The World War II Years

The World War II Years
Originally uploaded by Pesky Library

This month’s 20th century display highlights the World War II years. While a search of our catalog for World War 1939-1945 informs the user that we have 592 books on the subject, we’ve chosen to display part of the collection that highlights how the war affected and was affected by ordinary citizens. Books are displayed on life in the U.S. during the war including prisoner of war camps on American soil, the Hollywood propaganda efforts, poets of World War II and Japanese internment. Life on the war-front is depicted through books on baseball in the military, Japanese American soldiers, Navajo code talkers, and the Tuskegee Airmen. Part of our extensive collection of primary source documents includes the records of the American concentration camps, letters from the battlefront, and books like The D-Day experience which give background information to help students understand the newspaper articles, maps, letters, signal logs and war handbooks contained in the books.