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When Newspapers Mattered via Life magazine
via life.com
A photo gallery of images when "Newspapers Mattered." Love the images, hate the head. Might as well have run a subhead, "When Life magazine mattered"
When's the last time that you saw more than one person reading the (a) newspaper in public?
Picture showing how everything looks big to 18 month old child.
Date taken: 1947
Photographer: Herbert Gehr
Size: 1280 x 1012 pixels (17.8 x 14.1 inches)
2009.67: 67 Years Ago, LIFE in the USA
I have a copy of LIFE magazine from December 1942 and every once in a while, I page through it. Here's what it tells me: At that time, before most of us were born (even me!), Americans had to make huge sacrifices during World War II. Almost every advertisement in the magazine carries a message to conserve rubber, cut down travel and use of the telephone and buy war bonds.
The Associate Press says that about 4,200 US soldiers have died in Iraq. About 100 times that many died in WWII and 672,000 were wounded. About 12% of the US population in 1942 was involved in that war. That means that one in eight people must have served during the war, probably about one man in every five.
As horrible as things are today, of the 300,000,000 Americans, only a small portion will ever know the suffering and deprivation of the 1940's.
I bought the 1942 LIFE in a yard sale years ago for $4. In 1942, a one year subscription to LIFE was $4.50. When I open it, it occurs to me that someone should reprint some of the wartime press, it's a real eye opener. How much less politically correct things were in those days!
Embarrassing articles abound like "The Lonely Wife" (cover story of woman coping with her man gone) or "US Negro Troops Based in Liberia". On the lighter side, "Las Vegas Gambling Booms with Wartime Prosperity" and a very odd one about soldiers putting on a play written for an all female cast, dressed as women. Remember, LIFE was above all a photo magazine and almost every article has surprising shots that reveal what a very different place the world was then.
(Sources: AP, CNN Library, Dept. of Defense, World Book, Facts.com)
