This is Who We Were, provides the reader with a deeper understanding of what life was like in America in 1940-1949 and how it compares statistically to life today. Using original material from the 1940-1949, readers will find richly-illustrated Personal Profiles, Economic Data, and Current Events to give meaning and depth to what life was like in America.

Table of Contents

• Essay on the 1940s
• Introduction
• Section One: Profiles
• Glassblower in 1940
• Shipbuilder in 1942
• Grocery Store Owner in 1942
• Native American Boy in 1942
• Guitar Transformer in 1942
• Filipino Maintenance Worker in 1943
• Securities Analyst in 1944
• High School Sophomore in 1944
• Boxer in 1944
• Overcoming Prejudices in the U.S Navy in 1945
• Trombonist in 1945
• High School Teacher in 1945
• African-American Reporter in 1946
• Inventor in 1946
• Civil Rights: Desegregating the Military in 1946
• Homemaker in 1946
• College Basketball Player in 1946
• Microwave Inventor in 1947
• Architect in 1948
• 17-Year-Old Science Fiction Enthusiast in 1948
• Longshoreman in 1948
• Baseball Player in 1948
• Junior Safety Patrol Member in 1948
• Harbor Pilot in 1949
• Radio Broadcaster in 1949
• Engineering Educator in 1949
• Section Two: Historical Snapshots
• Preface
• Early 1940s
• Mid 1940s
• Late 1940s
• Section Three: Economy of the Times
• Preface
• Consumer Expeditures
• Annual Income
• Selected Prices
• Value of a Dollar Index 1860-2014
• Section Four: All Around Us—What We Saw, Wrote, Read & Listened To
• Preface
• European War Timeline
• Timeline of Jewish Oppression by the Nazis
• “The Innocent Victims,” Editorial, The New York Times, May 19, 1940
• “Italian Workers Here Seen Loyal,” The New York Times, June 12, 1940
• Auschwitz Survivor, Solomon Radasy, - www.holocaustsurvivors.org
• “High-School Pilots,”, Time, March 3, 1941
• “Germany: Problem in Subtraction,” Time, March 3, 1941
• “The Goldbergs,” Radio Album, Spring, 1941
• “Exemptions Removed on Admissions,” Suburbanite Economist (Chicago, Illinois), September 28, 1941
• National columnist Henry McLemor, Hearst Newspapers, December 1941
• “Advertising in Wartime,” by Henry C. Flower, Jr., Forbes Magazine, 1942
• “Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American’?” Letter to the Editor, Pittsburgh Courier, from James G. Thompson, cafeteria worker, Cessna Aircraft Plant, Kansas, January 31, 1942
• “A Letter Written by a Young Japanese,” George E. Taylor, - The Atlantic Monthly, May 1942
• Letters to teacher Elizabeth Willis from a former Japanese American student living in Internment Camp Harmony, Puyallup, Washington
• Letters to The New York Times: “Loyalty of Italians Upheld, But Their Past Culture Is Important, Count Sforza Asserts,” The New York Times, June 18, 1942
• Wartime Civil Control Administration Induction and Reception Center Division - Puyallup, Washington
• “Smith Girls, Job Market Opens Wide for College Graduates as War Reduces Manpower,” Life Magazine, September 28, 1942
• “What Women Can Do: Think War, Buy Little, Maintain Our Ideals,” Life, September 28, 1942
• “Specialist Corps Formed,” Popular Science, October 1942
• Speech delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Washington, DC, Armistice Day, November 11, 1942
• “Birth of the Atomic Age,” by Stevenson Swanson, - Chicago Days, 150 Defining Moments in the Life of a Great City, December 2, 1942
• Letter from Lewis P. Walker, 3147 Copper Street, El Paso, Texas, to his sister, December 12, 1942
• Leading magazines in the United States and the number sold (in millions) monthly in 1942
