OH+Research

**** Topic ** - Life on the Home Front as a Child **Interview subject** - Joyce Raffel
 * Oral History Research

In Europe during 1942, American soldiers were fighting to stop Fascism and to regain precious allies in order to halt Nazi Germany's tyranny. Many americans stormed the beaches of Normandy to regain France as an allied nation, but they needed help from the citizens in the US citizens to do it. The war was not only in Europe and in the Pacific, but in our homeland too, but in a completely different aspect.

On the home front during WWII, Americans were very patriotic. They helped in any way possible to contribute to the war by purchasing war bonds, planting victory gardens and saving excess fats. But of all the Americans effected in everyday life, the lives of children were changed the most.

Children were effected in all aspects of their life. In the mornings, the excess fats of their breakfasts were saved to be donated to the US to make ammunition. If they didn't finish everything on their plate, it was considered unpatriotic and horrible for a child to do. At school, they took part in air raid drills and learned about how evil the axis were. After school, they might read Captain American comics with friends showing the Cap defeating Hitler or facing off against military leaders of Japan. Their baseball games might've been moved to mornings so that their parents could work more during the day, and they might even plant victory gardens with their mothers at night to help out with the war effort. This is why we would like to know more about the lives of children during the second world war. The government was a big reason that americans had to adapt like the way they did. The government created many forms of propaganda that made certain things acceptable and certain things not in the time of war. Like for example, women were not supposed to wear panty hose anymore, so they painted the lines to look like them to keep the fashion. Communities changed during times of war, but what the government did would never be acceptable in modern society.

Some examples of propoganda used during WWII on the home front. The top one promotes carpooling to save gas.  The bottom one denotes talking, for it can give the enemy information.  media type="youtube" key="p959PmjLAYs" height="385" width="480"

"The War at Home: World War II (Overview)." //American History//. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 May 2010. .

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First,. "World War Two - The Home Front." Historyonthenet, Web. .