What do we war babies remember of the war years?
Probably little except what we’ve been told or read about or surmised from what we later learned.
Still, a zeitgeist of these war years was the soup into which we were thrust as newborns and in which our (mostly) young parents endeavored to provide the “right” parental care for us.
Notice, I wrote “a” zeitgest, not “the” zeitgeist; I do this because I want to be very clear that the notion of there being a single “spirit of the times” is itself culture-centric and thus should, I think, be qualified to be useful in understanding such times.
For example, the wartime zeitgeist of a country in which no fighting took place (like the USA during WW I and II) would almost certainly be different from that of a country under the gun, like most of the countries of Europe and Asia (and some of Africa) were during both of these wars.
Nor would one expect a zeitgeist in European countries to be the same or even similar to that of Asian or African countries of that or any other time.
Even within Europe, a zeitgeist of an occupied country during World War II (like France) would likely have been different from that of an unoccupied and/or neutral one (like Switzerland).
As for the United States, despite nationwide wartime laws and regulations and unrelenting anti-Axis propaganda, there really was no single American zeitgeist during the war years of 1940-45. Rather, the spirit of these times varied enormously among different regions of the country; different religious, racial, and ethnic groups, different social classes, different genders.
See, for example:
Isolationism and anti-isolationism
American attitudes toward Jewish refugees
Opposition to World War II in the United States
American religious groups and leaders and World War II
American women and World War II
African-Americans fighting for freedom at home and abroad during World War II
Native Americans and World War II
For those who would like to read, see, hear some additional “historical” accounts of these war years in America, here are some links. I invite readers to send me other links, particularly ones that might provide a broader cultural context than may be represented here.
Especially welcomed would be more “her-story” and less “his-story.” After all, during the second world war, there were more women than men living in America--- working, raising children, lending emotional support to others, providing continuity of their diverse cultures, in short carrying America on their backs while the men were away at war. Yet, most of what we learn and know about these times is about the men who fought, died, governed, plotted, and occasionally those who dissented.
Also, lacking in most American histories are stories from the lives of non-caucasian people despite the fact that people of many races and ethnicities participated in the war effort at home and abroad and were impacted by that war.
Links to some specific aspects of the war years
- The Home Front
- Rationing: food, gas & clothing
- Price Controls
- Women at Work
- The draft and lottery
- Pearl Harbor
- American Response to the Holocaust
- “Voyage of the Damned”
- A-bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- World War II on the Radio
- Popular entertainment: propaganda and escapist respite
- All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball League
- Baseball during World War II
- Nylons and WW II
- Music of WW II (links to YouTube videos)
Finally, here is a movie clip of a quintessential piece of music from this period: Glenn Miller Orchestra performing In the Mood. Again, I invite readers to share links to other music from this period, especially from other American cultures than the white upper-class one portrayed in this Hollywood version of America in the war years.
So, as we war babies reflect on the role the war years may have played in our lives, it is important that we recognize the unique circumstances into which each of us was born and so resist generalizations like the zeitgeist.
Timelines of the War Years in the United States (links)
1945 (through August)
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