World War II Propaganda—PBS (American Experience)
"The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it," wrote Joseph Goebbels in his diary. Adolph Hitler agreed.
Following the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, he established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with Goebbels as its head. Goebbels promoted the Nazi message through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, and the press, and censored all opposition.
Goebbels worked to inflame the anger of Germans over their defeat in World War I and emphasized German cultural and military achievements to boost national pride. He played an important role in creating an atmosphere in Germany that made it possible for the Nazis to commit terrible atrocities against Jews and other minorities.
World War II Propaganda—PBS (American Experience)
War and Propaganda
During World War II German propaganda emphasized the prowess of the German army and contrasted it with the British and Allied armies who were depicted as cowards and butchers, or brave but misguided. Russian troops were presented as dehumanized beasts and killers who attacked without fear of death.
After the Nazi loss at Stalingrad in February 1943, Goebbels admitted recent losses and argued for total war in his famous Sportpalast speech. While the new strategy prolonged the war, Goebbels recognized that his efforts were failing.
A month before his suicide in Berlin, he took note of the Allied propaganda being directed back at him. "Enemy propaganda is beginning to have an uncomfortably noticeable effect on the German people. Anglo-American leaflets are now no longer carelessly thrown aside but are read attentively; British broadcasts have a grateful audience."
World War II Propaganda—PBS (American Experience)
British Propaganda
The radio broadcasts were the handiwork of the British Political Warfare Executive (P.W.E.), created by Winston Churchill in 1941 to disseminate propaganda that would damage enemy morale. The British Broadcasting Company's foreign language broadcasts became a key element in the Allied campaign for German loyalties. By 1945 the British had established more than 40 clandestine pseudo-German radio stations using powerful American transmitters.
The P.W.E. also delivered subversive messages to the German people through so-called black propaganda, printed postcards and leaflets dropped behind enemy lines. Though a product of Hollywood, William Wyler's award-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) portrayed the struggle on the British home front and glorified Britain's resolve to fight. The film ended with a rousing sermon in a bombed-out church: "This is the people's war. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it, then. Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right."
President Franklin Roosevelt found the speech so inspiring that he had it printed and airdropped over the European front.
World War II Propaganda—PBS (American Experience)
American Propaganda
The Office of War Information (O.W.I.) was the source of such propaganda in the U.S. In 1941 most Americans, especially those who remembered World War I, were still isolationist, believing that their country should rebuild following the Great Depression, not fight a distant war.
After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, most were convinced to support the war, but Roosevelt created the O.W.I. in 1942 to boost wartime production at home and undermine enemy morale in Europe, Asia, and Africa. OWI photographers documented aspects of homefront life and culture such as women in the workforce, and dealt with a wide array of morale issues such as the question of using Japanese Americans as soldiers, and "subversive activities" like the Los Angeles zoot suit riots.
Other propaganda came in the form of posters, movies, and even cartoons. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present in schools, factories, and store windows, posters helped to mobilize Americans to war.
World War II Propaganda—PBS (American Experience)
Highly Visible Messages
A representative poster encouraged Americans to "Stop this Monster that Stops at Nothing. PRODUCE to the Limit!" It depicted a monster with two heads, one Nazi, one Japanese, clutching the Statue of Liberty in one hand and fending off American advances with the other. Nearby a hand holds a wrench with the inscription "production" -- the key to winning the war.
Movies and Cartoons
While most propaganda aimed to boost patriotism, some took on racist overtones. Director Frank Capra produced seven films called Why We Fight, which portrayed Germany, Italy and Japan as nations of inhuman murderers. As World War II progressed, the O.W.I. had a hand in Hollywood, which churned out patriotic films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney, Pin-Up Girl (1944) with Betty Grable as a USO entertainer, and Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly as a dancing sailor. Even cartoon characters got into the act. Warner Brothers sent Popeye and Bugs Bunny to fight the Japanese, while Disney released a short showing Donald Duck incapacitating Hitler with a ripe tomato. The war, movies and cartoons did their part to keep Americans focused on the war effort, even as they were being entertained. The Allied forces fought long and hard against the Nazis in the air and on the ground, but also with the powerful tool of propaganda.
Book Burnings in Germany—PBS (American Experience)
On May 10, 1933, university students in 34 university towns across Germany burned over 25,000 books. The works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud went up in flames alongside blacklisted American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller, while students gave the Nazi salute.
In Berlin 40,000 people gathered to hear German Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels give a speech in Berlin's Opera Square. He declared "the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. . . . The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. . . . And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past."
Radio stations broadcast the Berlin speeches, songs, and ceremonial incantations to countless German listeners. Widespread newspaper coverage called the "Action against the Un-German Spirit" a success. The Nazi war on "un-German" individual expression had begun.
Book Burnings in Germany—PBS (American Experience)
Destroying Ideas
As early as two weeks before, American organizations like the American Jewish Congress knew of the planned book burnings and launched protests. With her books slated for the bonfires, Helen Keller confronted German students in an open letter:
"History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds."
Similarly, novelist Sherwood Anderson, best-selling author Faith Baldwin, scriptwriter Erwin Cobb, and Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis declared their solidarity with the banned writers and publicly protested the book burnings.
Many writers called to mind the prophetic observation by 19th century German writer Heinrich Heine that "where one burns books, one will soon burn people."
Book Burnings in Germany—PBS (American Experience)
A Sign of the Ultimate Goal
After the bonfires, 100,000 people marched in New York City to protest Nazi policies. Similar demonstrations occurred in Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. While German newspapers triumphantly reported that Germany was purging itself of Jews and others considered politically or artistically suspect, the American media responded with shock. Newsweek called it "a holocaust of books;" Time a "bibliocaust." Yet the indignation was more rhetoric than true outrage.