• “1943 Hairpin Supply to Be One Fourth of 1941,” The World Almanac, 1942
• Diary of Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels, 1943
• “Against That Day!” Dorothy Brooks Paul, American Home, January 1943
• “Famine and Pestilence Ahead,” Leo Lania and Barthold Fles, Predictions of Things to Come, February-March 1943
• “Recorded Books after the War,” Predictions of Things to Come, February-March 1943
• “Things You Can Look Forward to Having,” Predictions of Things to Come, February-March 1943
• “We Stick Our Neck Out,” Predictions of Things To Come, March, 1943
• “Education,” Britannica Book of the Year, 1944
• “Football”, Britannica Book of the Year, 1944
• “Jewish Religious Life”, Britannica Book of the Year, 1944
• “Horse Racing”, Britannica Book of the Year, 1944
• “Victory, Lasting Peace, Jobs for All,” Republican Keynote Address by Earl Warren, Governor of California, June 26, 1944
• “The World's Biggest Selling Job,” by Don Wharton, Advertising and Selling, July 1944
• “Let's Train Our Youth, NOW!” Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, The Reader's Digest, July 1944
• “Germany Sees Us in a Grotesque Distortion Mirror,” Thomas Kernan, - Reader's Digest, August 1944
• “What the Blitz-boom Did to San Diego,” by Curtis Zahn, Travel, September 1944
• “Books Sought for Overseas Fighting Men,” San Antonio Express, September 3, 1944
• “Aid to Italians Reported, Roosevelt Said to Study Use of Immigrants’ Funds,” The New York Times, September 11, 1944
• “What Your War Bonds Buy: Tag Each Bond, Tuck It Away, and Watch Your House Grow Dream by Dream,” House and Garden, September 1944
• “War Relocation Authority,” Britannica, Book of the Year, 1944
• “Get Wise: You Can Pay for Mistakes Like These with Your Life,” by Lt. Col. George Richardson, MC, Air Force Magazine, October 1944
• The War Years, 1941-1945, The Stanford Album, A Photographic History, 1885-1945
• “All Together,” Naval Firepower Magazine, January 1945
• “The Master Billiards Player,” Chip Royal, Associated Press sportswriter, Kingsport, Tennessee, January 1, 1945
• “Here Is Something Really New-and Strange-in Plastics,” Rotarian International, February 1945
• “Novel Orchestra Will Play for Dance of Moose,” Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune, (Iowa) April 4, 1945
• “How to Make Your Child Want to Read,” by Irma Dovey, Everywoman's Magazine, May 1945
• “Advertisement,” by Joe Kindig, Jr., Antiques, July 1945
• “The Music of the North American Indians,” Anna Heuermann Hamilton, The Etude, July 1945
• Speech by Winston Churchill, House of Commons, August 16, 1945
• “Revised GI Bill Okayed by Senate,” Danville Register (Virginia), November 9, 1945
• “I'll Buy the Drinks, Boys,” by Lt. Col. Gregory (Pappy) Boyington, USMC, True Magazine, January 1946
• “Bible Teacher for Elementary Schools Named,” The Asheville Times (North Carolina), January 14, 1946
• “Nazis, Japs Agreed to Sink U.S. Ships and Slay Crewmen,” Ann Stringer, The Asheville Times (North Carolina), January 14, 1946
• “Vatican Denies Defending Axis Partners in War,” The Asheville Times (North Carolina), January 14, 1946
• “Says Baseball in Colleges Needs Help,” Harry Grayson, NEA sports editor, The Asheville Times (North Carolina), January 14, 1946
• “Big Expansion for Football Is Seen,” The Asheville Times (North Carolina), January 14, 1946
• “Striking Back,” Fortune Magazine, February 1946
• “Loan Machinery for Vets Is Speeding Up!” Maj. Thomas M. Niol, Syracuse Post Standard, March 17, 1946
