Collector's Item: #10 Unity Not Rationed Here 1939 -1950

Hi! this is hardly an item of the 1940 but it's definitely a collector's item well I guess I better set it away before something happens to it I'll put it among other collector's items that reflect the life in the arts of America since 1900 then I have something else I want to show you but before I tell you about this let's talk about sculpting sculpting in general during the 1940s I'm going to call this period one of the use of new materials and the period when many new forms were created you know for thousands of years the same materials were always used the sculpting only natural materials like stone were available but within the last 30 or 40 years sculptors have been using all sorts of new materials for example stainless steel plastics aluminum pounded copper and a host of others now these materials were taken and molded into odd form wire wood and glass appeared to suggest men's muscles wings of birds and the host of other shapes and movement was suggested and forms which did not resemble anything which had yet existed came into being the one sculptor designed medals for dishonor to be awarded to the Nazi and he shape eagles disguised as doves of peace so you see the sculptor could not just ignore the war but instead he commented on the time now here is an interesting piece of work this form was carved from a piece of butternut wood and it was done by a friend of mine right here at the college mr. Phil Barnett in this particular work an attempt is made to adhere to the grain of the wood just look at the texture in that it's called the sister of a mr. Mohr I'll just put it over here with my other collectors items and we'll look at some of the other work done during the 30s and 40s I pulled this book from the case because it has several photos of the sculpting's then now well here we are now this shows an example of the use of hammered copper it's unknown soldier by solvation I'm a powerful figure tragically deprived of his strength by contrast with his my mother and its melancholy appearance a carve in the type of stone called North fossils Williams Oh rocks and this is a stainless-steel heroic plaque symbolic of news the design of Isamu Noguchi it's above the entrance to the Associated Press building in Rockefeller Center in New York City and working in plastic leo Ameno created this form called Transfiguration wild boars is carved from granite on a miniature scale and ease by Heinz Warnock now here is one of the works of Alexander Calder's known for his movable suspended compositions called mobiles now this metal sculpting constantly takes on different aspects as it moves about Calder uses a variety of materials but his characteristic medium is better mobiles this one is called black red are strictly American in origin and these figures are the work at the Swedish American carmilla's the Orpheus of them and on a much larger scale are these faces boldly carved from the size of Mount Rushmore as a national memorial the words of good Sun boredom and others in Joe Davidson known for his portraits company produced this bust of ernie pyle the war correspondent so you see the sculpting of the 1940s at the end of today takes its form in many materials and as Joe Davidson shaped the head of Ernie Pyle so did other sculptors with their works reflect the life about them but say I'm going to have to close up this book now and still there are so many other sculptures that are worthy of mention to let me show you one more statue and don't ask me how I managed to get it down here in the den but I got it here it's over on the other side of the room now this is the work of christian petersen an iowa sculptor it's done in plaster represents a soldier of the Second World War who was has just been wounded a soldier who in his pain remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7 1941 with this sudden treacherous blow America found herself at war deeply and dangerously at war and Allied troops fought and died all over the world in France Germany Africa the Far East tropical Pacific island Oh fighting with a grim determination to avenge December 7 the smiling boy who joined the Navy soon became a stern fighting man and the girl who joined the waves Frieda man for sea duty the new GI Joe found himself placed with a different kind of life as he was shaped into an important part of a great fighting unit stayed at home learned a few lessons too we bought four bars the men were needed to work on production lines that were running 24 hours a day as we furnished supplies for our forces and our allies in the greatest industrial mobilization in history yes women were needed to and they rose to the emergency and took over machines they hated by men now serving in the Army Navy and Marine we learned to do without as rationing swept over the country and so we read about winning a world war waiting our own fight at home with our hearts scattered all over the world the whole world paused to mourn on April 12 1945 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died just four months before the Armistice was signed the Armistice he never saw and literally exploding the world into a frantic desire for peace the atomic bomb dropped on Japan by the Allies on August 6th 1945 brought on ultimate surrender it was signed aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2nd yes for this wounded soldier as for all of us there are a lot of memories connected with the Second World War this is the time when some of our well-known news analysts started to inform and educate the public they did more than just comment on the news they dealt with social and political theories and they pointed out which news happenings were likely to shape the course of events into radio like the many other means of mass communication took an