The Victory Home: 
Sources of the Material in This Library


Poster:  Help Bring Them Back to You! Make Yours a Victory Home!
Many of the materials were located by searching the World Wide Web, using Google . Searching terms such as, "World War II" AND rationing, "World War II" AND posters, "World War II" AND food, etc. located many good sites. However, there were some collections of material that were especially useful.
 
 
Stories Photos Posters Pamphlets Toys
Audio Video Ads Online Exhibits Plug-Ins

 
 

Poster image is courtesy of the Northwestern University Library poster database .

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Updated 11/12/04.

Page created by Midge Coates
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Stories

A lot of this material isn't used elsewhere in this site, because it doesn't fit easily into any of the categories. It is still interesting material, however, and well worth a look.
 

Washington Station, 1942-1945 is one woman's story, written shortly after the war and posted on the Web by one of her children.

What Did You Do in the War, Grandma? This is a collection of oral histories done by a high school class in Providence, RI. There are some audios, as well as transcripts.

Whispers of the Past is actually two collections of oral histories done by high school students. There are no audios, only transcripts of the interviews.

War on their Minds and World War II Memories:  Our Community's Rendezvous with Destiny are also collections of interviews done by students.

The Online Archive of California has a section called The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives, which contains transcripts of oral histories, photos, and other materials.

Victory (e-)mail is a compilation of email reminiscences by educators.

Bridgeport Public Libary's collection, Bridgeport Working , focuses on labor history. It's a mixed bag, but there is some WWII material. There are some audios as well as transcripts. Click on the Oral History button at top of page.

Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II has 199 interview transcripts.

Ginger’s Pearl Harbor Diary is the diary of a 17 year old living in the vicinity at the time of the December 7 attack .

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Photos

The Library of Congress's American Memory Collection contains several relevant collections. One is America from the Great Depression to World War II:  Photographs from the FSA/OWI, 1935-1945 .  Others are Washington As It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959 and Suffering Under a Great Injustice:  Ansel Adams' Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar . You can browse these collections or search using keywords.

The National Archives contains many relevant photos within its ARC Digital Images collection. Choose the "ARC Search" option in the middle of the page, then search using keywords.
 

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Pamphlets

A collection of digitized WWII pamphlets is held by the Central Libraries of Southern Methodist University .
 

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Toys

WASP on the Web has several interactive games, including the WASP paper doll , the WASP coloring book , and the aircraft spotter game .
 

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Posters

A collection of World War II posters is held by Northwestern University Library . This collection can be browsed or searched using keywords.

The Smithsonian Institution has an online exhibit of WWII posters called "Produce for Victory" .

The American Memory collection By the People, For the People:  Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 also has relevant materials.

The National Archives has an online exhibit of WWII posters called "Powers of Persuasion" . The Archives also contains posters within its ARC Digital Images collection, although these cannot be searched separately. Choose the "ARC Search" option in the middle of the page, then search using keywords.

The Minneapolic Public Library's Posters of the Second World War collection has posters from Canada and Great Britain, in addition to United States posters.

 
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Audio

EarthStation1.com   is a very "busy" site and has lots of ads, but it has many WWII-related audio files, some video files, and images.

Live365.com also has lots of ads, but it contains many Web broadcasting "stations", and its listings can be browsed or searched using keywords.

Voices of World War II: Experiences From the Front and at Home is a project of the Presidential Studies Collection partnership between University of Missouri-Kansas City 's Miller Nichols Library and the Truman Library.

The Radio News page of the Radio Days site has audios from radio news broadcasts of important 20th century events. There are also profiles of radio newsmen, with additional audios.

The Lost and Found Sound program from National Public Radio maintains an audio archive of its programs and also has an " Audio Artifacts " section of non-broadcast material.

Echoes of the Past has a brief story about radio, with links to sites for old time radio shows. There are also selected WWII news audios.

Countdown to Millenium: An Oral History Collection Project and Radio Series has audios of its radio programs, including one on the rural homefront .
 

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Video

The Prelinger Archives page of the Internet Archive has digitized movies from the 20th century. A fair number deal with World War II subjects. Some are available for download (additional software required)as well as being available in streaming video form. This site has a lot of traffic. If you can't connect to a video stream, wait a few minutes and try again.

Goopy Gear's Rare Cartoon Page has WWII propaganda cartoons. Non-Stick Enterprises has several WWII era cartoons as well.
 

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Advertising

The Ad*Access Collection , held by Duke University, is a collection of advertising from the period from 1911 to 1955. It may be searched either by browsing or by a keyword search. Medicine and Madison Avenue is another advertising collection from Duke University.

The OTR (Old Time Radio) Commercials page from the Original Old Time Radio site is a collection of stories about radio advertisements, with some audios. Although this page covers the entire period of radio advertising, there are several WWII-related sections.

The Homefront Advertising page has advertisements taken from Life magazine.

"Truth in Advertising" (sic) is a collection of tobacco advertisements from the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the 1940s ads have a wartime theme.
 

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Online Exhibits

Within These Walls is a Smithsonian online exhibit about an old house, with a WWII homefront section.

World War II:  The Homefront has an online artifact museum .

The Home Front is a site for kids about the British war effort. Children of World War 2 is another. Olive and Eric is an interactive (but very busy) site about letters between an English soldier and his wife.

Books Go to War is a virtual exhibit of book covers from Armed Services Editions of the books supplied to the troops.

Scholastic.com's World War II Remembered site has an interactive living room and kitchen . Click on objects in the pictures to find out about their importance during the war. There is also a section called We Witnessed the Attack on Pearl Harbor .

The Home Front: WWII The War Effort at Home is a collection of newspaper stories (from the period and recent), videos, photos, etc.,  about the war experience in Iowa. The Home Front: Charlotte-Mecklenburg 1941-1946 covers the war experience in North Carolina.

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It is about the experience of pacifists and conscientious objectors during the war. Conscience and the Constitution is about Japanese Americans who resisted the draft because of the internment of themselves and their families.

A More Perfect Union, Densho, and Rabbit in the Moon are exhibits about the Japanese internment experience.

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Plug-Ins

Click here for a free download of Adobe Reader.
 

Many audio clips require audio player software plug-ins.

Click for a free download of  RealPlayer (the free "basic" version is in the upper corner on the far right) or Windows Media Player  or WinAmp .

To view video material, you'll need to download the RealPlayer (the free "basic" version is in the upper corner on the far right) or the QuickTime software.
 

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