods to sell and services to offer to individuals who had money. This meant advertising companies were positioned to buy radio airtime and advertising space in newspapers and magazines. The emergence of television provided an unprecedented opportunity to

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sell, show, and demonstrate a product on television’s small and often grainy black and white screens. To the advertising community, television was the “stuff dreams are made of.” Magazine circulation and the number of titles increased. They were able to present captivating photographs and solid reporting about life after the war that American readers wanted. So, for decades, magazineswithstood the onslaught of television because they could also sell and show a product, often with color photographs and illustrations. Television offered the music industry a tremendous opportunity. Variety shows had singers and musicians; the very popular soap operas used music to highlight an exceptionally dramatic event. This meant that television offered musicians and composers a new platform, and an exciting revenue stream, that augmented radio, movies, and sheet music. Because of the success of the Armed Services Editions (ASEs), more Americans read books that they purchased, borrowed from friends, or acquired from a library. While hardcovers remained an important format, the avalanche of new companies publishing inexpensive paperbacks transformed this industry for decades. In addition, television talk shows often had authors as guests discussing their new books; so, even books prospered because of television.

Newtonian Physics and Radio, Newspapers, and Movies Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest remains at rest (i.e., inertia); an object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an unbalancing force.14 Television was the unbalancing force that impacted radio and newspapers. Hollywood was also affected by television, but it faced a formidable force with the US Department of Justice’s Anti-Trust Division. Radio was the dominant media and entertainment format during the war and because of the war. Americans sat in living rooms, in kitchens, in stores, and in cabs listening to the latest war news. Or, in 1941, listeners wanted to know if Joe DiMaggio extended his hitting streak for another game (he did for 56 straight games; then and today a baseball record).

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While radio remained an important platform well into the twenty-first century, its position was weakened by the seductive appeal of television. The emergence of television after 1948 marked the decline of what had been America’s lifeline, the threat that connected Americans during the depression and the war. It rebounded with the introduction of transistor radios, but even that did not last long enough. Newspapers also sustained declines because of television. The nightly news on television in the late 1940s into the 1950s captivated audiences because they could hear and see Harry Truman’s press conference, the impact of a hurricane on the Carolinas, or war footage from Korea. Newspapers retained their aura of excellence; but newspapers sustained a steady decline. At one time New York City supported 10 daily newspapers; but those days are gone forever. Hollywood, and its studio system, produced great movies before and during the war years; but after the war Hollywood was whipsawed by three tremendous events. First, 1948 marked the highpoint in its history for the largest number of Americans going to see a film. Now millions of people stayed home to watch television’s comedies, quiz shows, variety shows, and children’s programs. So, television triggered the closing of hundreds of movie theaters. Second, the Justice Department resurrected its anti-trust concerns about the studios owning the means of production and the distribution of their output (i.e., “block-booking”). Under intense legal pressure, Hollywood accepted the terms and conditions of the “Paramount Consent Decree;” and they divested ownership of their theaters, which also resulted in the closing of theaters.15 Third, because of television and the settlement with the government, the studio system began to fragment. The Code was challenged by new directors eager to explore new themes; and what remained of the studios curtailed output (they no longer needed to release a new movie every week) and reduced their footprint in Hollywood. So, radio, newspapers, and movies emerged from World War II’s “dark shadow of death.” Unfortunately, all three met their own “shadow.” But that is the subject of another book someday.

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Notes 1. O’Neill, William. 1993. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home & Abroad in World War II , 420–421. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2. Heinrichs, Waldo, and Marc Gallicchio. 2017. Implacable Foes: The War in the Pacific 1944 –1945, 462–566. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3. Keegan, John. 1989. The Second World War, 584–585. New York: Penguin Books. 4. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home & Abroad in World War II, 420–421. 5. Greco, Albert N. 2019. The Growth of the Scholarly Publishing Industry in the U.S.: A Business History of a Changing Marketplace 1939 –1946 , 7, 26–27, 40, 75, 83. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Also see Rasmussen, Nicholas. 2011. “Medical Science and the Military: The Allies Use of Amphetamine During World II.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 42 (2, Autumn): 205–233. 6. General Groves, Leslie M. 1983. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, 3–18, 60–124, 288–358. New York: Da Capo Press. Also see Kiernan, Denise. 2013. The Girls of Atomic City: The untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II , 3–57. New York: Simon & Schuster. 7. Waller, Douglas. 2011. Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, 211–380. New York: Free Press. Also see Dawidoff, Nicholas. 1995. The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, 169–352. New York: Vintage; Hodges, Andrew. 2014. Alan Turing: The Enigma, 3–324. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 8. Steil, Benn. 2013. The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, 9–98, 125–250. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 9. Herman, Arthur. 2012. Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II , 318–346. New York: Random House. Also see Kennedy, Paul. 2013. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War, 283–352. New York: Random House; Klein, Maury. 2013. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II , 743–776. New York: Bloomsbury; National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). “1940s: NADA and WWII.” https://www.nada.org/ 1940s.