active part in our lives the Armed Forces Radio Service was established to broadcast music radio programs from the states to the boys overseas and at home people were asked to save facts tin cans paper with radio broadcasting regular announcements reminding everyone of the importance of saving these good those announcements coupled with the many posters newspaper ads and such kept people informed as to what the government felt should be done to help the country pull through the war successfully of course radio is a great age of the bond drive to say yeah I happen to think I have some posters and such here some place at just a minute they're in the miscellaneous file over here in the storeroom and miscellaneous fire in this case means I don't quite know where they are file there you are thought for a minute that you've gone out to work in the yard clean up those boxes of pictures with the other day oh I was just looking for these World War two posters oh wait a minute don't get in a hurry let's talk awhile what were you going to do just something and of course I do have others but well I just saw that it was missing from the closet and I just saw a nice fire well let's look at the posters now as long as your desk cloth isn't a matter of top importance oh I was just thinking about radio and their pocket played in world war two radio two posters radio what's the connection well these are war bond posters and radio helps sell war bonds so I'm not just trying to be dense but what I really had in mind was that marathon bond sale that Kate Smith pulled off in 43 yes I know you you mean the one where she worked from morning until after midnight making those announcements yes on every 15 minutes pleading with people to buy war bonds you know that when she got through she had thirty nine million dollars pledged in war bonds oh well that certainly arrested my man no I just think that all came over the radio Oh over the radio which points up the fact I think that radio was becoming a pretty important influence hey we're forgetting about these posters let's see some of it oh okay I see here look at this one oh that's a powerful one isn't it doing all your can brother well that certainly hits home what else have you got oh yes it's a very friendly one Oh careless talk well you know that that problem of not giving away secrets that that was really an important one you bet it was and that was something the broadcasting companies had to look out for you know all of our back talk all about radiology Renee well I hadn't finished my lecture oh yes well didn't have much more to say I guess oh yes I didn't want to mention it how important radio was in in elevating the culture of America but with the symphonies and the scientific talks and the documentary broadcast are you referring to you mean the documentary well I'm thinking of of how the social problems were dramatized now the same thing was going on in the movies too such problems as juvenile delinquency a slum clearance then there were some pretty bad medical practices exposed to me you know hard I remember one type of program that wizard may ship during the fourth what was that giveaway type of program yes I'm still going strong people what they practically spat with their ears glued to their ratings waiting for a callback so there and you remember up here around the college everybody researching in the library trying to find out who nice hush work with the clues they gave them on the program yes I certainly have to agree with you Howard when you say that the radio really played an important part in during the war Master rapidly becoming a very important social media you know there were a lot of a very wonderful plays written them to by such men as Archibald MacLeish and Norman Corwin oh yes their writing was so powerful you know I used to listen to those plays I think now they probably will go down as some of the country's most significant writing well and I think we will and speaking of writers do you recall that book that had there so much to do about these of the all the effect of business on radio which one is that that was the hucksters Oh focused a lot of attention on the radio industry oh well it posed this problem now our radio broadcasts conducted in the interests of the people or for the benefit of the advertiser well they seem to get that problem they got a straight and off-key satisfaction of everyone the that problem caused the radio industry to kind of look into what they were doing and make a man and you know Howard this business of the radio Oh spreading all over every day radio coverage was expanding oh and you know between the radio and the newspapers the public was really being kept informed especially during the war we had that demonstrated yeah well and instead of considering the radio as a not too friendly rival the newspapers and the radio got together the result was the best news coverage in history I remember for instance that how amazed we were when those pictures of me baking Lucifer Oh wasn't that for something think of it only four hours after the first broadcast the first official pictures of the invasion were on the press you know reporting news through pictures certainly did boom about that time you remember that picture of the raising of the flag on oh yes how could I forget it wasn't that terrific though it just seemed to epitomize everything we were fighting for I can have one picture oh you must have a picture of that if you will you're saving way well I'm sure I have it was published in every newspaper in the country you know I think that's one photograph it's going to be a real collector's item someday all right over here you know that photograph when I filled it surprise was used on war posters it was even reproduced in an issue of war stamps yeah you know I I can understand why it