Prairie Forge: The Extraordinary Story of the Nebraska Scrap Metal Drive of World War II

Notes

163 Notes Introduction: Home Front, Battlefront 1. Interview with Bill Nicholas, Scrap Drive Collection, Douglas County Historical Society, Omaha ne (dchs). 2. Marr McGaffin, “Somber War Atmosphere Grips Capital,” Sunday WorldHerald , July 12, 1942. On the dramatic Bataan losses, see “Bataan Worst Blow to an American Army,” New York Times, April 10, 1942. 3. On the number of scrap committees, see “Nelson’s Scrap Rally Plea Inspires Action,” Scrapper, no. 1 [undated]; American Industries Salvage Committee, Scrap and How to Collect It . . . , booklet, September 1942, 29, in American Iron and Steel InstituteVertical Files, box 116, folder 9, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington de (Hagley). (The ellipsis in the title of the booklet is original.) 4. Internal government discussion of the scrap problem is available, for example, in Materials Branch, Statistics Division, War Production Board, “Preliminary Report: Availability of Data Relating to Scrap Materials,” ts., July 3, 1942, p. 4, in War Production Board Policy Documentation File, rg 179, box 917, folder “Scrap Campaign: January–August 1942,” NationalArchives and RecordsAdministration , College Park md (nara); and in “Minutes of the 3rd Meeting of the Steel Plate Committee,” ts., July 30, 1942, p. 2, in Combined Production and Resources Board, Records of the Combined Steel Committee, rg 179, box 2, folder “cprb 2nd spc Mtg.,” nara. The Rosenwald quotation is from “NonStop Campaign for Scrap Started,” NewYork Times, July 14, 1942. Nelson put his warning in “An Emergency Statement to the People of the United States,” advertisement, Life, July 27, 1942, 16 (note that the ad was published in numerous magazines and newspapers). 164 / Notes to pages 3–6 5. William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 135. 6. “The People’s Response,” Evening World-Herald,August 10, 1942. More context on the Nebraska home front is available in Frederick C. Luebke, Nebraska: An Illustrated History, 2nd ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 298– 306, and Robert M. Armstrong, “Nebraska and Nebraskans in World War II,” Nebraska History 24 (1943): 174–80. Numerous other perspectives are evident in a special World War II–themed issue of Nebraska History, published as the summer/fall issue in 1995. 7. “Nebraska to the Rescue,” Life, September 21, 1942, 38; “Liberal News Space Boosts Scrap Drive,” Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 1942; George Gallup, “94 of 100 Have Read about Metal Drive in Newspapers,” Washington Post, October 10, 1942; “That Scrap Drive,” Newsweek, October 26, 1942, 64; American Newspaper Publishers Association, The Nation’s No. 1 Success Story [December 1942], 14, 13, 16, in Advertising Council Records, 1935–99 and undated, box 36, folder 6, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University (Duke). 8. Hollis J. Limprecht, A Century of Service, 1885–1985: The World-Herald Story (Omaha: Omaha World-Herald, 1985), 29. For examples of historical accounts that blend the various salvage efforts, see Lisa L. Ossian, The Forgotten Generation: American Children and World War II (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2011), chap. 3, and Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (NewYork: Henry Holt, 1999), chap. 6.A good primary source that differentiates the various scrap drives is MildredAdams, “Our Precious Junk,” NewYork Times Magazine, May 24, 1942, 14, 28. Note that the World-Herald campaign itself initially included rubber as part of the collection effort. The appeals for scrap metal, however, soon eclipsed thoughts of rubber collection for most of the drive. 9. James J. Kimble, “The Militarization of the Prairie: Scrap Drives, Metaphors, and the Omaha World-Herald’s 1942 ‘Nebraska Plan,’” Great Plains Quarterly 27 (2007): 84. As Alan L. Gropman argues, “World War II was won in largest part because of superior Allied armaments production,” with the United States eventually turning out arms at a rate nearly equal to the combined amount produced by all other combatants. See his Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II (Washington dc: Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1996), 1–2. 10. A more visually oriented retelling of the scrap drive story is available in Scrappers : How the Heartland Won World War II, dvd, directed by James J. Kimble and Thomas R. Rondinella (South Orange nj: Catfish Studios, 2010). The anecdote about the salvage official certain that the state had already found all it would be able to is from Doorly’s testimony, as recorded in “American Newspaper Notes to...