Download or read book Books and Libraries in American Society during World War II written by Patti Clayton Becker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II presented America's public libraries with the daunting challenge of meeting new demands for war-related library services and materials with Depression-weakened collections, inadequate budgets and demoralized staff, in addition to continuing to serve the library's traditional clientele of women and children seeking recreational reading. This work examines how libraries could respond to their communities need through the use of numerous primary and secondary sources.
Download or read book Information Hunters written by Kathy Peiss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While armies have seized enemy records and rare texts as booty throughout history, it was only during World War II that an unlikely band of librarians, archivists, and scholars traveled abroad to collect books and documents to aid the military cause. Galvanized by the events of war into acquiring and preserving the written word, as well as providing critical information for intelligence purposes, these American civilians set off on missions to gather foreign publications and information across Europe. They journeyed to neutral cities in search of enemy texts, followed a step behind advancing armies to capture records, and seized Nazi works from bookstores and schools. When the war ended, they found looted collections hidden in cellars and caves. Their mission was to document, exploit, preserve, and restitute these works, and even, in the case of Nazi literature, to destroy them. In this fascinating account, cultural historian Kathy Peiss reveals how book and document collecting became part of the new apparatus of intelligence and national security, military planning, and postwar reconstruction. Focusing on the ordinary Americans who carried out these missions, she shows how they made decisions on the ground to acquire sources that would be useful in the war zone as well as on the home front. These collecting missions also boosted the postwar ambitions of American research libraries, offering a chance for them to become great international repositories of scientific reports, literature, and historical sources. Not only did their wartime work have lasting implications for academic institutions, foreign-policy making, and national security, it also led to the development of today's essential information science tools. Illuminating the growing global power of the United States in the realms of intelligence and cultural heritage, Peiss tells the story of the men and women who went to Europe to collect and protect books and information and in doing so enriches the debates over the use of data in times of both war and peace.
Download or read book America and the Great War written by Margaret E. Wagner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year for 2017 "A uniquely colorful chronicle of this dramatic and convulsive chapter in American--and world--history. It's an epic tale, and here it is wondrously well told." --David M. Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of FREEDOM FROM FEAR From August 1914 through March 1917, Americans were increasingly horrified at the unprecedented destruction of the First World War. While sending massive assistance to the conflict's victims, most Americans opposed direct involvement. Their country was immersed in its own internal struggles, including attempts to curb the power of business monopolies, reform labor practices, secure proper treatment for millions of recent immigrants, and expand American democracy. Yet from the first, the war deeply affected American emotions and the nation's commercial, financial, and political interests. The menace from German U-boats and failure of U.S. attempts at mediation finally led to a declaration of war, signed by President Wilson on April 6, 1917. America and the Great War commemorates the centennial of that turning point in American history. Chronicling the United States in neutrality and in conflict, it presents events and arguments, political and military battles, bitter tragedies and epic achievements that marked U.S. involvement in the first modern war. Drawing on the matchless resources of the Library of Congress, the book includes many eyewitness accounts and more than 250 color and black-and-white images, many never before published. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy, America and the Great War brings to life the tempestuous era from which the United States emerged as a major world power.
Download or read book Books and Libraries in American Society during World War II written by Patti Clayton Becker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II presented America's public libraries with the daunting challenge of meeting new demands for war-related library services and materials with Depression-weakened collections, inadequate budgets and demoralized staff, in addition to continuing to serve the library's traditional clientele of women and children seeking recreational reading. This work examines how libraries could respond to their communities need through the use of numerous primary and secondary sources.
Download or read book The Bookseller s Secret written by Michelle Gable and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Bookseller's Secret is a delight from start to finish, a literary feast any booklover will savor!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye ARISTOCRAT, AUTHOR, BOOKSELLER, SPY—A THRILLING NOVEL ABOUT REAL-LIFE LITERARY ICON NANCY MITFORD FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A PARIS APARTMENT In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present… *Don't miss The Beautiful People, Michelle Gable’s next novel. On sale in April 2024 and available to preorder now!
Download or read book Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public written by Bernadette A. Lear and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public charts the history of public libraries and librarianship in Pennsylvania. Based on archival research at more than fifty libraries and historical societies, it describes a long progression from private, subscription-based associations to publicly funded institutions, highlighting the dramatic period during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when libraries were “thrown open” to women, children, and the poor. Made Free explains how Pennsylvania’s physical and cultural geography, legal codes, and other unique features influenced the spread and development of libraries across the state. It also highlights Pennsylvania libraries’ many contributions to the social fabric, especially during World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Most importantly of all, Made Free convincingly argues that Pennsylvania libraries have made their greatest strides when community activists and librarians, supported with state and local resources, have worked collaboratively.
