The American Schools at War program was a program during World War II run by the U.S. Treasury Department, in which schoolchildren set goals to sell stamps and bonds to help the war effort. The program was also administered by the U.S. Office of Education, the Federal government agency that interfaced with the nation's school systems and its thirty-two million students. The Office, however, allowed the Treasury to work with the schools directly as the main objective of the program was raising money.
Planning for the program began before the December 1941 United States declaration of war on Japan. It started in earnest with the 1942–1943 school year. Students were taught that they could support the war effort in several ways. Their most important contribution was financial. Students bought war stamps and bonds with their spare change or earnings. However, more significantly, they were a sales force of millions selling to their families, neighbors, and communities. By the end of the war, they had raised over $2 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ).
Schools at War supplied literature to teachers and posters that encouraged all aspects of the program. Individual schools were incentivized with a special flag to reach 90 percent student participation. School sponsorship of a particular item, such as a jeep or airplane, motivated sales. Tens of thousands of jeeps and hundreds of planes were "bought" under the program.
Formation The program was initially patterned on prior school savings programs. The Thrift stamp program of World War I facilitated, with 25-cent stamps, small-scale savings by children towards the eventual purchase of a larger five-dollar War Savings Certificate. The post-war period also saw the growth of the school savings bank movement, in which children were encouraged to save money by opening and regularly depositing into savings bank accounts through the school. The idea of a school saving program for World War II began before the U.S. entered the war. In July 1941, John W. Studebaker, the U.S. Commissioner of Education, outlined the cooperation between the Office of Education and the Treasury. The Treasury also cooperated on the Schools at War program with private organizations like the National Education Association, the American Council on Education, and the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The program was further refined in the spring of 1942 with the development of various publications about saving and conserving under wartime conditions. Early pamphlets included: Stamps: How They Help Uncle Sam What You Should Know About U.S. Savings Stamps and Bonds
Purpose
The Schools at War program was led by the director of the education division of the War Savings Staff of the Treasury Department, Homer W. Anderson, and was intended to unify and coordinate the effort of 30 million school children in support of the war effort. Children were expected to provide direct financial aid, as well as indirect support by receiving instruction in "good citizenship" and the "preservation of democracy". Teaching thrift, conservation, and war finance was considered "educationally sound" and therefore not in conflict with the schools' primary function.
The program used the slogan "Save, Serve, and Conserve". "Save" meant students were asked to save money to buy war saving stamps and bonds to pay for war material. "Serve" meant directly training in or performing war-related tasks such as providing first-aid, radio/telegraph communication, firefighting, enemy plane spotting, childcare, etc. "Conserve" referred to the wartime collection of materials such as scrap metal and rubber, aluminum, paper, string, cloth, kitchen fat, as well as reducing waste by repairing and reusing items like shoes and clothes.
According to a pamphlet published by the Treasury and Education Office, the program was meant to encourage schools to participate in the war effort, publicize their contributions through local, state, and national exhibitions, and recognize schools with program awards. A 1942 article published by the War Savings Staff of the Treasury Department said that the United States was fighting a "total war" in which every "man, woman, and child" was "in the fight". The Schools at War program was intended to "intensify and unify" the efforts of schools and students to make their activities "appear more vital" and see "the importance of his own contribution".
Operation
Approximately ten months after the United States entered World War II upon the attack on Pearl Harbor, the program was inaugurated on September 25, 1942, with a parade in Washington, D.C., in which over 4,000 children marched to the U.S. Treasury Building to be greeted by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, assistant Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr, and John W. Studebaker, the U.S. Commissioner of Education. The program was in full operation in fall 1942, led by Homer W. Anderson, who had been the Superintendent of Public Instruction for St. Louis, Missouri. He was succeeded after a year by Daniel Melcher for the remainder of the war.
A school was formally enlisted in the program by returning a postcard. Activity was tracked in a "scrapbook", which could include a "written, pictorial, and statistical report" of the school's war-related activities and participation in the War Savings Program, and could be exhibited to the public. The scrapbooks were to be completed by January 7 to provide a prior year report to augment the president's annual State of the Union report. State exhibits of the scrapbooks were held on or about Washington's Birthday. The Treasury selected some scrapbooks, including that of Escanaba Senior High School in Delta County, Michigan, to be sent to schools in England to show students there how American students were supporting the war effort.
Every participating school would receive a "Certificate of Service" if its program sufficiently "stimulate[d] the regular voluntary purchase of War Stamps and Bonds by students and teachers". Every state was presented a "Liberty Brick" as further recognition of their schools' war services. The bricks were originally used in the construction of Independence Hall in Philadelphia that were replaced during a renovation, and were intended to be permanently displayed in the state capitals.