New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann was one of the few journalists reporting on the Nazis who took the book burnings as an ominous sign of the Nazis' ultimate goal.
"These acts symbolize the moral and intellectual character of the Nazi regime," he wrote. "For these bonfires are not the work of schoolboys or mobs but of the present German Government . . . The ominous symbolism of [this act and] these bonfires is that there is a government in Germany which means to teach its people that their salvation lies in violence."
Nazi Book Burnings—Wikipedia
Their article includes the term "cultural genocide," which is contested by some who use the term "culturicide" or "ethnocide," both described as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy a nation's or ethnic group's culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction."
Nazi Book Burnings—Wikipedia
All of these types of literature, as described by the Nazis, were to be banned:
The works of traitors, emigrants and authors from foreign countries who attack and denigrate the new Germany
The literature of Marxism, Communism and Bolshevism;
Pacifist literature
Literature with liberal, democratic tendencies and attitudes
All historical writings whose purpose is to denigrate the origin, the spirit and the culture of the German Volk, or to dissolve the racial and structural order of the Volk, or that denies the force and importance of leading historical figures in favor of egalitarianism and the masses, and which seeks to drag them through the mud
Books that advocate "decadent art"
Writings on sexuality and sexual education which serve the egocentric pleasure of the individual and thus, completely destroy the principles of race and Volk
Literature by Jewish authors, regardless of the field
Popular entertainment literature that depicts life and life's goals in a superficial, unrealistic and sickly sweet manner, based on a bourgeois or upper class view of life
Pornography and explicit literature
All books degrading German purity
Books in Wartime—the Huntington Library
Early efforts focused on collecting donated books to distribute to service members through the Victory Book Campaign.
But after initial successes, donated books proved inefficient, especially overseas. Such donated volumes as children’s books, for example, were inappropriate for servicemembers. Many donated books were also too heavy. When a solider on the ground in Europe or the Pacific was whittling his pack down to necessities, thick, hardbound books didn’t make the cut.
The Council’s solution was the Armed Services Edition.
Books in Wartime—the Huntington Library
The logo of the Council on Wartime Books included their motto: “Books are weapons in the war of ideas.”
Armed Services Editions were reprints of selected works, designed and published specifically for servicemembers.
Averaging just six cents per copy, these editions allowed the War Department to purchase books that were inexpensive and tailored to their needs.
The design was standard, featuring the author and title, as well as a reproduction of the original hardcover dustjacket. The Council’s War Book Panel selected a variety of titles that would appeal to all interests, while inherently representing the values at stake and the purpose of the war.
Books in Wartime—the Huntington Library
The Huntington holds more than a dozen of these Armed Services Editions acquired from a variety of sources.
The Huntington’s volumes represent the wide range of genres and topics typical of the Armed Services Editions, from biography and westerns to short stories and poetry.
Books in Wartime—the Huntington Library
Non-fiction works, such as Williams Haynes’ This Chemical Age: the Miracle of Man-made Materials, encouraged education and practical sciences. Other books celebrated American history, culture, and thought, such as Maxwell Struthers Burt’s History of Montana and Wyoming, Powder River: Let’er Buck and Thoreau’s classic of transcendentalism, Walden. Some, like the humorous books of James Thurber, provided simple escapism.
Each Armed Services Edition was pocket-sized, and most were roughly 4 by 5 ½ inches, slim, and no more than 3/4 of an inch thick. They were paperbacks, printed horizontally in four columns on lightweight paper. The shorter line length of the four columns was believed to be easier on the eyes of a weary reader.
The books were produced in monthly series to provide new material regularly, with the list of series titles printed in the back. The first series included 50,000 copies each of 30 titles, but the program quickly took off. Armed Services Editions were often passed from person to person and read many times over. Stories that made service members laugh or reminded them of home were particular favorites. Production grew from 50,000 copies per title to as many as 155,000 copies per title.
Books in Wartime—the Huntington Library
Between September 1943 and June 1947, 1,322 titles were published in 46 series—more than 122 million books in all.
The impact of the Armed Services Editions lasted well beyond the war. They created lifelong readers and learners, many of whom would take advantage of the GI Bill to pursue further education. They also revolutionized the publishing industry, popularizing paperback books beyond mere drugstore dime novels.
List of Armed Services Editions—Wikipedia (List of Armed Services Editions)
Dickens—Oliver Twist, David Copperfield
Steinbeck—Tortilla Flat, Grapes of Wrath
Thurber—My World and Welcome to it
Saroyan—The Human Comedy
Graham Greene—Ministry of Fear
Joseph Conrad—Lord Jim
Carl Sandburg—Storm Over the Land
Robert Frost--Poems
Edith Wharton—Ethan Frome
Voltaire—Candide
Booth Tarkington—Penrod
Mark Twain—Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Connecticut Yankee, Life on the Mississippi
Steinbeck—Grapes of Wrath
Willa Cather—Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Antonia
Somerset Maugham—Moon and Sixpence, Of Human Bondage
Bram Stoker—Dracula
Edgar Rice Burroughs—Tarzan
List of Armed Services Editions--Wikipedia
Somerset Maugham—Moon and Sixpence, Of Human Bondage
Daphne Du Maurier—Jamaica Inn, Rebecca
Isak Dinesen
Ngaio Marsh
James Hilton—Random Harvest
Edna Ferber—Cimarron
Stephen Crane—Short Stories
Bret Harte—stories
Edna Ferber—So Big
Jack London—Sea Wolf, White Fang
Rudyard Kipling—Kim
Melville—Moby Dick
Charlotte Bronte—Jane Eyre
Thackeray—Vanity Fair
Hemingway—Short Stories
Lawrence Sterne—Tristram Shandy
List of Armed Services Editions--Wikipedia
Wilkie Collins-Moonstone
R. R. Stevenson—Kidnapped
Shelley—Poems
Keats—Poems
Wordsworth--Poems
Georges Simenon—On the Danger Line
Rex Stout—Not Quite Dead Enough
James M. Cain—Postman Always Rings Twice
Eugene O'Neill—select plays
Zane Gray
Katherine Anne Porter—short stories
Erle Stanley Gardner
Marjorie Rawlings—the Yearling
H. G. Wells—The Time Machine
Henry James—Daisy Miller, stories
How Books Became a Critical Part of the Fight to Win World War II
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
In Berlin in 1933, the Nazis began burning books, "public provocations [that] shocked and enraged the foreign press.
