When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II QUOTES

2 " Is it possible that the national psychology emphasizing bigness has caused us to think only in those terms – to the detriment of the small things that have to be done if we are to win the war? "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

4 " The therapeutic effect of reading was not a new concept to the librarians running the VBC (Victory Book Campaign). In the editorial Warren published on the eve of commencing her tenure as director, she discussed how books could soothe pain, diminish boredom or loneliness, and take the mind on a vacation far from where the body was stationed. Whatever a man's need—a temporary escape, a comforting memory of home, balm for a broken spirit, or an infusion of courage—the librarians running the VBC were dedicated to ensuring that each man found a book to meet it. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

6 " One of the loudest voices to address this issue belonged to the American Library Association (ALA). Librarians felt duty-bound to try to stop Hitler from succeeding in his war of ideas against the United States. They had no intention of purging their shelves or watching their books burn, and they were not going to wait until war was declared to take action. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

8 " Some printed pages are medical plasters to extract pain, others are tourists' tickets out of boredom or loneliness to exhilarating adventures, still others are diplomas for promotion and drilling ideas into a quick-step. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

10 " Sadly, not all veterans had equal access to an education, even under the GI Bill’s amendments. Although no provision prevented African American and female veterans from securing an education under the bill, these veterans returned to a nation that still endorsed segregated schools and largely believed a woman’s place was in the home. For African American veterans, educational opportunities were limited. In the words of historian Christopher P. Loss, “Legalized segregation denied most black veterans admission into the nation’s elite, overwhelmingly white universities, and insufficient capacity at the all-black schools they could attend failed to match black veterans’ demand.” The number of African American students at U.S. colleges and universities tripled between 1940 and 1950, but many prospective students were turned away because of their race. For those African Americans who did earn a degree under the GI Bill, employment discrimination prevented them from gaining positions commensurate with their education. Many African American college graduates were offered low-level jobs that they could have secured without any education. Almost a decade elapsed between V-J Day and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down segregated schools. It would take another decade after Brown for the civil rights movement to fully develop and for public schools to make significant strides in integrating. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

12 " As Americans trekked across France to Paris and leapfrogged from one Pacific island to the next, they would be surrounded by nothing but the war, and comforted by little apart from their books. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

14 " At the time President Roosevelt announced these goals, a college education was largely outside the grasp of most working-class families. Placing a college degree within reach of every qualified veteran was extraordinary. In 1940 the average worker earned less than $1,000 each year, and the annual cost of a college education fell anywhere between $453 at state colleges to $979 at private universities. Under Roosevelt’s plan, higher education would be doled out irrespective of social class or wealth for the first time in American history. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

16 " They weren’t just for entertainment and diversion. Books also served as the premier weapon in fighting Adolf Hitler’s “war of ideas.” Nazi Germany sought control over people’s beliefs, not just their bodies and territory. From the 1933 state-sanctioned book burnings in Germany to the purging of libraries across Europe as nations were conquered by the Nazis, “un-German” reading material was threatened with extinction. The scale of destruction was impressive. By V-E Day, it is estimated that Germany had destroyed over 100 million books in Europe. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

18 " One thing that impressed him was how quickly the ASEs fell apart under combat conditions. “A man reads a book to death very quickly while standing in the rain or snow without any shelter to keep the pages dry.” When there were more men than ASEs, it was “not unusual for a man to tear off the portion of a book he had finished to give it to the next man who doesn’t have a book to read saying—‘I’ll save my pages for you.’” Trautman had intended to bring examples of books in “a state of combat exhaustion” to show to the council, but the servicemen had resisted. “‘You wouldn’t take our books away, would you? We can still read them,” the men had said to Trautman. "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

20 " J. C. Furnas’s How America Lives "

― , When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II