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10. Unger, Debi, and Irwin Unger with Stanley Hirshson. 2014. George Marshall: A Biography, 389–490. New York: HarperCollins. 11. Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Franklin Roosevelt’s Statement on Signing the G.I. Bill June 22, 1944;” docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odgist.html. Also see Mettler, Suzanne. 2005. “The Creation of the GI Bill of Rights of 1944: Melding Social and Participatory Citizenship Ideals.” Journal of Policy History 17 (4): 345–374. 12. Lowe, Keith. 2017. The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us, 83–98, 139–160. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Also see Shrimpton, Jayne. “Fashion in the 1940s.” http://www.bloomsbury. com/us/fashion-in-the-1940s/9780747813538; MacDonell, Nancy. “Still Risqué, the Formfitting Bodysuit Rises Again.” https://www.wsj.com/art icles/still-risque-the-formfitting-bodysuit-rises-again-11574857951?mod= hp_lista_pos3. 13. National Bureau of Economic Research. “U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions.” https://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html. 14. Sir Isaac Newton, I Bernard Cohen (Translator), Anne Whitman (Translator), and Julia Budenz (Translator). 2016. The Principia: The Authoritative and Guide: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1st ed., 431–630. Berkeley: University of California Press (in Book 1). 15. U.S. Department of Justice. 1948. “The Paramount Decrees,” United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131. https://www.justice.gov/ atr/paramount-decree-review.

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Index

A

Abbott, Bud. See Hollywood Canteen A Bell for Adano. See War movies Across the Pacific . See War movies Action in the North Pacific . See War movies Advertising 21, 32–35, 37, 39, 40, 46, 50, 52, 53, 56, 69, 117–119 Advertising Council. See War Advertising Council Advertising First Amendment Protection 33, 75 Advertising Industry. See Advertising Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) 4 Air Force. See US Army Air Corp (AAC) Air Force (movie). See War movies

Alfred A. Knopf. See Book publishing American Songbook. See Music AM newspapers. See Newspapers AM radio. See Radio Andrews Sisters 82, 85, 86 Andy Hardy. See Movies A & P 56, 57, 59, 96 Anti-war propaganda 10 A Peculiar Treasure. See Book publishing Armed Services Editions (ASEs) 94, 95, 120 Armed Services Radio Service (ASRS). See Music Army and Navy Library Services. See Book publishing Arnold, General Henry H. (Hap) 79 Asbury Park Press. See Bay Head, NJ A Smattering of Ignorance. See Book publishing

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. N. Greco, The Marketing of World War II in the US, 1939–1946, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39519-3

135

136

Index

Atlantic Charter 7. See also Roosevelt, Franklin D. Atlantic Ocean 56, 58, 61, 62 Atomic Bomb 22, 28, 110, 111 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. See Book publishing Austria. See Hitler, Adolf Automobile industry 33 Axis. See Germany; Italy

B

Baby Boom 34, 113 Bacall, Lauren. See Hollywood Canteen Backlist. See Book publishing Ballentine, Ian. See Book publishing Bambi. See Book publishing Banks 2 Barnegat Bay, NJ. See Bay Head, NJ Baseball 43, 59, 60, 120 Bataan. See War movies Bay Head Historical Society xi Bay Head, NJ 39, 55, 96, 110 Bennett, Tony. See Music Benny, Jack. See Radio Bergen, Edgar & McCarthy, Charley. See Radio Berlin, Irving 45, 85, 87, 102 Bestseller. See Book publishing Biddle, Francis 41, 42 Billboard . See Music Black, Gregory R. 25, 27, 78, 100 Black market 37 Blood, Sweat, and Tears. See Book publishing Bogart, Humphrey. See Movies Bombardier . See War movies