When the US entered the war, American librarians spearheaded a national campaign to collect books for soldiers and thus send them to the war zones armed with ideas. When the War Department took over in 1943, they worked with publishers to produce special lightweight volumes in a huge range of genres, from pulp cowboy novels to Victorian poetry, and murder mysteries to The Great Gatsby. They went to theaters all over the world, black and white units alike, and even, if the titles passed the censors, to POW camps.
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
In 1944, with the presidential election looming, Republicans and Democrats in Congress fought over the details of a new system for tallying the troops' votes. When the Soldier Voting Bill was finally passed, Republican Senator Robert A. Taft quietly added a sweeping, vaguely worded amendment prohibiting the government from distributing any material that could be considered propaganda. For the military's Council on Books in Wartime, the amendment was a potential disaster for the popular program. The Navy protested that deleting politically offensive passages might "result in coloring the intent of the author" and giving the impression that soldiers were being presented with "half-truths." But the alternative—banning books outright—brought the council uncomfortably close to the Nazi’s vicious censoring of ideas that Americans were supposed to be fighting against.
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
In the wake of Senator Taft's Title V ban on the distribution of political material, the Council on Books in Wartime mobilized the media to protest censorship in the strongest possible terms. The spring and summer of 1944 saw a flood of furious editorials decrying the ban, while the council made sure that soldiers were well aware of its potential consequences.
When Taft met with the army to discuss amending Title V, journalists overheard him claiming that three-quarters of soldiers would vote for FDR, and that overseas troops were so out of touch with current issues that they shouldn't be allowed to vote anyway.
Once made public, his comments made the ban seem like a nakedly political ploy, and even his supporters backed away. Title V was amended so that the only permissible restriction on what books soldiers could read was the physical difficulty of transporting them.
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
The book burnings in Germany in the 1930s sparked discussion in America and around the world about why books were under attack and how Americans could counteract this purging of ideas. In every country Germany invaded, books containing viewpoints antagonistic to the Nazi platform were destroyed.
American librarians decided that the best way to fight back was to encourage Americans to read more, making books weapons in the "war of ideas." So they began collecting books to distribute to service members, which would provide much-needed entertainment and morale-boosting in the bare-bones training camps.
What came to be known as the Victory Book Campaign mobilized American civilians to donate 18 million books between 1942 and 1943. The librarians waged publicity campaigns, hosted collection contests, worked with organizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts for door-to-door collections, pitched stories to newspapers, and scattered book donation receptacles across their towns and cities.
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
First, many of the donated books did not suit the reading tastes of young men (thousands of children's books were donated, for instance.) Librarians had to painstakingly sort the books they collected, in order to send only the best. And the donated books were primarily hardcovers, so as servicemen shipped out overseas, they proved too heavy and unwieldy to carry.
These problems exposed the need for paperback editions of books that young men would especially enjoy. American publishers banded together to form a group called the Council on Books in Wartime, and ultimately developed troop-friendly paperbacks called Armed Services Editions (ASEs), which were designed to fit in the hip or breast pocket of a military uniform and were printed in titles that soldiers eagerly snatched up.
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
Great care went into choosing the ASE titles. Publishers first put together lists of bestsellers and other appealing titles; then a group of hired readers went through each book and highlighted any passages that were offensive, discriminatory or might give comfort to the enemy. These were reviewed more closely, and the Army and Navy had the final say.
The publishers were surprisingly liberal-minded when it came to the titles they printed. Rather than avoid books about Hitler or Nazi Germany, the council published Der Fuehrer: Hitler's Rise to Power, a biography of the Nazi leader by German-Jewish journalist Konrad Heiden.
They also printed books considered indecent in the United States: titles such as Strange Fruit and Forever Amber were both banned in some states because they contained sex scenes. [Strange Fruit, the story of an interracial romance, was also briefly banned from being distributed through the U.S. Postal Service, until Eleanor Roosevelt urged her husband to intervene.] The council’s hired readers urged against printing such "trashy" books, and the argument grew so heated that it was presented to the council's executive board, which ruled in favor of publishing them.
Censorship
Colonel Trautman, Chief, Army Library Section:
"The philosophy of this office with regard to book selection consists primarily in giving men what they want to read rather than what we may think is good for them to read. Happily, in most cases, the two aims coincide, but we must exercise careful scrutiny of all titles to avoid the charge so frequently heard that Armed Services Editions are selected by highbrows for the minority highbrow group in the Army. It is considered far better to give a man a book of slight literary merit rather than to provide a questionable pulp magazine or comic with absolutely no literary pretensions, as a substitute for a book. It was the understanding of this office that the Armed Services Editions were intended primarily to provide soldiers and sailors with books they desire rather than to reflect a selection of books of which the publishing industry is most proud. It would appear that publishers as a group would welcome the broadened use of books by virtually every serviceman outside the United States under our present plan rather than attempting to service the top 25% under another scheme of book selection. It has been found possible to upgrade slightly reading tastes when ample quantities of all types of reading material are available and therein lies the opportunity to increase the serious or literary reading of the average serviceman."
