America's Changing Mirror: How Popular Music Reflects Public
AMERICA’S CHANGING MIRROR: HOW POPULAR MUSIC REFLECTS PUBLIC OPINION DURING WARTIME by Christina Tomlinson Campbell University Faculty Mentor Jaclyn Stanke Campbell University Entertainment is always a national asset. Invaluable in times of peace, it is indispensable in wartime. All those who are working in the entertainment industry are building and maintaining national morale both on the battlefront and on the home front. 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 12, 1943 Whether or not we admit it, societies change in wartime. It is safe to say that after every war in America’s history, society undergoes large changes or embraces new mores, depending on the extent to which war has affected the nation. Some of the “smaller wars” in our history, like the Mexican-American War or the Spanish-American War, have left little traces of change that scarcely venture beyond some territorial adjustments and honorable mentions in our textbooks. Other wars have had profound effects in their aftermath or began as a result of a 1 Telegram to the National Conference of the Entertainment Industry for War Activities, quoted in John Bush Jones, The Songs that Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939-1945 (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2006), 31. catastrophic event: World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the current wars in the Middle East. These major conflicts create changes in society that are experienced in the long term, whether expressed in new legislation, changed social customs, or new ways of thinking about government. While some of these large social shifts may be easy to spot, such as the GI Bill or the baby boom phenomenon in the 1940s and 1950s, it is also interesting to consider the changed ways of thinking in modern societies as a result of war and the degree to which information is filtered.
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