The Home Fronts of Iowa, 1940-1945 Lisa Lynn Ossian Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1998 The home fronts of Iowa, 1940-1945 Lisa Lynn Ossian Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Agriculture Commons, Business Commons, Home Economics Commons, Sociology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ossian, Lisa Lynn, "The home fronts of Iowa, 1940-1945 " (1998). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 12636. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/12636 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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UMI Microform 9924791 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 ii Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Doctoral dissertation of Lisa Lynn Ossian has met the dissertation requirements of Iowa State University Signature was redacted for privacy. Major OTofessor Signature was redacted for privacy. Signature was redacted for privacy. For the ^^duate/^ollege iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE. HOME FRONTS iv CHAPTER 1. IOWA'S 1940: 1 MORE THAN A POTLUCK, MORE THAN LUCK CHAPTER 2. SOLDIERS OF THE SOIL: 35 THE FARM FRONT CHAPTER 3. E AWARDS AND WOWS: 83 THE PRODUCTION FRONT CHAPTER 4. BONDS, SCRAP, AND BOYS: 134 THE COMMUNITY FRONT CHAPTERS. MRS.AMERICA'S MISSION: 187 THE KITCHEN FRONT CHAPTER 6. THE CITIZEN AS SOLDIER: 235 "THE GOOD WAR"? BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 iv PREFACE. HOME FRONTS "By the close study of a place, its people and character, its crops, products, paranoias, dialects, and failures, we come closer to our reality. It is difficult to impose a story and a plot on a place." —Louise Erdrich, "A Writer's Sense of Place" "The war changed everything except human needs and desires." —William O'Neill, A Democracy at War How does one begin to write about the complexities surrounding World War n? As John Keegan has so succinctly stated in the foreword to his study of the Second World War, this war was the largest single event in human history. The war involved six of seven continents and all the oceans; it killed fifty million people and wounded countless others. Within this massive event, historians have examined numerous pieces of the puzzle but not the state of Iowa and its citizens' reactions and contributions. Iowa, as one small portion of the world, did encounter much of the drama and heartache of this war though so physically removed from the areas of combat and destruction. Most American World War II histories of domestic involvement have been organized chronologically or by topics such as patriotism and discrimination. An unequal depiction of the home front activities has often resulted from this organization with more of a focus on paid, industrial work. My research of the Iowa home front led to an analysis of four separate fronts: farm, production, corrununity, and kitchen. All were historic terms used throughout the war years. This examination of the home front provides a clearer picture of the actual work and rhetoric surrounding citizens' involvement in the war effort as deemed necessary by the federal government. Through this analysis, I have attempted to answer the following question: How was the thinking of lowans so quickly transformed from a relatively isolationist perspective regarding involvement in this threatening world V conflict to an overwhelmingly enthusiastic attitude which was sustained throughout the national war effort? In other words, how did lowans so quickly transform from reluctant, skeptical citizens to such energetic soldiers? By answering this question, I hoped to gain a different perspective concerning another more general historical question; Why has World War II been so consistently remembered as "the Good War"? In essence, American citizens became soldiers in this total world war effort. The concept of a soldier can involve combat, but it also encompasses the ideas of service, sacrifice, risk, and duty. Every American (men, women, and children) was encouraged to remember, at all times, the war effort because every citizen as soldier played a necessary part. America as a nation ill-prepared for world war involvement needed drastic and dramatic contributions from its citizens in war production; yet it also needed to cling to its democratic ideals. Citizens became soldiers, fighting on one or more of the four home fronts, because only by becoming completely involved would they support the war effort. Their work, whether paid or volunteer, needed to be organized with effective leadership, but, above all, it had to be a voluntary conmiitment as America had to fight differently than did fascist nations. Otherwise, this Second World War, another war based on democracy but now framed by the "Four Freedoms," would be a wasteful sham which was what no American could bear—that war sacrifices had been in vain. Iowa serves as an interesting area to study this transformation from citizen to soldier for two reasons: 1) as the center of the United States Iowa was removed from the possibly threatened coasts and 2) as the center of the supposed isolationist region which resisted another involvement in European wars. Iowa was also historically Republican. Though Iowa had voted for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, the vi state turned against Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944. In short, Iowa hardly seemed like a potentially enthusiastic or conunitted area for supporting this conflict against Germany and Japan. If lowans could transform into energetic soldiers for the war effort, other states surely would as well. My study necessarily takes a less traditional route. I have relied on standard primary sources for factual and numerical information such as census records, state publications, agricultural yearbooks, and industrial reports along with newspaper accounts, but I have also paid particular attention to the advertisements, speeches, editorials, advice colunms, oral histories, travelogues, poems, paintings, photographs, posters, songs, recipes, letters, diaries, radio broadcasts, movies, novels, short stories, cartoons, personal scrapbooks, high school yearbooks, memorials, and memoirs from this era. In other words, I have also recorded the ideas, rhetoric, and emotions of this war effort. By trying to capture this emotional content from historical sources, I have strived to better understand why lowans could so overwhelmingly support this war effort. People's actions are so often based on their feelings surrounding an event; World War II would be no different despite the complexity of its events. 1 CHAPTER 1. IOWA'S 1940: MORE THAN A POTLUCK, MORE THAN LUCK "Her heart turned over: how could there be this ridiculous talk of war, when little boys in all countries collected stones, dodged cleaning their teeth, and hated cauliflower?" —Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, 1940 "War, war, war. All this talk of war will ruin my picnic!" —Scarlet in Gone with the Wind, 1940 "Iowa," a journalist wrote in early 1940, "is in a piece of pie at the potluck dinner given by the Ladies' Aid Society at Pleasant Hill Methodist Church." lowans liked to describe themselves this way: fair, helpful, democratic, generous, simple, almost quaint. The writer continued, "There's plenty to eat at the Pleasant Hill Pot-luck Dinners. There are more than 60 people at the dinner this noon. They take their loaded trays, with a cup of dark and steaming coffee, and sit around the room beneath the temperance posters." This was Iowa at its typical best in 1940: comfort, caring, consensus. Phil Stong, in a widely-read Iowa biography that year, Hawkeyes, also described the state in terms of food, as "good, rich, Iowa mayonnaise." The people, he wrote, are from "a good and practical land" in an "integrated and sympathetic society."' This was the popular image of the greatest food producing spot in the world, yet Iowa was much more than a potluck.