Home Front Headache: Rationing
“All RED and BLUE stamps in War Ration Book 4 are Worth 10 POINTS EACH. RED and BLUE TOKENS are WORTH 1 POINT EACH....
The Dust Bowl
An eerie darkness enveloped the city of Chicago on the afternoon of November 12, 1933. The previous day this darkness had been a massive...
V-J Day: The Greatest Celebration
The celebrations on V-E Day, May 8, 1945, were spontaneous and joyful, yet everyone knew the victory over Hitler gave the world only partial...
Santa’s List 1938
In the autumn of 1938, Kaufmann’s Department Store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, decided to survey their customers to see what gifts they really wanted for...
The Big BOO!
A man in Pittsburgh opened his front door and heard a sad voice; the voice came from the radio and seemed to be mourning...
The Sound of an Era
On the evening of August 21, 1935, a dilapidated bus carrying the Benny Goodman Band pulled up in front of Los Angeles’s Palomar Ballroom....
Sunday Evening at the Movies
Imagine a heat wave — one of the worst in American history. We are back in the torrid summer of 1934, the third weekend...
Sellin’ Apples
“When we started this thing at the beginning of National Apple Week we had no idea it would expand in this way,” said Joseph...
Broadcasting from the Bottom of the World
A collapsible organ, a piano, and a man who could do “double tremolos on the harmonica.” If you guessed a 1930s evening by the...
The Bund
A 60-foot likeness of George Washington hung from the rafters at Madison Square Garden on the night of February 20, 1939. Also hanging from...