Book of the Month Club (BOMC). See Book publishing Book publishing 89, 93 Books. See Book publishing Bookstores. See Book publishing Breen, Joseph. See Hollywood Production Code Breen Office. See Hollywood Production Code Bretton Woods Conference 111 British Navy 6 Bronte, Emily. See Book publishing Bronx, NY 44 Brown, Les. See Hollywood Canteen B-17 Flying Fortress (heavy bomber) 20, 81 B-24 Liberator (heavy bomber) 20, 22, 80 B-29 Super Fortress. See Atomic Bomb Byrnes, James F. See Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWM)

C

Cahn, Sammy. See Music Calloway, Cab. See Hollywood Canteen Cantor, Eddie. See Radio Capra, Frank 80, 81 Carmichael, Hoagy. See Music Casablanca. See War movies CBS. See Radio Censorship 10, 19, 21, 37, 42, 75, 76, 85, 94 Census Bureau. See US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census

Index

Cerf, Bennett 97, 105 Charles Scribner’s Sons. See Book publishing China. See Japan Churchill, Winston S. See Atlantic Charter; Book publishing Citizen Kane. See Movies Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 4 Civilian Defense. See Office of Civilian Defense Civil Works Administration (CWA) 4 Clinton, Bill 16 Coal. See Rationing Code. See Hollywood Production Code Code of Wartime Practices for American Broadcasters. See Office of War Information (OWI) Codes of Wartime Practices for the American Press. See Office of Censorship Coffee. See Rationing Coltrane, John. See Music Columbia 84 Columbia Pictures 73 Communications Act of 1934 21, 27, 33, 41, 42, 65 Como, Perry. See Music Congress. See US Congress Copyright. See US Copyright Law Costello, Lou. See Hollywood Canteen Cost of war. See World War II (WW II) Council on Books in Wartime (CBW). See Book publishing

137

CPM. See Magazines Crash. See Great Depression Crash Dive. See War movies Crosby, Bing 38, 85–87, 96 Cross Creek. See Book publishing Curtis’ Central Market. See Bay Head, NJ Curtis Publishing Company. See Magazines Curtis, William W. See Bay Head, NJ Czechoslovakia. See Hitler, Adolf

D

Davis, Bette. See Hollywood Canteen Davis, Joan and Haley, Jack’s “Village Store”. See Radio Davis, Kenneth C. See Book publishing Day, Doris. See Music D-Day 57, 58, 80 Decca. See Music December 7, 1941 7–9, 13, 34, 44, 77 December 8, 1941 7, 14 Deficit spending. See World War II (WW II) De Graff, Robert. See Book publishing Depression. See Great Depression Destination Tokyo. See War movies De Vany, Arthur 74, 98 Dickens, Charles. See Book publishing Dietrich, Marlene. See Hollywood Canteen Docks. See Sabotage

138

Index

Dodd, Mead, & Co. See Book publishing Donovan, William (Wild Bill). See Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Dorsey Brother. See Music Dorsey, Jimmy. See Music Dorsey, Tommy. See Music Doubleday & Co. See Book publishing Douglas, Lloyd C. See Book publishing Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) 2 Draft. See World War II (WW II) Du Maurier, Daphne. See Book publishing

E

Edison, Thomas. See Motion picture industry Editors. See Book publishing Educational books. See Book publishing 8th Air Force 43 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 16 Ellington, Duke. See Music Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 17, 25 EMI. See Music Enlightenment. See Book publishing Entertainment industry 9, 44, 84, 110, 111, 119 Entertainment products 34 E.P. Dutton. See Book publishing Europe. See European Theater of Operations (ETO)