Smithsonian
Joanna Scutts, Smithsonian magazine, December 22, 2014—the article is in part a review of Molly Guptill Manning's book When Books Went to War.
What was the lasting impact of the campaign?
The average WWII conscript had an 11th-grade education and did not read books. During the war, sometimes out of sheer desperation for something to do, the men would pick up books because they were the only entertainment around. Many service members came home with a love of books. Thanks to the popularity of the ASEs, publishers started to release cheap paperback editions for civilians, so veterans returned to a flourishing paperback trade.
The ASEs also motivated many GIs to go to college, having proven that they could enjoy reading and studying. Some two million veterans, who might never have enrolled in a university before the war, found themselves signing up for a free college education.
In 2002, the Legacy Project revitalized the ASEs and sent pocket-sized books to Americans serving around the world. Today, the Navy is distributing e-readers pre-loaded with popular books so service members always have hundreds of books at their fingertips. So the tradition of providing books to help men and women through their service far from home continues.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books During World War II: And in the process, they created a nation of readers
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, America's book publishers took an audacious gamble. They decided to sell the armed forces cheap paperbacks, shipped to units scattered around the globe. Instead of printing only the books soldiers and sailors actually wanted to read, though, publishers decided to send them the best they had to offer. Over the next four years, publishers gave away 122,951,031 copies of their most valuable titles.
"Some of the publishers think that their business is going to be ruined," the prominent broadcaster H. V. Kaltenborn told his audience in 1944. "But I make this prediction. America's publishers have cooperated in an experiment that will for the first time make us a nation of book readers." He was absolutely right. From small Pacific islands to sprawling European depots, soldiers discovered the addictive delights of good books. By giving away the best it had to offer, the publishing industry created a vastly larger market for its wares. More importantly, it also democratized the pleasures of reading, making literature, poetry, and history available to all.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Serious books were hard to find before the war. An industry study in 1931 highlighted the book trade's limited audience. Nineteen out of every 20 books sold by the major publishing houses cost more than two dollars, a luxury even before the Depression. Those who could afford them often struggled to find them. Two out of three counties in America lacked any bookstore, or even so much as a department store, drugstore, or other retailer selling enough books to have an account with a publishing house. In rural areas, small towns, and even mid-sized cities, dedicated customers bought their books the way they bought other household goods, picking the titles out of mail-order catalogs. Most did not bother.
There was another, less-reputable class of books, though, that enjoyed broader distribution. Cheap mysteries, westerns, and comics could be snapped up at newsstands in paperbound editions that cost far less to produce than hardcover books.
Throughout the 1920s and '30s, publishers tried to take advantage of this format to publish a wider range of books. Most efforts failed. Then, in 1939, two new entrants changed the equation. Pocket Books and Penguin Books each offered a mix of new titles and reprints of hardcover books, including some of a literary bent. More importantly, they sold these paperback books on magazine racks.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Americans could put down a quarter and pick up a book all over town, from train stations and drugstores. Within a year, Americans bought 6 million paperback books. By 1943, Pocket Books alone printed 38 million copies. "It's unbelievable," said the head of Random House. "It's frightening."
Old-line publishers had good reason to be scared. They were in the business of selling a premium product to an affluent audience. The sudden flood of paperbacks threatened to swamp their refined trade and erode its prestige. The cheap, disposable format seemed best suited to works of little lasting value. That Penguin and Pocket Books included some distinguished titles on their lists threatened the stability of these categories, even as their sales still tilted heavily toward the lower end of the spectrum. Paperbacks were expanding the market for books, but that market remained divided.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
The plan, breathtaking in its ambition, was sure to engender skepticism among publishers asked to donate the rights to some of their most valuable property. So the chair of the committee, W. W. Norton, took care to appeal not just to the patriotism of his fellow publishers, but also to their pursuit of profits. "The net result to the industry and to the future of book reading can only be helpful," he explained. "The very fact that millions of men will have the opportunity to learn what a book is and what it can mean is likely now and in postwar years to exert a tremendous influence on the postwar course of the industry.
Not everyone agreed. Some publishers worried that the books, reserved for soldiers, would flood back into the civilian market. Others were concerned that, if soldiers became accustomed to six-cent books, it would be impossible to sell two-dollar hardcovers.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Even those skeptical of the program as a business initiative, though, had to concede its power as a statement of American values. The Council contrasted its own efforts to distribute all kinds of books with the book-burning of the Nazi regime. "People of the Axis Lands are prevented by force from knowing the facts of the time, and are told what to think," the New York Times editorialized. "People of this free nation are supplied with the truth as free men see it and are confidently left to think for themselves."
"Dog-eared and moldy and limp from the humidity those books go up the line," wrote a war reporter from the southwest Pacific. "Because they are what they are, because they can be packed in a hip pocket or snuck into a shoulder pack, men are reading where men have never read before." A lieutenant in the Marshall Islands wrote of seeing men devour books "by a dim flashlight under a shelter half, even after the air-raid siren has already blown and they should be in a foxhole." Another soldier reported that "the books are read until they fall apart."
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Even as millions of books arrived overseas, demand often outpaced the supply. One rifleman who served in Europe recalled the books as "real life savers," but complained that the brass and rear-area units snatched them up before they could trickle down to the front-line troops. Another private, who managed to find just two books in 3 ½ years finally asked in desperation if he could just buy copies at his own expense.
