Draft of letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt, 05/17/1948
Truman explains his general low regard for most conscientious objectors in this draft to Eleanor Roosevelt. However he makes special mention of one, more than likely Desmond Doss, featured earlier this week. (Although Doss was an Army medic, not a Navy Corpsman.)
Background on the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) from our colleagues in Legislative Archives:
Congress in the Archives will feature monthly staff posts on our blog. Today’s post comes from Center archives specialist Christine Blackerby.
“The President is hereby authorized to establish…a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps for non-combatant service with the Army of the United States for the purpose of making available to the national defense when needed the knowledge, skill, and special training of the women of this Nation.”
On May 15, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed H.R. 6293 into law, establishing the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). This new unit operated alongside, not within, the Army. Benefits, status, and pay differed from normal military service.
Six months before America entered World War II (and about a year prior to WAAC passing), Representative Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA) introduced H.R. 4906 to establish WAAC, but it was not well received. Then Japan’s deliberate attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 altered perspectives. Young, able men joined or were drafted into the military, and questions began to circle throughout Congress: Would there be enough soldiers to win this war? Where could the military find more workers?
Rep. Rogers provided an answer to these questions when she introduced a new WAAC bill, H.R. 6293, into the House of Representatives on January 2, 1942. Supporters for H.R. 6293 came from a wide range of people, including General George C. Marshall, Eleanor Roosevelt, and American women’s groups. Opposition weighed heavily on the belief that women belonged in the home and that the entire organization would be viewed as weak or ineffective by other countries and their militaries.
Despite resistance to changing roles of women, the need for more military “manpower” prevailed, and the bill passed the House with a vote of 249 to 86. While the House supported the bill with large numbers, it passed the Senate with a slimmer margin of 38 to 27.
H.R. 6293, 1/28/1942, HR 77A-B5, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives (ARC 4397811)
Florin, California. Two of the nine American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who have returned to their home town on furloughs that were granted to them in order that they could assist their families prepare for evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from their west coast homes. This community is depending on their returned service men for many errands, shopping, banking, etc., because the soldiers are permitted to travel into town, nine miles away, while others cannot because of military restrictions. 05/10/1942
Dorothea Lange, Photographer. From the Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!
Story time with teacher at Wilson Village School, 1940.
From the Kodak Negative File of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Was there a teacher you’d like to thank?
General Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe.
President Harry S. Truman, radio address. May 8, 1945
On President Truman’s 61st birthday he announced the surrender of Germany and Victory in Europe, V-E Day.
(via ourpresidents)
(via ourpresidents)
May 7, 1945 - Celebrating Germany’s Surrender:
Jubilant American soldier hugs motherly English woman and victory smiles light the faces of happy service men and civilians at Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrating Germany’s unconditional surrender. England, May 7, 1945.
(via ourpresidents)
Strike!
Today in 1947, the White House Bowling Alley opened during the Truman administration. Here are photos of the original alley, featuring two automatic lanes.
Another neat find from the archives is this photo of Walter Reed patients visiting the White House Bowling Alley in 1952.
Interested in White House architecture? The Truman Library is posting weekly photos of White House renovations here. Fascinating to see photos of a gutted White House during construction.
Imagine a Democrat-Republican Presidential Ticket
Did you know that during his first-term in the White House, Harry S Truman asked General Dwight Eisenhower to run for President?
On July 25, 1947, Truman’s proposal was direct: rather than run for a second term, Truman would run for Vice President on an Eisenhower ticket. Truman would relinquish his role as Commander in Chief, and as Vice President “would be happy outside the great white jail, known as the White House.”
Eisenhower and Truman both described the meeting in their respective diaries. Ike’s entry on the right-hand page begins, “Astounding talk at the White House today.”
Could this happen today? A Democratic President inviting a future Republican candidate to create a very unusual campaign for the Presidency? Well, in a way it is happening. Follow a bit of presidential history on Twitter at @IkeandHarry2012.
President Roosevelt’s body was transported by train to Washington D.C. and then on to his estate in Hyde Park for burial. Thousands of mourners lined the tracks to say goodbye.
Here, images of FDR’s funeral train en route to New York, April 1945.
![Meanwhile, VP Truman is totally unaware that the world is about “to fall in on [him].”
ourpresidents:
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a stroke in Warm Springs, Georgia.
This entry is from the White House Appointment Diaries, 4/12/1945.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2d94kln971qjih96o1_400.jpg)
Meanwhile, VP Truman is totally unaware that the world is about “to fall in on [him].”
On this day in 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a stroke in Warm Springs, Georgia.
This entry is from the White House Appointment Diaries, 4/12/1945.
April 12, 1945 - This letter was dictated by Truman before President Roosevelt’s death later that same day. Then Vice-President Truman prophetically informs his sister-in-law, May Wallace, that he has more work than he has ever had in the past and seems to have less time to complete it. A handwritten note by Truman at the bottom tells her that the letter was dictated “before the world fell in on me….you know what a blow it was. But - I must meet it.”
Between Bakersfield and Fresno, California. On the Freights. Twenty years old and he has been hopping freight cars on the bum for two years. His home, which he has visited occasionally for two or three days at a time, is in Oakland, California. Here his father on Work Projects Administration, his mother who is engaged as a domestic when she can find work, and his married sister with her child live in a small house where there is a crowded and insecure atmosphere. His family is misinformed as to his activities and is not aware of his penchant for freight car travel. At one time he enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps, but he quit after six months because the army routine was distasteful to him, so he went back to hopping the freights. He is a complete hobo and is not seriously in search of employment. He has no desire to travel as a gentleman hitch-hiker. “I wouldn’t thumb. Freights are a lot better.” 4/11/1940
Rondal Partridge, Photographer. From the Records of the National Youth Administration.
“Edison, Kern County, California. Young migratory mother, originally from Texas. On the day before the photograph was made she and her husband traveled 35 miles each way to pick peas. They worked 5 hours each and together earned $2.25. They have two young children… Live in auto camp. “ 04/11/1940
—Dorothea Lange, Photographer.
The photo is one of a series taken by Dorothea Lange and Irving Rusinow for an agricultural “Community Stability and Instability” study by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and which now form a record of pre-World War II rural life and social institutions.
Leon Trotsky and American admirers. Mexico, 1940
From the court records of United States v. Vincent Raymond Dunne and Grant Dunne, the note for this photo states:
“Trotsky posed with American Trotskyites Harry De Boer and James H. Bartlett and their spouses; print autographed by Trotsky, April 5, 1940.”
Just 3 days left until the release of the 1940 Census!
This is an original blank 1940 Federal Decennial Census Population Schedule.
The 1940 census questionnaire was printed on 23 3/4” x 12 1/2” paper. The double-sided forms had space for 40 entries on each side, plus two additional lines for the 5% sample questions. The reverse side was identical except that lines were numbered 41 to 80, and the sample-line numbers were different.