European Theater of Operations (ETO) 8 Executive Orders 8248: creation of the Office for Emergency Management; also, in this Office was the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board 29 8802: prohibited ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation’s defense industries, 29 9006: certifying the Territory of Hawaii as a Distressed Emergency Area, 29 9014: withdrawing public land for use of the War Department (N.B.: after World War II, the War Department was changed to the Department of Defense), 29 9017: establishment of the National Labor Board, 29 9040: defining additional functions and duties of the WPB, 29 9054: establishing a War Shipping Administration in the Office of the President, 29 9066: prescribed military areas; Japanese-American internment, 23 9074: directing the Secretary of the Navy to take action necessary to protect vessels, harbors, ports, and waterfront facilities, 29 9088: prescribing regulations concerning civilian defense, 29

Index

9089: prescribing regulations governing the use, control, and closing of stations and facilities for wire communications, 29 9093: certifying the Island of Puerto Rico as a Distressed Emergency Area, 29 9103: providing uniform control over the publication and use of Federal statistical information which would give aid and comfort to the enemy, 29 9112: authorizing financing contracts to facilitate the prosecution of the war, 29 9125: defining additional functions, duties, and powers of the WPB and the Office of Price Administration (OPA), 30 9135: establishing the Interdepartmental Committee for the voluntary pay roll savings plan for the purchase of War Savings Bonds, 30 9139: establishing the War Manpower Commission in the Office of the President and coordinating certain functions to facilitate the mobilization and utilization of manpower; the Selective Service System was placed within this commission, 30 9163: establishing a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and providing for its organization into units, 30 9165: providing for the protection of essential facilities from

139

sabotage and other destructive acts, 30 9172: establishing a panel for the creation of emergency boards for the administration of railroad labor disputes, 30 9215: authorizing the Secretary of War to assume control of certain airports, 30 9218: authorizing the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in the Office of Emergency Management to acquire and dispose of property, 30 9241: extension of the provisions of Executive Order 9001 of December 27, 1941, to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, 30 9280: delegating authority with respect to the nation’s food program, 30 9347: Office of War Mobilization, 30

F

Fadiman, Clifton. See Book publishing Fantasia. See Movies FBI. See Morrisville, PA FDR’s elections and reelections. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Ferber, Edna. See Book publishing Fibber McGee and Molly. See Radio Fireside chats. See Roosevelt, Franklin D.

140

Index

Firewood. See Rationing Fitzgerald, Ella. See Music Fitzgerald, F. Scott. See Book publishing FM. See Radio Fonda, Henry 79, 80 Food. See Rationing Food oils. See Rationing Footwear. See Rationing Ford, John 80, 93, 96 For Me and My Gal . See Movies For Whom the Bell Tolls. See Movies Franklin, Benjamin. See Magazines; Newspapers Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Fuel oil. See Rationing

G

Gable, Clark 73, 79, 80 Gasoline. See Rationing GDP. See US Gross Domestic Product German submarines 57, 61, 70 Germany 5–8, 54, 70, 80, 110 Gershwin, George. See Music Gershwin, Ira. See Music G.I. Bill 112 G.I.s. See World War II (WW II) Glass, Mary xi God Bless America. See Berlin, Irving Goldman, Bill. See Movies Gold Star 43, 55 Gone With the Wind (GWTW) 74, 76, 90 G.P. Putnam’s Sons. See Book publishing Great Crash. See Great Depression

Great Depression 1, 2, 4–7, 16, 37, 76, 89, 91, 94, 113 Groves, General Leslie M. See Atomic Bomb Guadalcanal Diary. See Book publishing Gunther, John. See Book publishing Gutenberg, Johannes. See Book publishing

H

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. See Book publishing Hargrove, Marion. See Book publishing Harper & Row. See Book publishing Hawaii 7, 22, 35, 48, 78 Hays Code. See Hollywood Production Code Hays Office. See Hollywood Production Code Hays, Will. See Hollywood Production Code Hayworth, Rita. See Hollywood Canteen Hearst. See Newspapers Hemingway, Ernest. See Book publishing Henry Holt. See Book publishing Here is Your War . See War movies Hersey, John. See Book publishing Hilton, James. See Book publishing Hiroshima. See Atomic Bomb Hitler, Adolf 5, 6. See also World War II (WW II) Hollywood. See Motion Picture Industry

