1940s

Scope|Overview Sources|Personalities and Events|Notable Fiction|Periodicals, Journals, & Trade Publications

Scope: In the decade of the 1940s 16-17 million Americans served in the military during World War II. Wealth became more evenly distributed, and social security and welfare compensations were introduced. Amidst the turmoil of war, our nation emerged as the worlds most powerful and prosperous nation.

OVERVIEW SOURCES:

REF E169.1.S559 2004 The 1940s

REF E 169.12 A419 This Fabulous Century 1940-1950

REF E 169.1.B664 1990 American Chronicle

REF E 169.12 A419 American Decades 1940-1949

REF E 174.5.W46 1991 The U.S. A.: A Chronicle in Picture 

Representative Books from the Circulating Collection:

PERSONALITIES AND EVENTS

Broughton, Irv. Forever Remembered: The Fliers of World War II: Interviews. Spokane: Eastern Washington University Press, 2001.

Clarke, Donald. Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday. New York: Viking, 1994.

Davis, Kenneth Sydney. FDR, The War President, 1940-1943: A History.

Friedrich, Otto. City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

Graebner, William. The Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982.

Heyman, Neil M. Daily Life During World War I. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Honey, Maureen. Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Minear, Richard H. Hiroshima: Three Witnesses. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Nicholson, Stuart. Billie Holiday. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

Stave, Bruce M. Witnesses to Nuremberg: An Oral History of American Participants at the War Crimes Trials. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998.

Tucker, Sherrie. Swing Shift: All-Girl Bands of the 1940s. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2000.

Wright, William. Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

VIDEOS

Video 1077 Band of Brothers

E 17. B56 2000 A Biography of America

D422 .P46 1998 v.11 People's Century 1945 Brave New World

NOTABLE FICTION

Bellow, Saul. Dangling Man. New York: Vanguard Press, 1944.

Camus, Albert. The Plague. New York: Knopf, 1948.

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York: Knopf, 1973.

Costain, Thomas. The Black Rose. New York: Doubleday, 1945.

Cozzens, James Gould. The Just and the Unjust. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942.

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Scribner, 1940.

Mailer, Norman. The Naked and the Dead. New York: Rinehart, 1948.

Maugham, W. Somerset. The Razor's Edge. New York: Penguin, 1944.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: New American Library, 1946.

Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. New York: C. Scribners, 1948.

Roberts, Kenneth. Lydia Bailey. New York: Doubleday, 1947.

Saroyan, William. The Human Comedy. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1943.

Saroyan, William. My Name is Aram. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940.

Werfel, Franz. The Song of Bernadette. New York: St. Martins, 1970.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper & Row, 1940.

PERIODICALS, JOURNALS, & TRADE PUBLICATIONS

Click the link for a list of full text journals available through our databases in:

• United States History-General