Life on the Home Front

The United States escaped the physical devastation that ravaged Europe and East Asia, but the war profoundly changed the country. Americans welcomed wartime prosperity but shuddered when they saw a Western Union boy on his bicycle, fearing that he carried a War Department telegram reporting the death of someone’s son, husband, or father. Citizens also grumbled about annoying wartime regulations and rationing but accepted that their lives would be different “for the duration.”