Index

Hollywood’s Golden Age. See Hollywood studio system Hollywood and First Amendment. See Joseph Burnstyn, Inc. v. Wilson Hollywood Canteen 82, 83 Hollywood Canteen (movie). See Movies Hollywood (majors) 75, 78 Hollywood Production Code 19, 78, 81 Hollywood stars in US Military 79 Hollywood Studios. See Hollywood studio system Hollywood studio system 72 Hoover, Herbert 2, 3, 10 Hooverville. See US Unemployment Hope, Bob 38, 43, 44, 82, 87, 93 Houghton Mifflin. See Book publishing Houston, John 80, 81 How Green Was My Valley. See Book publishing

I

I’ll Be Seeing You. See Music I’ll Walk Alone. See Music Income tax. See Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Inflation 9, 17, 34, 36, 74, 112, 113 Insecticides. See Wonder drugs Inside Asia. See Book publishing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 10, 62 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). See Bretton Woods Conference

141

International Monetary Fund (IMF). See Bretton Woods Conference Italy 6, 8, 14, 58. See also World War II (WW II)

J

James, Harry. See Music Japan 5–8, 14, 111 Japanese-American internment 10 Japanese surrender 110 Jefferson, Thomas. See Book publishing John Wiley & Sons, Inc. See Book publishing Joseph Burnstyn, Inc. v. Wilson 75. See also Motion picture industry

K

Kaltenborn, H.V. See Radio KDKA. See Radio Kern, Jerome 86 Kimbrough, Emily. See Book publishing King, Admiral Ernest J. 8 Kitty Foyle. See Movies Know Your Enemy—Japan. See War movies Koppes, Clayton R. 27, 78, 100 Korematsu v. U.S. 326 U.S. 214 (1944). See Japanese-American internment

L

Lard. See Rationing Lebovic, Sam 87, 103 LeMay, Curtis vii

142

Index

Levant, Oscar. See Book publishing Library of Congress (LOC). See US Library of Congress Life. See Magazines Lifeboat (movie) 79 Lifeboats. See Bay Head, NJ Lincoln, Abraham 16 Little, Brown. See Book publishing Llewellyn, Richard. See Book publishing Lost Horizon. See Book publishing

M

Macmillan. See Book publishing Magazine advertising. See Magazines Magazine circulation. See Magazines Magazines 18, 21, 22, 32–35, 37, 38, 49–54, 57, 67, 68, 78, 79, 94, 111, 117–120 Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour. See Radio Majors. See Motion picture industry Malaria. See Wonder drugs Manasquan, NJ viii Manhattan Project. See Atomic Bomb Marshall, General George C. 8, 57, 94 Mantoloking, NJ viii, 56 Meat. See Rationing Meet Me in St. Louis. See Movies Menand, Louis. See Book publishing Mercer, Johnny. See Music Mergenthaler, Ottmar. See Book publishing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM; Metro) 73 Mildred Pierce. See Movies

Military draft. See World War II (WW II) Miller, Glenn. See Music Mobilization of US industry 4 Monogram Picture Corporation 73 Morley, Christopher. See Book publishing Morrisville, PA 44, 54, 68 Motion picture industry 74, 75, 77, 78, 83, 85, 100 Motion pictures 19, 21, 72, 73, 75, 77 Movies 73–76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 93, 96, 98, 100, 102, 120, 121 Mrs. Miniver . See Movies Murrow, Edward R. See Radio Music 38, 42, 44, 56, 57, 84–88, 96, 112, 120 Mutual. See Radio “Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio”. See US Copyright Law

N

Nagasaki. See Atomic Bomb National Broadcasting Company (NBC). See Radio National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 10, 11, 113, 114, 123 Nazi Concentration Camps. See War movies New automobiles. See Rationing New Deal. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. New Jersey 56, 57, 59, 60 Newspaper advertising. See Newspapers

Index

Newspaper chains. See Newspapers Newspaper circulation. See Newspapers Newspapers 18, 21, 22, 32–35, 37, 38, 45–50, 53–55, 58, 78, 79, 94, 98, 111, 116, 117, 120, 121 Newton’s First Law of Motion 120 New York 1, 17, 20, 45, 60, 75, 83, 91 New Yorker . See Book publishing Nylon. See Rationing

