|
|
|
Review
| The War Comes to Plum Street, by Bruce C. Smith. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. 300 pages. $29.95, cloth.
|
| By the end of World War II in September 1945 over 16 million men and women had served in the U. S. military. Their absence from home, sometimes forever, inevitably touched the lives of countless millions more. In War Comes to Plum Street Bruce C. Smith, utilizing extensive oral history and newspaper research, tells the story of two Midwestern families from the small community of New Castle, Indiana, during the Great Depression and World War II. The book wonderfully describes the social effects of the Great Depression while compellingly humanizing the personal struggle of each family member. The opening chapters especially illustrate the aspects of self reliance, frugality, and home economy needed to survive the economic uncertainty of the depression years. The main emphasis of the book, however, is how the war was perceived, understood, and reconciled by the community participants who, as the author states, "represent something very much like average Americans of their day" (xii). Toward this end, the book is successful and instructive in helping readers gain perspective on how home front Americans learned of and speculated about the war without knowing the overall timetable and grand strategy of events. The well-written narrative enables readers to understand the impact of these events by interpreting their inevitable effect on someone, somewhere, back home. In addition, Smith develops a richly detailed local history setting including intricate details of life in depression era and wartime New Castle. |
1
|
|
The book is recommended for use with any collegiate course on World War II or 20th century American history. Smith provides excellent explanations and examples of wartime food and fuel rationing, military training, and the social mores of the early 1940s. By aptly broadening and narrowing the focus between the larger events of the war and their local effects on New Castle the author strikes a successful balance between the two. The most admirable quality of the book is the emblematic nature of its subjects who represent the experiences of millions of other young Americans coming of age during the war years. For those on the home front the war brought separation, divided families, orphaned children, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty as exemplified by the residents of Plum Street. For community members called to service the war years brought the rapid transition from citizen to soldier, the physically and mentally demanding aspects of military training, and the enhanced appreciation of friends and family at home. For many Americans old enough to remember the war it has served as a demarcation point in their lives separating before and after. "For the most part," the author reminds us, "they let the war stay as it had been: put away in trunks and boxes, kept safe in mothballs, available for others to discover, but not offered" (297). |
2
|
|
Overall, War Comes to Plum Street is a splendid example of well researched and written local history providing a useful contribution to the literature on home front America during World War II that will encourage readers to question and explore the wartime participation of their own families and communities. In conclusion, Smith writes of World War II era Americans, "Their faith and sacrifice can never be honored adequately, and the lessons of those years, purchased at such a heavy cost, must never be distorted or lost" (300). War Comes to Plum Street is a fitting achievement toward that goal. |
3
|
| | |
| Iowa Gold Star Military Museum, Camp Dodge |
Michael W. Vogt |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|