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The Impact of World War II on American Society and Scholarly Publishing: December 7, 1941–1942

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The Growth of the Scholarly Publishing Industry in the U.S.

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Abstract

America entered World War II on December 7, 1947, and the nation underwent a dramatic mobilization. Scholarly publishing was impacted by a series of presidential executive orders and governmental regulations resulting in the rationing of paper, ink (that contained oil), and supplies needed to print books and journals and the creation of a censorship office. This chapter analyzes these events and the creation of the Manhattan Project’s secret research operation under the leadership of General Leslie Groves. A positive development was the G.I. Book Program, which distributed +122 million books, including some scholarly books, to military personnel during the war.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941; available at the Library of Congress; https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc1986022.afc1986022_ms2201/?st=text. The Library of Congress. “A Guide to World War II Materials;” https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ww2/ww2bib.html

  2. 2.

    https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-united-states-declares-war-on-japan

  3. 3.

    Vance Maverick. “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution In Storage,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 23, 2009; http://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2009/12/23/the-declaration-of-independence-and-the-constitution-in-storage

  4. 4.

    Arthur Herman. Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (New York: Random House, 2013), pages ix, 153, 162, 164–165, 171, 207, 341.

  5. 5.

    President Harry S. Truman. Executive Order 9981; July 26, 1948; https://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/desegblurb.htm

  6. 6.

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Executive Order 9066; https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=219

  7. 7.

    Buel W. Patch. “Enforcement of the Antitrust Laws;” February 19, 1947; http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1947021900#H2_2

  8. 8.

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Executive Order 8875; http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16164

  9. 9.

    Maury Klein. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), pages 406–410.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., Also see Arthur Herman. Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pages 153, 162, 164–165, 171, 207, 341. John Morton Blum. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1976), pages 96–98, 139–140, 222, 227–228.

  11. 11.

    Klein. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, page 604.

  12. 12.

    Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pages 3–45, 102–122. Also see Eisenstein’s The Printing Press As an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pages 51–83.

  13. 13.

    Graphic Arts Technical Foundation. The Lithographer’s Manual (Pittsburgh: Graphic Arts Technical Foundation, 1966), 9–41.

  14. 14.

    Bennett Cerf. At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf (New York: Random House, 1977), page 188.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., page 189.

  16. 16.

    The Alien Registration Act of 1940, Public Law 76-670, Statutes at 54 Stat. 670, Chapter 439; http://legisworks.org/sal/54/stats/STATUTE-54-Pg670.pdf. Also see 8 U.S.C., Chapter 10 §450-1; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-10

  17. 17.

    President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Executive Order 8381; https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-8381.htm

  18. 18.

    Roger Daniels. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The War Years, 1939–1945 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016), page 236.

  19. 19.

    Robert J. Hanyok. “Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II;” https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article10.html. The records of the Office of Censorship are available at The National Archives; https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/216.html

  20. 20.

    William M. Leary, Jr. “Books, Soldiers, and Censorship During the Second World War,” American Quarterly 20, 2(Summer 1968): 237, 241.

  21. 21.

    John B. Hench. Books As Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), pages 43–67; and Molly Guptill Manning. When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), pages 31–58.

  22. 22.

    Manning . When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, pages 202–232. Also see Kathy Peiss. “Cultural Policy in a Time of War: The American Response to Endangered Books in World War II,” Library Trends 55, 3(Winter 2007): 370–386.

  23. 23.

    General Leslie M. Groves. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (New York: Da Cappo Press, 1983), pages 12, 15, 17. Also see The Library of Congress, Science Reference Services. “The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) Collection;” https://www.loc.gov/rr/dcitech/trs/trsosrd.html. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology. Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards and Technology, Chapter 12 World War II Research 1941–1945; https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/nvi/MP275_12_Chapter_VII-_WORLD_WAR_II_RESEARCH.pdf. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “Final Approval to Build the Bomb;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1942/final_approval_build.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “Groves and the MED;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1942/groves_htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “Enter the Army;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1942/enter_army.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “Reorganization and Acceleration (1939–1942);” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1939-1942/reorganization.htm

  24. 24.

    Groves. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project. pages xiii–xviii, 3–18. Also see The Department of Energy, DOE Research Accomplishments. “The Manhattan Project—Its Story;”;https://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/manhattan_story.html. Also see Bruce Cameron Reed. The History and Science of the Manhattan Project (Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics) (New York: Springer, 2012), pages 6–27, 29–68. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-history/Events/events.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project: Places;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-history/Places/places.htm. Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr. The New World, 1939–1946, Vol. 1 A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), pages 53–83.

  25. 25.

    Eric D. Isaacs and Robert Rosner. “How the Chicago Pile Helped the Manhattan Project Succeed,” The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2017, page A13; also https://wsj.com/articles/how-the-chicago-pile-helped-the-manhattan-project-succeed-1512171527. Also see Ashley Gosselar. “Science and Conscience: Chicago’s Met Lab and the Manhattan Project,” February 8, 2018; http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2018/02/06/science-and-conscience-chicagos-met-lab-and-the-manhattan-project. David Mindell. “The Science and Technology of World War II,” The National Museum of World War II; www.learnnc.org

  26. 26.

    Groves. Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, pages 25–26, 29. Also see Larry Owens. “The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War: Vannevar Bush and the Office of Scientific Research and Development,” Business History Review 68, 4(1994): 516–520, 527–530, 539–558.

  27. 27.

    Groves. Now It Can Be Told, pages 138–147, 149–169. Also see U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project: Processes;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Processes/processes.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project: Science;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Science/science.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-history/Events/events.htm. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of History and Heritage Resources. “The Manhattan Project: Resources Related to the Manhattan Project;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Resources/resources.htm

    The Department of Energy, Office of Environment, Safety, and Security. “Manhattan District History;” https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan_district.jsp. This was a classified “secret” document until September 4, 1979. Also see F.G. Gosling. The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb (Washington, DC: The Department of Energy, 2010; DOE/MA-0002 Revised), pages 107–115. Also see B. Cameron Reed. “The Manhattan Project,” Royal Swedish Academy of Science 89 (2014): 1–25.

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  1. Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA

    Albert N. Greco

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Greco, A.N. (2019). The Impact of World War II on American Society and Scholarly Publishing: December 7, 1941–1942. In: The Growth of the Scholarly Publishing Industry in the U.S.. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99549-6_3

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