Come by the Library’s Jefferson Building on November 9th to join in activities and more marking Veterans Day! Every November 11th we honor those who served. This year, the Family Day program will be recognizing how families supported the troops overseas during World War I and World War II.
Activities during the drop-in Family Day program (10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) are primarily designed for kids and their families, but all ages are welcome. There is no charge for the event although you will need to obtain free building passes. A limited number of walk-up tickets are available on the day, but registering in advance is the best way to guarantee entry at your preferred time. Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at 202-707-6363 or by emailing [email protected].
The day’s activities focus on four ways in which those at home contributed to the war efforts and how those endeavors are represented in the Library’s collections. Subject specialists from the Science and Business Reading Room and the Veterans History Project will be on hand to share their expertise and knowledge. Read on for more details about home front efforts and for resources to access if you can’t make it to the Library on November 9th.
War and Victory Gardens
You may know that gardening was encouraged during both World Wars to supplement the war time food supply with home grown produce. Less well known than the Victory Garden movement is the story of the First World War School Garden Army, which enlisted school children as keen and well-organized participants in the drive to increase food production. This research guide outlines the program and provides links to books published for school gardeners. Posters were an eye-catching and effective way to promote wartime gardening, as shown by these featuring war gardens, cutting food costs and school gardens. The need for crops from home and community gardens continued after World War I. It was then that war gardens became victory gardens, as explained in the first few pages of this 1919 booklet produced by the National War Garden Commission.
Rationing and Wartime Recipes
Wartime emphasis on food production and use went beyond gardening; the kitchen had a role to play too. Even before a strict rationing program came into force in World War II, families during the earlier conflict were urged to be mindful of what they ate and how they prepared their meals. Here too, posters played an important role in messaging, urging against wasting food and the need to save specific ingredients. Books like the Liberty Cookbook (1917) and Conservation Recipes (1918) provided ideas for food substitutions and economical recipes.
The Library’s newspaper and photograph collections illustrate the changes introduced in the early 1940s, when American involvement in the Second World War led to a more extensive rationing program. Pictures show children learning about rationing in school and shoppers getting help at the store. Articles outlined plans to prevent stockpiling and information about how to report supplies already on hand. Brands combined advertising with information to help navigate the rationing points system, as in these examples from February and March 1943. Recipe columns advised on wartime substitutes for scarce ingredients, especially sugar.
Knitting for the Troops
By the end of the First World War, almost five million men had served in the U.S. military. Such vast numbers also meant a mammoth effort to equip them, which provided more ways for those at home to help. The American Red Cross, schools, and newspapers were just a few of the bodies that put out calls for handknitted items and organized knitting drives. Titles like The Khaki Knitting Book and The Priscilla War Work Book included instructions for beginners and patterns for socks, scarves, and more. Posters issued appeals for general help, and support for specific branches of the armed forces. People of all ages responded; photos in the collections show men, women, children, and soldiers in convalescent homes all knitting away. Celebrity star power was co-opted as well — Martha Washington was touted as the country’s first war time knitter, and famous actress Mary Pickford continued to lend her support after the end of the war. Knitting songs appeared, as sheet music and as entries in sock song contests run by many newspapers.
Knitting drives continued in World War II. Newspapers highlighted groups like these ones organized by women in St. Louis and Washington D.C., and the male “Knit Wits” of New York, who replaced their poker games with knitting sessions. The Red Cross worked to direct knitting efforts in an effective way that was most helpful to the troops. The two pictures below show girls working at their knitting in New York and Maine in 1942.
The Library War Service
The American Library Association established the Library War Service in 1917. Both books and money could be donated to “banish lonely hours in camp” by providing reading materials for the armed forces. Between 1917 and 1920, millions of books were distributed, and dozens of library facilities set up in the U.S. and Europe. Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam was the organization’s director and its headquarters were at the Library. In 1918, newspapers printed Putnam’s appeal for fiction titles to give to wounded men recovering in hospital. A detailed article from the same year described the effect of the book campaign and the role a good librarian could play in boosting morale and aiding men’s recovery from the horrors of the conflict. By World War II, paperback books were specially produced for the troops. You can read all about these hugely popular and successful Armed Services Editions in this blog post.
Additional material:
If you’d like to find out more about the home front during both World Wars, here are some more Library resources to investigate:
- Research Guides for both World War I and World War II offer extensive coverage of both conflicts.
- The Research Guide Rosie the Riveter: Working Women and World War II includes primary and secondary sources on the women who entered the workforce during that time.
- The exhibition Echoes of the Great War looks at the American experience of the First World War on both the home front and overseas.
- Recorded music and phonograph equipment were also sent to the troops. Learn more in this blog post.
We hope the details above have piqued your interest in how families at home supported those fighting abroad, and that you’ll do some of your own digging into the collections to unearth more about victory gardens, rationing, knitting for the troops and the Library War Service. If you can join us for Family Day in person on November 9th, we look forward to seeing you and sharing more amazing Library resources!
