The United States had only been committed to the Second World War for twenty weeks when the American artist Rockwell Kent (1882 – 1971) felt compelled to write about the unique roll artist are called upon to play within a democracy at war:
"The art of a democracy must be, like democracy itself, of and by and for the people. It must and will reflect the public mood and public interest...Awareness of America, of its infinitely varied beauties and of its sometimes sordid ugliness; awareness of the life of America, of its fulfillments and its failures; awareness, if you like, of God, the landscape architect supreme - and political failure: of the promise of America and of its problems, art has been, or has aimed to be, a revelation. It is for the right to solve these problems our way that we are now at war." If you're one of those types who tend to feel that Americans aren't as smart as they used to be, this is the article for you: attached is a collection of quotes generated by eight home front dullards who were asked the question: "Do you know what you are fighting?" They all understood that their nation had just finished it's second year fighting something called "Fascism" but were hard-pressed to put a thoughtful definition to the term: "A Kansas cattle raiser defined Fascism as '...the belief in a big industrial enterprise. Anyone who thinks that way is Fascist-minded." Additionally, it is fun to see the pictures of all the assorted noobs who made such ridiculous statements. This is an article about the 1940s comic book industry and the roll it played during W.W. II.
The writer doesn't spell it out for us, but by-and-by it dawned on us that among all the various "firsts" the World War Two generation had claim to, they were also the first generation to read comic books. Although this article concentrates on the wartime exploits of such forties comic book characters as Plastic Man and Blackhawk, it should be remembered that the primary American comic book heroes that we remember today were no slackers during the course of the war; Superman smashed the Siegfried Line prior to arresting Hitler as he luxuriated in his mountain retreat; Batman selflessly labored in the fields of counterintelligence while Captain America signed-up as a buck private.
Click here to read an article about the predecessor to the American comic book: the Dime Novel.
If you would like to read a W.W. II story concerning 1940s comic strips and the failed plot to assassinate General Eisenhower, click here. This article is accompanied by nineteen pictures illustrating the various ways tin cans are put to use by the American military during W.W.II, and it was printed to show the necessity of full civilian participation along the home front. In order to guarantee that this message would get out to everyone, magazine editors would have been provided with these photographs and an assortment of facts by a government agency called the Office of War Information. By the time this article appeared on the newsstands at the close of 1942, the American people were fully committed to a war on two fronts that quite often was not generating the kinds of headlines they would have preferred to read. Certainly, there was the naval victory at Midway, but the butcher's bill was high at Pearl Harbor and North Africa and after a thirteen year lull in church attendance, America was once again returning to the church:
This is a three page article concerning the city of New York from Yank's on-going series, "Home Towns in Wartime". The Yank correspondent, Sanderson Vanderbilt, characterized Gotham as being "overcrowded" (in 1945 the population was believed to be 1,902,000; as opposed to the number today: 8,143,197) and I'm sure we can all assume that today's New Yorkers tend to feel that their fore-bearers did not know the meaning of the word. New York was the home base of Yank Magazine and this article presents a young man's view of that town and the differences that he can recall when he remembers it's pre-war glory (Sanderson tended to feel that the city looked a bit "down-at-the-heel"). Click here if you would like to read an article about the celebrations in New York the day World War Two ended. | 