The books were "as popular as pin-up girls," reported a GI stationed in New Guinea. Indeed, they often served much the same purposes. "The principal favorites," a study found, "are novels that deal frankly with sexual relations (regardless of tone, literary merit and point of view, no matter whether the book is serious or humorous, romantically exciting or drably pedestrian)." Sex sold. So did westerns and mysteries.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Despite this, the Council made a deliberate effort to skew its selections toward the more literary end of the spectrum. An early plan, drafted by the army scarcely a week after Pearl Harbor, specified that the books be "of a popular or recreational nature, with picture and cartoon books in quantity." The army simply wanted to entertain its troops. When the Council assumed control of the effort, it set its sights substantially higher.
The box of 30 or 40 books shipped to thousands of units each month might include This is Murder, Mr. Jones or a Zane Grey western, but also Carl Sandburg's poems or Tristram Shandy or The Making of Modern Britain. Almost all were available only as expensive hardbacks on the civilian market, and a few were original compilations made exclusively for the program. The goal, as W. W. Norton explained, was to offer "new books and books of enduring value," that might keep soldiers and sailors "in touch with thought and currents of life in their country." The Council on Books aimed not merely to entertain, but also to educate and inspire.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
The books belonged to the soldiers themselves. They passed them around. They sliced them apart to share in installments. They read them aloud to their buddies. Literature, no longer restricted to those who could afford it, became their common possession. A fighter pilot in the China-Burma-India theater reported that his British counterparts found the program "smashing," helpfully translating that as "super-dooper." The Armed Services Editions had, he wrote, "put good literature on a democratic (small d) level that it has never enjoyed before.
More often, though, participation came at a substantial short-term cost for the publishing industry. No book generated more passion among its readers than A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a gritty coming-of-age novel. On a Pacific island, a lucky soldier given a new copy "howled with joy," but knew he'd have to sleep on top of it if he hoped to hang onto it long enough to finish it.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
A 20-year-old Marine "went through hell" in two years of combat, but wrote from his stateside hospital bed that the book had made him feel human again. It might, he conceded, be "unusual for a supposedly battle-hardened marine to do such an effeminate thing as weep over a piece of fiction," but he was now making his way through the book for the third time.
In France, the colonel commanding an anti-aircraft battalion being shelled by German artillery found one of his soldiers reading the book between explosions. "He started to read us a portion . . . and we laughed like hell between bursts. It sure was funny."
The tough West Pointer later found a copy of his own, and was tempted to pull it out and read it while wounded and pinned down by enemy fire. "It was that interesting," he recalled, in a letter to the publisher.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
But A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was not an old classic that had passed out of copyright, nor a title that had exhausted its market and sat languishing on a backlist. The coming-of-age tale was a bestseller in 1943, when ASE printed up 52,000 copies and shipped them abroad. It was third on the bestseller list in 1944, when ASE produced a second run of 76,000 copies. Civilian readers snapped up the expensive hardcover editions. GIs read the book for free. With royalties for ASE editions set at just a penny a volume, split between the author and the publisher, both were passing up enormous sums by allowing their book to be distributed as an Armed Services Edition. This was an act of patriotism, but also a gamble that they would benefit, in the long run, from such exposure.
Publishers Gave Away 122,951,031 Books
Yoni Appelbaum, Atlantic magazine, Sept. 10, 2014.
Sales of paperbacks did slump, precisely as feared, in 1946. Surprisingly, though, it was the lighter fare that failed to sell. More serious works held their ground. Publishers adjusted, and redoubled their efforts at marketing. They found thousands of new outlets, precisely as Jacobs envisioned. They expanded their selection of titles, offering up literary novels, histories, collections of poetry, and books about science alongside their mysteries and westerns. Sales picked up. By 1950, publishers sold 214 million copies of 642 separate paperback titles, enough for every adult in the country to have bought a couple books.
With the Armed Services Editions, publishers gambled that by putting good books in the hands of average Americans, they could cultivate an appetite for more. The publishing industry made a fortune by betting on the intelligence of the great masses. . . .
From Library of Congress
The Council established cooperation between the Army and the Navy, the War Production Board, more than 70 publishing firms, and numerous printing houses, composition firms, and paper suppliers. While there was paper rationing during the war, the government ensured the supply of hundreds of tons of paper for the ASEs. There was a provision that ASEs could only be distributed overseas as authors, publishers, and some of the printing firms substantially reduced their usual profits. Publishers did, however, benefit in the long term with a higher rate of literacy and an eagerness for books by returning service members.
The books were carefully designed for portability and readability and were economical in the use of paper. The trouser and breast pockets of various uniforms were carefully measured, and the books were printed in double columns of legible short lines. As the books might be going directly into the hands of personnel rather than remaining in camp libraries, they were often read in difficult conditions. Their unusual shape is the result of them being bound on the short side so they could be printed economically. The paper was two grades higher than newsprint, and it was estimated that a book would last through six readings. They often survived ten or more readings with numerous treasured copies found in Europe or the United States after the war.
From Library of Congress
A small committee selected the books with recreational reading as the first goal. It was hoped that a mixture of fiction and nonfiction titles would cater to all levels of taste. Contemporary fiction was most popular; service members could share their enjoyment with families back home who were reading the same books. Popular categories included historical novels, mysteries, books of humor, and westerns. Each shipment might contain a selection of adventure stories, biographies, cartoons, classics, current events, fantasy, histories, music, nature, poetry, science, sea and naval stories, self-help and inspirational books, travel books, and short story collections. Because of the small size of the printed books, many people believed they were all abridged, but only about 70 books had to be abridged. Later in the war, educational and technical books were added with the thought of preparing service members for jobs when they returned home.