• “Favorites Win on Free Throw in Last Seconds,” Post-Standard (Syracuse), March 21, 1946
• “The Kilowatts Take Over,” by Hickman Powell, Country Gentleman Magazine, April 1946
• “Those Teen-Age Drivers,” by Anne Hall, condensed from Parent's Magazine, Pick of the Month's Best Reading, May 1946
• “Inflation as It Really Is,” The Emporia Gazette, May 1946
• “We CANNOT Afford Another Prolonged War,” by Harold Ickes, Read, May 1946
• “America's Shameful Treatment of Her Teachers,” by Joy Elmer Morgan, Read, Pick of the Month's Best Reading, May 1946
• “Good Times A-Coming, Twentieth Century Fund Experts Study Economic Past and Present to Forecast a Rosy U.S. Future,” Life, May 5, 1946
• “America Reels Under Strike That Brings Threats of Hunger,” The Asheville Times (North Carolina), May 24, 1946
• “The Science in Science Fiction,” by Groff Conklin, Science Illustrated, July 1946
• “Not Enough Jobs Here for Returning Men, P.D. Mazyck Says,” Index-Journal (Greenwood), South Carolina, August 14, 1946
• “Pittsburgh Help Quits 8 Hotels, Bellhops, Waitresses, Maids Strike in Wage Dispute after Voting 4 to 1,” October 1, 1946
• “Child Care Urged to Aid Middle-Aged,” The New York Times, October 1, 1946
• “Race Bias Charged in Hospitals Here,” The New York Times, October 1, 1946
• “You Can Drive a Car with Atom Power,” Science Digest, October 1946
• “X-Ray Shoe Gadget Banned in New York,” Science Digest, October 1946
• “Hold Fast! Ye Southern Textile Workers” From a pamphlet by J. K. Smith, 1947
• “British Wives of GI's Score Neglect, Mistreatment in U.S.,” The New York Times, January 8, 1947
• “Current Stuff,” Gorgon Fantasy Features, July 1947
• “Vanguard of Venus,” by Landell Bartlett, Gorgon Fantasy Features, July 1947
• “The Legacy of War, Keeping Left, Labour's First Five Years and the Problems Ahead,” by a group of members of Parliament, 1948
• After school and evening radio programming for Mutual Broadcasting Company, August 12, 1948
• “Friends of Worcester Royal Infirmary,” Worcestershire Countryside Magazine, October-December 1948
• Recorded Popular Songs: 1949
• “Imagination Runs Wild,” by Richard B. Gehman, New Republic, January 17, 1949
• “If You Work and Marry, Kiss Your Social Security Goodbye,” by William Laas, McCall's, March 1949
• “News of Food, Radarange Among Future Home Marvels, It Cooks a Chicken in Only Two Minutes,” The New York Times, March 14, 1949
• “$7,500 Homes Planned for ‘Average’ Family,” Tampa Tribune, April 17, 1949
• “The Sideline, A Department for Sports Fans Conducted by Cap Fanning,” Thrilling Sports, Spring 1949
• “Major Problems: Teacher Shortage,” Waukesha Daily Freeman (Wisconsin), September 10, 1949
• “Railroads,” Fortune Magazine, October 1949
• “Keep The Carrot Dangling,” by Peter Drucker, Fortune Magazine, October 1949
• “Girl Waged Seven-Year War of Nerves With Reds,” Frederick Woltman, Martinsville Bulletin (Virginia), October 23, 1949
• “In New York,” George Tucker, Frederick Post (Maryland), October 31, 1941
• “’You'll Never Get Rich,’ but He Did,” by Marion Hargrove, Life Magazine, December 12, 1949
• Section Five: Census Data
• Preface
• Total Population
• White Population
• Black Population
• American Indian/Alaska Native Population
• Asian Population
• Foreign-Born Population
• Urban Population
• Rural Population
• Males per 100 Females
• Median Age
• High School Graduation Rate
• College Graduation Rate
• One-Person Households
• Homeownership Rate
• Median Home Value
• Median Gross Rent
• Households Lacking Complete Plumbing
• Bibliography