In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

131 Freedom from want” was not only a powerful political message by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was also an ideology that the people of both England and the United States strove to adopt during the Second World War. After decades of hunger and economic depression, the nations looked to increased and improved food production as an answer to strife and conflict. “Want” and strife drove policy, and after female political activists shifted focus away from political equality and toward collective action to combat hunger and disease, nations turned to women’s roles as nurturers and producers to aid in the crisis. Just as in the First World War, a transnational exchange of ideas regarding solutions to food shortages during the Second World War resulted in jChapter 6 Freedom from Want the role of the victory garden in the second world war The proposal that want be abolished from this world would be pretentious, or even ridiculous, were it not for two important recent discoveries. One is the discovery that, beyond any doubt, men now possess the technical ability to produce in great abundance the necessities of daily life—enough for everyone. . . . Another is the discovery (or rather the realization) that the earth is one planet indivisible, that one man’s hunger is every other man’s hunger. . . . . . . Freedom from want, everywhere in the world, is within the grasp of men. . . . Prosperous times have been enjoyed in certain regions of the world at certain periods in history, but local prosperity was usually achieved at the expense of some other region, which was being impoverished, and the specter of impending war hung over all. Now the industrial changes of the last 150 years and the new prospect implicit in the words “United Nations” have given meaning to the phrase “ freedom from want” and rendered it not only possible but necessary. —Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress, 6 January 1941 “ 132 freedom from want the development of varied community and national homefront campaigns to increase food production. Whereas women’s organizations and clubs of England and the United States pushed to reinstate the Women’s Land Army (WLA) in both nations, political leaders sought both urban and rural solutions to Allied food shortages. The urban programs of each nation differed, however , because their agricultural situations and political goals varied. Shortages demanded that English political leaders encourage the reinstatement of the WLA months before the declaration of war, and both rural and urban women in England focused on food production for national survival. Urban efforts demanded that all available land in urban areas provide space for cultivation and urban people turned their attention away from ornamental gardening and toward food production. Thus during the war English identity tied directly to the production and distribution of food. American political leaders focused less on the WLA and more on the importance of individual citizens producing more food as a representation of American abundance. This political focus also marked a shift in the focus of many women on the role of home management as part of nation building. The United States recognized the mounting global food shortages and used the agricultural abundance of urban and rural cultivators as a political tool. As a result, Americans forged new identities symbolized by the abundance of the garden connected to the white middle-class kitchen. Regardless of agricultural opportunity or the homefront programs promoted, the cultivation of urban lands altered perspectives on the meaning of abundance in an uncertain world and shaped both political and personal identity. For U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill, the reasons for fighting the Second World War rested on certain freedoms the world should expect and fight to preserve for themselves and others. Meeting in August 1941, over three months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the two leaders drew up a list of reasons for victory and a plan for a postwar democratic world, known as the Atlantic Charter . Though part of a bigger plan in shaping their future postwar economies and political allies, the leaders addressed the freedom from want as essential to framing a stable postwar society. This small political statement affected not only the wartime homefront campaigns of Great Britain and the United States, but also diplomacy in creating a postwar society. For the people, “freedom from want” served as both personal and political goals to consume less and to produce more foodstuffs for the war effort and as an international symbol of postwar...

Share