The other factor which helped to launch the success of the Armed Services Editions were books that had been cheaply produced on a mass scale previously. While there had been dime and railway novels produced from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, Allen Lane introduced the popular Penguin paperbacks in England in the 1930s and Pocket Books in the United States appeared shortly after. ASEs were not the first paperbacks, but they certainly contributed to a new era in publishing in the 1940s and 50s.
From Library of Congress
The books were intended to boost morale and provide distraction from high periods of stress as well as from boredom. Popular book discussion groups were formed in camps, and books were often read out loud to prevent fights over the distribution.
Service members wrote to the Council and directly to authors to express what the books meant to them. The books provided catharsis and solace, a way to express emotions they could not show. They provided laughter when nothing in their current situations was funny, and helped them overcome fear.
Many of the letter writers were grateful for the ordinary glimpses of home. Some wrote deeply personal letters to the authors expressing their thoughts and asking for advice. Female authors received numerous proposals of marriage and many authors were asked for suggestions on writing techniques. Many service members wrote joyful letters about reading books for the first time in their lives. Others returned to the U.S and were able to attend college on the GI bill with plans to become writers.
From Library of Congress
Did You Know? The Library of Congress is the only library to have a complete collection of the 1,324 ASE titles, located in our Rare Book and Special Collections Division. A new guide, Armed Services Editions Collection at the Library of Congress, provides links to additional resources such as books and a webcast on the history of the program, as well as information on finding the ASEs at the Library.
Photos show the immensely popular books being read on the frontlines, on ships, in POW camps in Germany and Japan, in hospitals, while standing in any sort of line, and in camps and bases. They were reportedly as popular as pin-up girl illustrations and were “better than chocolate or cigarettes” for trading. General Eisenhower requested that a special set be reserved so that each service member was issued a book as they boarded the D-Day landing craft.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
The Victory Book Campaign, the ASE initiative’s predecessor, struggled in part because Americans donated their most boring books
Prior to the ASEs, the government hosted a book drive — asking Americans to donate their personal libraries with the final goal of collecting 10 million books for soldiers. The books that got turned in to the Victory Book Campaign, though, were of the How to Knit and Theology in 1878 variety. The offerings were so dreadfully boring and inappropriate for young men that some people worried the Victory Books Campaign’s ads had made it seem like a waste paper drive instead. Roosevelt was asked to intervene, and Americans did rise to the challenge. But the initiative continued to stumble. The American Service Editions swooped in to fill the vacuum of need the campaign’s demise created.
The Victory Book Campaign was run by an incredible librarian named Althea Warren, who did an amazing job with the Herculean task she was given. A character in The Librarian of Burned Books is named in her honor.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
The Armed Services Editions helped popularize the paperback in the US
The Armed Services Editions were lightweight paperbacks sent by the millions to soldiers during World War II. They came about through a partnership between the War Department and the Council on Books in Wartime — an organization made up of publishers, booksellers, librarians, and other book-related professionals. The Armed Services Editions were one of the Army’s best morale-boosters and helped create a new generation of readers. Men who confessed to never having finished a book cover to cover were tearing through the ASEs — sometimes literally, so others could read the chapters behind them. These men were hungry for more paperbacks when they returned home, and, thanks to the ASEs, the humble soft-cover versions of books were no longer looked down upon as they were prior to the war. The golden age of paperbacks was here.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
One of the first projects from the Council on Books in Wartime was . . . a radio program
The Council’s radio program would be startlingly familiar to any podcast lover today: It featured author interviews, book discussions, dramatizations, and, of course, recommendations. The focus was on promoting home-front morale, but one of the most successful broadcasts was a reading of Assignment: USA by Selden Menefee.
The book highlighted bigotry, antisemitism, unfair labor practices, and racism in the US as the dramatization took listeners on a train ride through different states. During a time of heavy propaganda and patriotism, listeners actually appreciated the refreshingly honest look at the deep problems that divided the country, even if on the surface everyone was united behind the war and the American flag.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
The Council was opposed to censorship, but it did use sensitivity readers to help choose books for the ASE initiative.
Of course, they weren’t called sensitivity readers, but they did go through the novels that were on the Council’s ASE list for any content that might be detrimental to the mental health of soldiers fighting in a war. One that was put on the chopping block was Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, because of how it depicted the Mormon Church.
Authors whose books were part of the ASE initiative received hundreds of letters from the soldiers—and plenty of them wrote back.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
Soldiers started up pen-pal relationships with their favorite writers in the ASE program
Katherine Anne Porter, a favorite ASE author, was sent deeply confessional letters from the men about their fears, insecurities, and heartaches because they connected so strongly with the emotional arcs in her stories. Betty Smith—whose novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was perhaps the most popular of all the ASEs—got four letters a day and answered almost all of them, even including an autographed photo of herself with the message. One soldier carried the picture of her around so much he had to ask for a replacement, along with promising to name any daughter he had after the author. Betty sent the photo, of course.
Facts on the Real History behind The Librarian of Burned Books
The ASE initiative outlasted the war
We might think of the celebrations in Times Square—and the famous kiss captured by a lucky photographer—as the official end of the war, but it took a while to actually wrap everything up.
American servicemen were stationed all over the world and the logistics of bringing them all home were far from easy. The Council recognized that its duty didn’t end with Japan’s surrender.
The Council members even began including specific nonfiction books to help soldiers decide what to do with their futures and what career options they might have when they returned home.
The ASE continued to publish books for soldiers all the way up to September 1947.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
When United States servicemen stormed the beaches in Normandy, most of them had an essential item tucked into their breast pocket—not a weapon or food or other gear, but a lightweight paperback novel.