The smallest denomination war bond cost $18.75, redeemable after ten years for $25. Stamps were issued in denominations of 10, 25, and 50 cents which were purchased at face value and earned no interest. They were intended to be used as a savings mechanism to purchase a war bond eventually; savings books were provided which, when filled, held $18.75 in stamps, which then could be exchanged for a bond. The ten-cent stamps were issued primarily to encourage the participation of children.
Publications The program published a quarterly journal titled Schools At War distributed to nearly every schoolteacher in the country. The journal functioned to provide methods to encourage stamp sales, publicize goals and progress. Other publications included teaching aids: The Teacher of Mathematics and the War Savings Program The Teacher of English and the War Savings Program Paying for the War: A Resource Unit for Social Studies Teachers War Savings Programs for Schools at War (largely plays) Art in the Service of Schools at War
Lesson plans were developed in all grades to stress thrift and conservation. Students were instructed to buy war stamps, collect scrap, help with recycling drives and with victory gardens, and encourage their parents and neighbors to do the same. The program supplied plays that schools could perform and music that school choirs could sing to encourage stamp and bond purchases. Patriotic songs in an official Schools at War songbook were written by changing the lyrics of common tunes.
In the "Art" bulletin, art teachers were told to "assign war-related projects regularly" and to "put the results to work where many will see them". Art classes were still to be instructional, but the projects were to have secondary benefits in aiding war activities of the school and their communities. Projects included inspirational posters, progress charts, murals, exhibits, maps, displays, and more.
"Minuteman" flag As another incentive, any school with at least ninety percent of its students buying a war stamp every month was entitled to fly a special "Minuteman flag". This flag, announced in January 1943, showed a silhouette of a Minuteman and thirteen blue stars on a field of white, the reverse of the flag the Treasury awarded to businesses with ninety percent of employees purchasing war bonds. A school could fly both flags if both its students and staff met the contribution goals. The idea for this flag originated in the Los Angeles School District, who proposed it to the Treasury. It was accepted and rolled out nationwide. After a school principal certified a school had met the requirement, the school was permitted to fly the flag, available in either or (The flag was to be about three quarters the size of the American flag flown by the school). The first raising of the flag at a school was often at an assembly with patriotic music and a summary of the school's accomplishments. Only a few thousand schools earned the right to fly the flag. Principals were expected to take down the flag if participation fell below ninety percent. If meeting the 90 percent purchase goal for an entire semester, the school was allowed to add an additional star. Near the end of the program, a special insignia reading "Schools-at-War, 1941–1946" was designed for schools that had maintained their status.
Every one of the 37 schools in Lamar County, Alabama, including all white and all Negro schools, qualified for the flag in spring 1945; Lamar was the only county in the state to achieve that. The schools of Indianapolis, Indiana, were the first major American city in which all of its schools qualified for the flag. A ceremony was held at the Indiana World War Memorial, filmed to be shown in movie newsreels, in which students from the ninety schools displayed the flags in a giant "V" pattern.
Campaigns or promotions
To encourage the purchase of stamps by students, schools set goals for specific military equipment. The most notable was a "Jeep" promotion of 1943. With a goal of 10,000 jeeps, over 39,535 jeeps were sponsored by the close of the 1943 school year in early summer (one third of the entire amount delivered to the military), as were around 100 airplanes. The 39,535th jeep was accepted by the Army General Brehon B. Somervell, who headed the Army Service Forces, at a special ceremony on the steps of The Pentagon in June 1943. Students from two local schools represented the nation's students.
In the fall semester of the 1943–1944 school year, the Treasury set a goal for another 20,000 jeeps. As schoolchildren found the jeep particularly appealing, the fall campaign was expanded to include "Flying Jeeps", a Piper Cub L-4, at a cost of $3,000 and an amphibious version for $2,000. A standard jeep cost $1,165. The program had a goal of 20,000 jeeps of all kinds by December 7, 1943. The actual number financed in this period was 50,000.
Posters were made available explaining the cost of the various "jeeps". Patriotic songs accompanied the promotion, such as:
Although school children were especially motivated by the jeep, campaigns were nevertheless extended to airplanes, including Fairchild bomber crew trainers and the Flying Fortress, and nearer the end of the war, hospital and rehabilitation equipment. In 1944, schoolchildren sponsored 2,900 planes and 11,690 parachutes.