O

Ocean County Leader . See Bay Head, NJ Ocean County, NJ. See Bay Head, NJ Ocean Star . See Bay Head, NJ Office of Censorship 21, 22, 27, 42, 48, 54, 78 Office of Civilian Defense 22, 59 Office of Emergency Management 17 Office of Price Administration (OPA) 17, 25, 35 Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) 22, 27, 110 Office of Strategic Services (OSS) 80, 111 Office of War Information (OWI) 18–20, 42, 66, 77–79, 81, 85, 100, 103 Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWM) 18 Oklahoma. See Music

143

Oppenheimer, J. Robert. See Atomic Bomb Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. See Book publishing Out of Print (OP). See Book publishing

P

Pacific. See Pacific Theater of Operations Pacific Theater of Operations 95 Paperback books. See Book publishing Paramount 19, 73, 78, 81 Paramount Consent Decree 100, 121 Paramount studio 79 Paul, Les. See Music Pearl Harbor. See December 7, 1941 Penicillin. See Wonder drugs Philadelphia Story. See Movies Philosophes. See Book publishing Pittsburgh 38, 48 PM newspapers. See Newspapers Pocket Books. See Book publishing Point Pleasant Beach, NJ 55 Point Pleasant Boro, NJ 55 Porter, Cole. See Music Postwar 62, 113, 118 Prentice Hall. See Book publishing Price, Bryon. See Office of Censorship Price controls 9, 17, 21, 35 Production Code. See Hollywood Production Code Public opinion 6, 20, 24, 42, 75, 77 Publishers Weekly (PW). See Magazines

144

Index

Pyle, Ernie. See Newspapers

Q

Quinine. See Wonder drugs

R

Radio 7, 18, 21, 33, 34, 37–45, 47, 49, 53–57, 59, 63, 78, 82, 84, 86–88, 96, 111, 116, 119–121 Radio households. See Radio Radio industry. See Radio Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) 73, 81 Radio sets. See Radio Radio stations. See Radio Ration books. See Rationing Rationing 9, 17, 21, 36, 37, 50, 51, 58, 81, 82, 92, 97 Ration points. See Rationing Ration stamps. See Rationing Rawling, Marjorie Kinnan. See Book publishing RCA. See Radio Reader’s Digest . See Magazines Reading I’ve Liked . See Book publishing Reagan, Ronald 16 Rebecca. See Book publishing Recession 113 Recycling 9, 58 Red Cross 38, 60 Report from the Aleutians. See War movies Republic Pictures 73 Rockwell, Norman 52, 53. See also Magazines

Rodgers, Roy. See Hollywood Canteen Roosevelt. See Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration 34 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, 16, 21, 23, 25, 28, 40, 42, 123 Rosie the Riveter 38, 59, 69 Royalties. See US Copyright Law Rubber. See Rationing Russia 7, 102, 112

S

Sabotage 10, 23, 42, 43, 54, 57, 70 Sahara. See War movies Salten, Felix. See Book publishing Samuel Goldwyn Pictures 73 San Pietro. See War movies Saratoga Trunk. See Movies Saturday Evening Post . See Magazines Scholarly and professional books. See Book publishing See Here, Private Hargrove. See Book publishing Segregation 10 Selznick International Pictures 73 17 U.S.C. See US Copyright Law September 2, 1945. See Japanese surrender Shakespeare, William. See Book publishing Shaw, Artie. See Music Shore, Dinah. See Music Shortening. See Rationing Silk. See Rationing Simon & Schuster. See Book publishing Sinatra, Frank. See Music

Index

Since You Went Away. See Music Sirius XM. See Music Skelton, Red. See Radio Skinner, Cornelia Otis. See Book publishing Smith, Kate. See Berlin, Irving Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. See Movies Social Security Act 4 Song(s). See Music Spellbound . See Movies Stafford, Jo. See Music Stagecoach. See Movies Stage Door Canteen. See Movies Stamp-points. See Rationing State Fair . See Movies Statute of Anne . See US Copyright Law Stevens, George 80, 81 Stewart, Jimmy 79 Stoves. See Rationing Studios. See Hollywood studio system Sugar. See Rationing

T

Tarzan. See Movies Tebbel, John. See Book publishing Television 87, 115–121 Television households. See Television Television sets. See Television The Battle of Midway. See Ford, John; War movies The Battle of Russia. See War movies The Bay Psalm Book. See Book publishing The Bells of St. Mary’s. See Movies