These weren’t just any books. These were Armed Services Editions, softcover versions of popular novels, classics, Westerns, mysteries and everything in between. Their dimensions were such that they fit perfectly in the soldiers’ uniform pockets and, while sturdy enough to withstand weather and repeated readings, could be ripped apart and shared between the men.
They became one of the Army’s most successful and popular morale boosters throughout World War II. Soldiers lined up to fight for the best books on delivery day, they read passages to each other in foxholes to relieve fear and boredom, and turned to them when they were at the far edge of their despair.
While the bold publishing experiment paid off ten-fold, the ASEs had a rocky road to existence. An Army Librarian named Raymond L. Trautman had a goal to get books into the hands of every soldier serving abroad. When the government called for Americans to donate to the cause, the Army received primarily hardcovers. Those were fine for U.S. bases but they weren’t deployment-friendly.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
After a few fits and starts, Trautman came up with the idea of the ASEs with the help of a graphic artist and the Council on Books in Wartime, a nonprofit organization made up of publishers, librarians, book sellers and other industry professionals. For the Council, the ASE partnership was the perfect way to fulfill its core mission of using books as “weapons in the war of ideas” that the Nazis had kicked off long before they invaded Poland.
In fact, the Nazis had honed that particular weapon to near perfection. The infamous book burnings in Berlin on May 10, 1933 were just the tip of the iceberg. From the early days of the party, the leaders understood the unique power of books to shape opinions, feed anxiety, and set a cultural landscape that would support their fear-based, bigoted policies. When they burned books by particular writers, they were making it clear what kind of voices were welcome in their Germany. This served the purpose of clarifying exactly who the Nazis’ scapegoats were while at the same time creating a strong sense of party unity. With the physical act of burning their own personal libraries, Germans were making a pledge to the Nazis and their ideology.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
In war propaganda, where ideas have to be both bold and easy to communicate, there was no clearer line to be drawn than this: America was the land of the free and Germany was the land where fascists burned books.
President Roosevelt himself amplified this message. “Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die,” he said, the words later splashed over popular propaganda posters. “No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know, books are weapons.”
But, as propaganda so often does, that flattens the actual state of affairs in the United States at the time. The Armed Services Editions themselves—wildly popular and supported by both General Eisenhower and President Roosevelt—became a target of a powerful senator’s censorship efforts. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, who had his eye on the White House, attached an amendment to a must-pass soldiers’ voting bill that severely limited what books could be part of the ASE program—essentially banning books selected by an organization whose main purpose was to use books to fight those who wanted to ban them.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
One Council member claimed that that censorship bill was so overreaching that there’d be nothing left to send the boys besides the Bobbsey Twins.
While that was happening, the book Strange Fruit, a novel about an interracial relationship, was banned in Boston and Detroit, as well as banned from being sent through the mail. According to Molly Guptill Manning’s When Books Went to War, the cities weren’t bluffing. One shop-owner in Boston ignored the legislation and was arrested for selling literature that would corrupt the morals of the youth.
The two incidents caused the Council on Books in Wartime to come out strongly against the anti-American censorship efforts. When appealing to Sen. Taft himself didn’t work, the Council members went directly to the people, via editorials and opinion pieces, beseeching the public not to put up with this “Goebbels purge.”
The Council members eventually prevailed against Taft and were allowed to continue sending any book they deemed worthwhile to soldiers. But the incidents serve as a reminder that bans can be extremely unpopular, taboo, and reviled—and yet still get passed.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
That sentiment has carried on today, where the vast majority of Americans oppose book banning. Poll after poll shows that the practice isn’t something most Americans want. Still, in recent years there have been a record number of challenges against books, especially novels in school libraries.
And that’s not the only pattern that has been re-emerging.
The Nazis didn’t only burn books by Jewish writers. In the days before the bonfires, they raided an institute in Berlin that was ahead of its time in research on gender, sexuality and women’s health. The students who organized the book burnings destroyed years of ground-breaking LGBTQ research and then carried a statue of Magnus Hirschfeld, the institute’s founder, through the streets as a trophy.
Today, the top reason for a book to be challenged or removed from a school library, according to PEN America, is because it has LGBTQ characters or content. That reason is followed closely by books that have a character who is not white. The number drops dramatically after that, from 41 and 40 percent to 22 percent for sexual content.
From History News Network
Our author, Brianna Labuskes, published an article on HNN titled "America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis"
We have long accepted that the books we read reflect what we want our national identity to be. That was true when the Nazis were burning Albert Einstein’s work and it was true when Roosevelt intervened to lift the post-office ban on Strange Fruit. It was true when the Nazis decided to eradicate Jewish voices, queer voices, and the voices of their political opponents from the German culture. And it was true when Eisenhower made sure each of his men, who were headed toward probable (if not quite certain) death, had a book to keep him company in his last hours.
If past is prologue, it’s now more important than ever to read that particular chapter. To understand that books are weapons—but weapons that can be used with both good and evil intent. To lift up, to support communities, to create connections to people so unlike ourselves; or to erase, suppress and ostracize minority voices. Their power to create empathy is unmatched, but so is their power to act as a symbol for silence.
Pete Hautman, writer of young adult fiction, says it best: “Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous—they contain ideas.”
What to do about that fact has defined our history—has defined us—ever since there have been books and there has been fire.
The Great Gatsby—NPR--"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel"
When book critic Maureen Corrigan first read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in high school, she was unimpressed.
"Not a lot happens in Gatsby," Corrigan tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "It's not a plot-driven novel and I also thought, 'Eh, it's another novel about rich people.' And I grew up in a blue-collar community."
She also couldn't relate, she says, because it doesn't feature any likeable female characters. "In fact, that's one of the reasons why Fitzgerald thought it didn't sell well in 1925," Corrigan says, "because there are no likeable female characters and women drive the fiction market."