would win a prize my brother our correspondent covering the war did a tremendous job yes you bet they did norther were over 1700 of them press radio and magazine men and women a lot of organization there's less attention yes you bet it did of course we just come through a world war go on for experience and the office of War Information did a tremendous job too and then we had pooling of photographs and information about the correspondents well for instance sometimes it was just a few correspondents could accompany the troops on any certain action so they pool their work now for instance on d-day only about 75 newsman could accompany the first landing troops you know American British and Canadian by quite a few to me yes but think of the millions of people at home waiting for that news well Howard how did so few men manage to get the news out well it was really very simple as soon as they landed on the coast of France they set up their portable radio transmitters and started sending out messages Oh what if we're across to London why they were taken in charge by a single sense and passed by him to a committee of correspondents who chose the best material to be distributed to the world was there much information sent out to that 15 men over 200,000 words sent off in the first hundred 20 hours after d-day hard I don't know where you got those figures but sounds impressive you know I just can't understand how these are newspapers managed to carry all that we lead I seem to remember that there was a newsprint shortage during the war well there was that and in a paper shortage - but you see the papers cut back their advertising space sharply in favor of war news especially those personal reports from the chorus father oh yes that was a very neat pile yes any pile Maya what he did for the morale of the soldier and his family - you know his reports were just like a personal letter how about the bill Mauldin oh yes they're born they don't need oil to do those zany gee I'm worried looking promised William Joey called him yes Easter drawn for Stars and Stripes and yang say I'm not even gonna wait for you've asked me this time I'd like to look at his book up front again - mom you know his cartoons were just as funny to us who were in the first war some things never change okay less conversation and more action where's the boat beam no you sound like that captain that the boys were making cut up okay we get making the coffee here we are looking a couple of day you know I think that more than funniest cartoons are those for you hoping if anything awesome name of that running them over the view you have that oh yes it's over here towards the back I thought the other day there beautiful view is there one for the enlisted men to just to give me a couple aspirin I've already got the Purple Heart well you know I think it's a human with it follows through you know try to really help us keep up our sense of morale during those years were so grim laughing with you all morning I came down here for a purpose ah and did you dream that you would be lured into a conversation well class dismissed and I promise to keep a sharp eye out for your desk okay thank you do that I know well Marlins up front was just one of many books written about the war in the 1940 and back at home books reflecting every aspect of the war became very popular all the way from William jurors Berlin diary to Marion High groves see here private heart roll and there were actually very few novels written famine it was until afterwards that they started to come out and then we had Norman Mailer's the naked in the dead and Jones's From Here to Eternity and Shaw's the young lion and so forth now we Americans had another need during war-torn anxious forty and that was for some kind of a faith something to hang on I guess that accounts for the great popularity of books with a religious and spear oh look at peace of mind by Rabbi Joshua Liebman for example why in 1947 it outsold even the best-selling novel the miracle of the bells which in itself was a religious book and continued the top of the best-selling list for three years and book club memberships at the sale of cheap paper boundary prints were zooming to and we were reading a lot at home and servicemen were living up to the label of being the dog gone just readin asfar me in the world the free reprints issued by the armed services edition some hundred nineteen million volumes and all that helps that along of course wonder what else is doing with that piano ever notice you can hardly read you know let's go up and surprise well a new talent unveiling itself I see have a desk what were you I should have fired the stuff away long ago but Oh some of them were so nice you know this home to the Second World War were a little different through songs the first war that is they were used differently anyway well yes I know that but what I mean is the boys didn't go off singing like they did in the first war there was more creaminess than the realization of what it was all about okay hmm what no class II can order in the 40s and with other things written beside swings we have some recordings of Jean Carlo Menotti za prism yes we have the telephone in the medium and the council that won the Pulitzer Prize and how about Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring yes right and then there were others too hard Hanson Symphony number two and Stravinsky's concerto evany concerto all say die after that saw every jukebox playing the beer barrel polka remember recording tag quite an upswing forty lots of tunes reflecting our attitude to the Lord what the war was doing to us you remember I left my heart at the stage door can school praise the Lord and pass the Aryan Nations and this is the army mr. Jones well I can remember some of those you mentioned let's try this one