Download or read book When Books Went to War written by Molly Guptill Manning and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestselling account of books parachuted to soldiers during WWII is a “cultural history that does much to explain modern America” (USA Today). When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops, gathering 20 million hardcover donations. Two years later, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million specially printed paperbacks designed for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. These small, lightweight Armed Services Editions were beloved by the troops and are still fondly remembered today. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. This pioneering project not only listed soldiers’ spirits, but also helped rescue The Great Gatsby from obscurity and made Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, into a national icon. “A thoroughly engaging, enlightening, and often uplifting account . . . I was enthralled and moved.” — Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “Whether or not you’re a book lover, you’ll be moved.” — Entertainment Weekly
Download or read book The Paris Library written by Janet Skeslien Charles and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the true World War II story of the American Library in Paris, an unforgettable novel about the power of books and the bonds of friendship—and the ordinary heroes who can be found in the most perilous times and the quietest places. Paris, 1939. Young, ambitious, and tempestuous, Odile Souchet has it all: Paul, her handsome police officer beau; Margaret, her best friend from England; Remy, her twin brother who she adores; and a dream job at the American Library in Paris, working alongside the library’s legendary director, Dorothy Reeder. When World War II breaks out, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear—including her beloved library. After the Nazi army marches into the City of Light and declares a war on words, Odile and her fellow librarians join the Resistance with the best weapons they have: books. Again and again, they risk their lives to help their fellow Jewish readers, but by war’s end, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983. Odile’s solitary existence in gossipy small-town Montana is unexpectedly interrupted by her neighbor Lily, a lonely teenager craving adventure. As Lily uncovers more about Odile’s mysterious past, they find they share not only a love of language but also the same lethal jealousy. Odile helps Lily navigate the troubled waters of adolescence by always recommending the right book at the right time, never suspecting that Lily will be the one to help her reckon with her own terrible secret. Based on the true story of the American Library in Paris, The Paris Library is a mesmerizing and captivating novel about the people and the books that make us who we are, for good and for bad, and the courage it takes to forgive.
Download or read book Roi Ottley s World War II written by Mark A. Huddle and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When black journalist Vincent "Roi" Ottley was assigned to cover the European theater in World War II, he provided a perspective shared by few other war correspondents. But what he really saw has taken more than sixty years to come to light. Already famous as the author of New World A-Coming-in which he decried the hypocrisy of America fighting for freedom in Europe while denying it to blacks at home-Ottley was sent to cover the experiences of African American soldiers that neither white journalists nor the American military felt obliged to report. But while his dispatches documented this assignment, his personal diary reveals a different war-one that included mess hall brawls between Southern white soldiers and their black counterparts, the British public's ignorance toward their own black soldiers, and other subtle glimpses of wartime life that never made it into print. That journal remained buried in a collection of Ottley's papers at St. Bonaventure University until Mark Huddle discovered it in the school's archives. With this book, he offers us a new look at World War II as he brings a forgotten figure out of history's shadow. While Ottley may have had an agenda in his published articles of proving the worth of black soldiers, his diary is rich in personal reflections-from his fears while enduring a bombing raid in London to his true feelings about fellow reporters to his encounters with celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway and Edward R. Murrow. And at every turn Ottley kept a keen eye on race issues, revealing a highly political as well as entertaining writer while reflecting a growing awareness that the African American freedom movement was part of a larger international struggle by peoples of color against Western imperialism. Huddle's introduction frames Ottley's career and contributions, and his annotations throughout the book provide additional context to the reporter's experiences. Huddle also includes thirteen of Ottley's published dispatches to demonstrate the differences between his personal musings and his professional output. The publication of this lost diary restores the reputation of a trailblazing figure, showing that Roi Ottley was both a brilliant writer and one of America's keenest observers of race issues. It offers all readers interested in race relations or World War II a more nuanced picture of life during that conflict from a perspective rarely encountered.
Download or read book Part of Our Lives written by Wayne A. Wiegand and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenges conventional thinking and top-down definitions, instead drawing on the library user's perspective to argue that the public library's most important function is providing commonplace reading materials and public space. Challenges a professional ethos about public libraries and their responsibilities to fight censorship and defend intellectual freedom. Demonstrates that the American public library has been (with some notable exceptions) a place that welcomed newcomers, accepted diversity, and constructed community since the end of the 19th century. Shows how stories that cultural authorities have traditionally disparaged- i.e. books that are not "serious"- have often been transformative for public library users.