But today Corrigan considers The Great Gatsby to be the greatest American novel — and it's the novel she loves more than any other. She's written a new book about it called So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures.
Corrigan says she loves The Great Gatsby in part because of its message that it's admirable to try to beat your own fate. "You can't escape the past, but isn't it noble to try?" she says. "That's the message here . . . to be the boat against the current, even though failure and death inevitably await you. The doomed beauty of trying — that's what this novel is about."
From NPR—"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel"
While Corrigan is perhaps unique in her ability to write in such a lively and engaging way about the book, Fitzgerald's life and the era in which it's set — the 1920s.
Corrigan has read The Great Gatsby more than 50 times and has taught it to generations of college students. She grew up near an area where part of the book is set in Queens, N.Y., described as The Valley of Ashes because it was a dump for coal-burning ashes.
As a book critic, Corrigan gets more than 200 books a week delivered to her house by publishers, and likes to think that if The Great Gatsby were one of those books today, she'd read it. She says, "I would've opened it and thought, 'Huh, The Great Gatsby.' . . . The title wouldn't have grabbed me. What I do think would've grabbed me is the book jacket design. . . . It's very striking, it's non-representational. It's odd. I think if I had opened the book and began reading, that [narrator] Nick [Carraway's] voice would've grabbed me. I want to think that I would've kept on reading." ne in her evaluation of The Great Gatsby, she's perhaps
From NPR—"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel"
Gatsby almost has the form of a film noir, where you have this voiceover, with Nick Carraway remembering things that have taken place in the past, things that can't be changed, events that can't be changed.
It's a violent story. There are three violent deaths in Gatsby. It's a story in which you get bootlegging, crime, explicit sexuality—and remember this is 1925 when it was published, so it's pretty racy for its time. . . . We don't explicitly read about [sex], but in chapter two, Nick is taken along by Tom Buchanan . . . on a joy ride into Manhattan where Tom takes Nick to . . . a drunken party in The Love Nest. So we know that there's infidelity—a lot of innuendo about people having sex outside of marriage and a lot of drinking. And, most importantly, film noir, hard-boiled detective fiction and The Great Gatsby—they're all stories that are obsessed with the presence of fate.
There's a very fated feel to Gatsby. Events that occur in the novel, they're foretold many times. That car crash in which Myrtle Wilson is killed, Tom's mistress, there are two other car crashes that preceded that car crash. So a lot of events are predicted in this novel.
From NPR—"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel
On Fitzgerald's background
[Despite his success], he was also that Midwestern boy from St. Paul, Minn., whose parents didn't quite measure up to their neighbors. His parents never owned a home, for instance, they always rented. Fitzgerald never owned a home—he always rented. He was always kind of on the outside looking in and hoping to be good enough for Princeton, to be good enough for the crowd on the Riviera who he hung out with—[wealthy expatriates] Gerald and Sara Murphy, the Hemingways, etc.
I think you get that sense in Fitzgerald of someone who remade himself but was also aware at times in his life that he was pretending to be someone he was not. Even when he died in 1940, Fitzgerald was denied burial in his own family's plot in Rockville, Md., because the Catholic Church [Fitzgerald grew up Catholic] decided that his novels were a little too risqué and . . . didn't approve of them. So Fitzgerald had to be buried in a Protestant cemetery. He's always being pushed out and told that he's not good enough.
From NPR—"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel
On Gatsby's reception in its time
Literary readers, people like Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, Gilbert Seldes, who was a critic and reviewer of the time who really got Gatsby, they loved it. . . . . The popular reviewers read it as a crime novel and thought for the most part that it was maybe just OK. There's a famous headline for a review of The Great Gatsby that came out in the New York World, and the headline reads, "Fitzgerald's Latest A Dud."
On Gatsby's second life
When Fitzgerald died in 1940 in Hollywood, his last royalty check was for $13.13. Remaindered copies of the second printing of The Great Gatsby were moldering away in Scribner's warehouse. World War II starts, and a group of publishers, paper manufacturers, editors [and] librarians get together in New York. And they decide that men serving in the Army and Navy need something to read. . . . They printed over 1,000 titles of different books, and they sent over a million copies of these books to sailors and soldiers serving overseas and also to [prisoners of war] in prison camps in Japan and Germany through an arrangement with the Red Cross. The Great Gatsby was chosen to be one of these Armed Services Editions.
From NPR—"How Gatsby Went From a Moldering Flop to a Great American Novel
And what that meant was that all of a sudden this novel that was basically nowhere, you couldn't get it in bookstores in the early 1940s, [but] by 1945 over 123,000 copies of The Great Gatsby were distributed. . . . The greatest distribution of the Armed Services Editions was on the eve of D-Day. Eisenhower's staff made sure that every guy stepping onto a landing craft in the south of England right on the eve of D-Day would have an Armed Services Edition in his pocket. They were sized as long rectangles meant to fit in the servicemen's pockets.
Finished size varied slightly, from 5 1⁄2 in to 6 1⁄2 in long and from 3 7⁄8 in to 4 1⁄2 in high. Unlike traditional paperbacks, most of the ASEs were bound on the short side of the text block rather than the long side, due to the printing presses used. A "two-up" process was frequently used to produce the books, in which the upper and lower halves of each page and the cover contained text from two different works. Once the entire volume was bound, it was cut in half across its width to separate the books.
The Great Gatsby as an ASE
So you read these accounts of the guys on the landing crafts going over to Normandy Beach and they're reading, trying to take their mind off of what's about to face them. . . . It's just such an amazing testament to what books can mean to people at critical times in their lives.
Next week:
Discussion of Librarian of Burned Books