145

The “Big Five Majors”. See Motion picture industry “The Four Freedoms”. See Rockwell, Norman The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry. See Motion picture industry The Grapes of Wrath. See Movies The Great Gatsby. See Book publishing The Ink Spots. See Music The Jazz Singer . See Movies The Lorraine. See Bay Head, NJ The Maltese Falcon. See Movies The manual. See The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry The Memphis Belle: The Story of a Flying Fortress. See War movies The Pride of the Yankees. See War movies The Robe. See Book publishing The Song of Bernadette. See Book publishing The Wizard of Oz . See Movies They Were Expendable. See Book publishing Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. See War movies Ticket prices. See Motion picture industry Till the End of Time. See Music Time. See Magazines Toms River, NJ 58, 68 Trade book publishing. See Book publishing Trade books. See Book publishing Tregaskis, Richard. See Book publishing

146

Index

Trentonian. See Morrisville, PA Trenton, NJ 54, 56 Trenton Times. See Morrisville, PA Truman. See Truman, Harry S. Truman Administration. See Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. 16, 44, 57, 110, 121 Try and Stop Me. See War movies Tunisian Victory. See War movies 20th Century Fox 73, 82 Typewriters. See Rationing

U

Unemployment. See US Unemployment United Artists 73, 81, 82 United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. See Bretton Woods Conference United Service Organization (USO) 44, 83, 86, 87 Universal Pictures 73 US Air Force. See US Army Air Corp (AAC) US Army 6, 8, 23, 94 US Army Air Corp (AAC) 6 US Coast Guard. See Bay Head, NJ US Coast Guard Auxiliary Squadron. See Bay Head, NJ US Congress 4–8, 14, 42 US Copyright Law 84, 104 US Declaration of War. See December 8, 1941 US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 10, 35, 40, 41, 47, 48, 51, 63–65, 67, 104

US Department of Justice 123 US Department of Justice, AntiTrust Division. See Paramount Consent Decree US Department of the Treasury 14, 53, 113 US Government Receipts 2–4, 15, 113, 115 US Gross Domestic Product 2, 6, 16–19, 34, 35, 113, 114 US Home front 16 US Households 39, 113, 115 US House of Representatives 8, 12 US Library of Congress 11, 25, 44, 66, 87, 95, 103, 104 US Military 6, 7, 10, 14, 18, 22, 47, 49, 51, 54, 58, 60, 81, 93, 94, 110 US Military casualties. See US Military US Navy 6, 8, 80 USO. See United Service Organization (USO) US Population 2, 6, 9, 10, 17, 35, 110, 112 US Post Office 14 U.S.S. Arizona 7 US Senate 6, 8 USS Missouri 110 US Unemployment 114 US War Department 78, 94 US War Production Board (WPB) 9, 16, 25

V

Variety. See Magazines V-Disc (Victory Disc). See Music V-E Day 62, 83, 110

Index

Victory Garden 36, 49, 50, 58, 97 Viking Penguin. See Book publishing V-J Day 61, 83, 110 V-Tax. See Internal Revenue Service (IRS) W

Wage controls 9, 16, 35 Wake Island . See War movies Waller, Fats. See Music Walls, W. David 74, 98 Walt Disney Company 73 War Advertising Council 37 War bonds 9, 37, 49, 53, 59, 79, 81–83 War Department. See US War Department War movies 80, 96 Warner Bros. 73, 79, 81, 82, 84, 100 Warner, Jack. See Warner Bros. War plants 10, 54, 55, 58, 59, 70 War production 7, 16, 42, 50, 54, 58, 70, 112 War Shipping Administration (WSA) 17

147

War stamps. See US Post Office Washington, DC 42, 48, 54 Washington, George 7, 16 Waters, Ethel. See Music Westinghouse. See Radio White, W.L. See Book publishing WNEW. See Radio Wolfe, Thomas. See Book publishing Wonder drugs 111 Works Progress Administration (WPA) 4, 6 World Publishing. See Book publishing World War II (WW II) 4, 7, 11, 14–17, 19, 20, 33, 38, 39, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 83, 88, 94, 101, 110, 112, 115, 119, 121 Wuthering Heights 76, 92 Wyler, William 80, 81

Y

Yankee Doodle Dandy 81