Download or read book Kiyo Sato written by Connie Goldsmith and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Our camp, they tell us, is now to be called a 'relocation center' and not a 'concentration camp.' We are internees, not prisoners. Here's the truth: I am now a non-alien, stripped of my constitutional rights. I am a prisoner in a concentration camp in my own country. I sleep on a canvas cot under which is a suitcase with my life's belongings: a change of clothes, underwear, a notebook and pencil. Why?"—Kiyo Sato In 1941 Kiyo Sato and her eight younger siblings lived with their parents on a small farm near Sacramento, California, where they grew strawberries, nuts, and other crops. Kiyo had started college the year before when she was eighteen, and her eldest brother, Seiji, would soon join the US Army. The younger children attended school and worked on the farm after class and on Saturday. On Sunday, they went to church. The Satos were an ordinary American family. Until they weren't. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, US president Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and the United States officially entered World War II. Soon after, in February and March 1942, Roosevelt signed two executive orders which paved the way for the military to round up all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and incarcerate them in isolated internment camps for the duration of the war. Kiyo and her family were among the nearly 120,000 internees. In this moving account, Sato and Goldsmith tell the story of the internment years, describing why the internment happened and how it impacted Kiyo and her family. They also discuss the ways in which Kiyo has used her experience to educate other Americans about their history, to promote inclusion, and to fight against similar injustices. Hers is a powerful, relevant, and inspiring story to tell on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Download or read book American Home Front in World War II Reference Library Cumulative Index written by Allison McNeill and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a cumulative reference library index for the first three volumes of American Home Front in World War Two.
Download or read book Books in the War written by Theodore Wesley Koch and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Library of Congress World War II Companion written by David M. Kennedy and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 1017 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An indispensable reference on World War II produced by the Library of Congress and edited by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David M. Kennedy. With hundreds of illustrations and quotations from contemporary documents, this will be the most authoritative popular reference on World War II. The noted historian John Keegan called World War II "the largest single event in human history." More than sixty years after it ended, that war continues to shape our world. Going far beyond accounts of the major battles, The Library of Congress World War II Companion examines, in a unique and engaging manner, this devastating conflict, its causes, conduct, and aftermath. It considers the politics that shaped the involvement of the major combatants; military leadership and the characteristics of major Allied and Axis armed services; the weaponry that resulted in the war's unprecedented destruction, as well as debates over the use of these weapons; the roles of resistance groups and underground fighters; war crimes; daily life during wartime; the uses of propaganda; and much more. Drawn from the unparalleled collections of the institution that has been called "America's Memory," The Library of Congress World War II Companion includes excerpts from contemporary letters, journals, pamphlets, and other documents, as well as first-person accounts recorded by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. The text is complemented by more than 150 illustrations. Organized into topical chapters (such as "The Media War," "War Crimes and the Holocaust," and two chapters on "Military Operations" that cover the important battles), the book also include readers to navigate through the rich store of information in these pages. Filled with facts and figures, information about unusual aspects of the war, and moving personal accounts, this remarkable volume will be indispensable to anyone who wishes to understand the World War II era and its continuing reverberations.
Download or read book From Coveralls to Zoot Suits written by Elizabeth R. Escobedo and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, unprecedented employment avenues opened up for women and minorities in U.S. defense industries at the same time that massive population shifts and the war challenged Americans to rethink notions of race. At this extraordinary historical moment, Mexican American women found new means to exercise control over their lives in the home, workplace, and nation. In From Coveralls to Zoot Suits, Elizabeth R. Escobedo explores how, as war workers and volunteers, dance hostesses and zoot suiters, respectable young ladies and rebellious daughters, these young women used wartime conditions to serve the United States in its time of need and to pursue their own desires. But even after the war, as Escobedo shows, Mexican American women had to continue challenging workplace inequities and confronting family and communal resistance to their broadening public presence. Highlighting seldom heard voices of the "Greatest Generation," Escobedo examines these contradictions within Mexican families and their communities, exploring the impact of youth culture, outside employment, and family relations on the lives of women whose home-front experiences and everyday life choices would fundamentally alter the history of a generation.
Download or read book The Homefront written by Mark Jonathan Harris and published by Putnam Publishing Group. This book was released on 1984 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes primary sources on defense workers, women during the war, conscientious objectors, scrap metal collection and recycling, racial issues on the homefront, and civil defense.
Download or read book The War Librarian written by Addison Armstrong and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Paris Library meets The Flight Girls in this captivating historical novel about the sacrifice and courage necessary to live a life of honor, inspired by the first female volunteer librarians during World War I and the first women accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy. Two women. One secret. A truth worth fighting for. 1918. Timid and shy Emmaline Balakin lives more in books than her own life. That is, until an envelope crosses her desk at the Dead Letter Office bearing a name from her past, and Emmaline decides to finally embark on an adventure of her own—as a volunteer librarian on the frontlines in France. But when a romance blooms as she secretly participates in a book club for censored books, Emmaline will need to find more courage within herself than she ever thought possible in order to survive. 1976. Kathleen Carre is eager to prove to herself and to her nana that she deserves her acceptance into the first coed class at the United States Naval Academy. But not everyone wants female midshipmen at the Academy, and after tragedy strikes close to home, Kathleen becomes a target. To protect herself, Kathleen must learn to trust others even as she discovers a secret that could be her undoing.
