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Life in wartime
By adamg on Sat, 05/25/2013 - 1:20pm
Boston woke up on Dec. 8, 1941 a changed, frightened and determined city. With war declared, Boston felt particularly vulnerable, given its position right on the coast. But Boston also rolled up its sleeves to help fend off the Axis. Scores of Leslie Jones photos posted by the BPL this week give a taste of life in wartime.
The State House's golden dome was painted over, to keep Beacon Hill from becoming a, well, beacon for Nazi warships (a skylight at MIT's Great Dome was similarly covered up; MIT only began restoring it last fall):
From nob neighborhoods to the North End, residents tore down their wrought-iron fences in scrap drives to help the war effort. Gov. Saltonstall did his part - helping to tear down the fences around the State House, starting with a ceremonial torching of Hitler on Oct. 5, 1942:
Celebrities visited Boston and Massachusetts, including actress Dorothy Lamour, who appeared in Fall River to promote war bonds:
Captured German and Japanese aircraft and flags, were paraded down Tremont and put on the Common as further incentives to work harder:
The MFA took down sculptures that might fall during a bombing run and readied special frames and sandbag barriers for paintings:
At the meat markets of Faneuil Hall, meat became a scarce commodity:
And even girls at Brighton High School were allowed into shop classes:
Photos from the BPL War Days collection. Posted under this Creative Commons license.
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Comments
life during wartime
"That ain't no foolin' around."
Great pictures.
RE Photo #1
Are you my mommy?
Violent boy breaks legs of
Violent boy breaks legs of man and girl during assault with iron pipe - rampage left path of neighborhood destruction.
It's hard to imagine today, but during World War II, everyone in the country did whatever they could to contribute to the war effort. This family is contributing their beautiful iron fence so that tanks and planes can be manufactured.
not quite
It's hard to imagine today, but during World War II, people believed what the government told them.
Almost. They were contributing their beautiful iron fence to a propaganda effort designed to boost morale on the home front.
Now the government may have been acting with the best of intentions -- boosting morale and making people feel a part of the war effort were both noble causes -- but the fact is, the government was lying, knew it was lying, and conducting the scrap drives (mostly) as a sham.
America was richly supplied with iron ore, limestone, and coal; there is very little energy, resource, or labor advantage in collecting iron scrap and melting it down versus making new iron. And, the aluminum pots and pans that patriotic housewives brought to the scrap drives were in many cases unceremoniously taken to the dump: only virgin aluminum was usable for aircraft.
(cite here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2395/were...)
Ack Ack guns
Various governments during WW2 also knew anti-aircraft guns really didn't work too well, but played them up to make their citizens feel better. When you see old news reels of the guns going off in London, it was mostly just for show.
The British and French also could have easily stopped Nazi Germany on many occasions, but didn't until it was too late. They repeatedly lied to their own people about the reality of the situation, millions died as a result.
The U.S. government provoked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor so it could get into WW2. They of course lied to the American people.
Gulf of Tonkin,anybody?
Weapons of mass destruction, anybody?
Contrary to what President Obama recently claimed to college grads, government has a long and duplicitous history of lies and conspiracies, that often resulted in wars, conflicts, death and destruction.
Bottom Line
A vicious dictator was intent on taking over as much of the world as he possibly could. He killed millions in an attempt to wipe an entire race of peoples from the face of the earth. He was stopped.
Do governments lie? Yeah.
Was the end result of World War II better than if we had not become involved? Yeah.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Ends justify the means?
Suldog, that's the "ends justify the means" argument, and I don't buy it.
We're a participatory democracy. That means that what we ought to do, nationally, militarily, etc. should follow the will of a well-informed populace.
If the truth wasn't enough to convince the American people to go to war, then it would have been wrong to go to war. And it was certainly wrong for those who thought they knew best to lie to the public in order to get the outcome they thought was the best.
I think the point isn't that WWII was a just war...
...it's that the fact that it had to be fought at all (or WWI for that matter), was a pretty direct result of often deliberate misdirection and provocation by various people in positions of authority in governments and industry, who often made their careers and fortunes thereby.
The Nazis weren't some sort of historical inevitability - they gained power because the Germans were so beat down after the put-up job of WWI that many felt they had little recourse to a better life other than through rabid nationalism. Yes, Hitler was an evil, disgusting despot, but plenty of industrialists (including some here in the USA) were willing to do business with that ravenous customer for years and years prior to the invasion of Poland (or even afterwards!)
Would the world have been a better place if WWII had never happened? It's impossible to know, but at least there would have been a few million more grandmothers and grandads around when I was younger.
Opie
The boy looks like Opie on a rampage.
Location?
I'm trying to figure out the location of the Dorothy Lamour photo. Anyone?
I was wondering the same
I was wondering the same thing myself. I was trying to figure out where in Boston I've seen that brick building with the arched windows. Well it turns out that she was not in Boston after all but Fall River
http://m.pinterest.com/pin/269160515199881061/
Thanks for tracking that down!
Yeah, I was thinking that that had to be what's now Downtown Crossing, but it didn't really look like it. Will adjust the photo caption.
This photograph was taken in
This photograph was taken in the 1940's on South Main Street in Fall River Ma as actress Dorothy Lamour visited Fall River to promote war bonds Police Officer Mike Hart front and center. Paul Waltman’s and Mell's Jewelers are seen in background