Adult and Community Education in the 1940s

Adult and Community Education: The 1940s 

Nathan Stoll

EDAC631 

Ball State University 

Name	Commented on:
Nathan Stoll	Will Cooper

Introduction

The 1940s were tumultuous for a large part of the world. The decade has been stained in the blood of millions across the globe. 936,000 US soldiers alone lost their lives throughout the war. (United States Adjutant-General's Office) It’s estimated that globally 62 million lives were lost in the world conflict that changed the planet forever. (Levine, A. G., & Levine, M. 2011) Including the estimated 170,000 killed in Hiroshima and 140,000 killed in Nagasaki. (Rogers, R. 2011) It was those two cities that saw the brutal climax of the war and the violent introduction of the atomic bomb into the American arsenal. With the end of the war and the conflicts following, the tensions created out of this period would build into a Cold War that would shape the following decades. The war was at the center of the nation’s mind during this time and it had impacts that spread through every part of society. This was a period that utilized various forms of Adult Education to bolster the war efforts as well as influence opinions of the war. It was also a time that saw the introduction of formal education to new swaths of people who had seen post-secondary education as unattainable.

Highlights

With a large portion of the American workforce being drawn into the front lines many of the manufacturing jobs were left empty and needed to be filled. To help fill these roles, people who had been unable to fill these jobs previously were brought into the fold. All across the country women and black workers stepped into these jobs and received a lot of the trainings and skills necessary to get through the war. (Goldin, C. 2006) The necessity to keep the country moving forward meant that educating these women workers would be a priority to give them the skills necessary to keep the gears of war turning. By the time the war came to a close almost all of these jobs were given back to white men as they returned home. (Jaworski, T. 2014).  Even with these jobs and the experience, many women would go back into the home and out of the labor force. A significant number of women had left high school to go into the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities, but at the close of the war they were left without a job and without the education necessary to pursue many other job opportunities available to them. (Jaworski, T. 2014)

As many of the men were returning home, many pursued a college degree using the credits granted to them by the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act or the GI Bill. This brought in a new set of people into the halls of colleges across the country. In the coming years, GI Bills would continue to allow servicemen and women the opportunity to trade years of service for years of college and would open up formal adult education to groups who had been left behind in previous generations. (Stanley, M. 2003).

Influential factors

I think it is important to address the role that propaganda took during the war as a means of education. The war effort was heavily paid for by war bonds. (Davis, E. Holmes., Price, B. 1943) To get those bonds, Americans needed to believe that the war was winnable and the we were going to be the ones who prevailed. In an effort to push this narrative on the citizenry, propaganda messages went out across the country in print, on the radio, and in film. (Davis, E. Holmes., Price, B. 1943) These were used by the government to educate the masses and convince them that the war effort was going strong and that their continued support and investment was necessary to overcome the Axis Powers.

The Atomic Bomb being dropped significantly changed the way we looked at science and it’s means for destruction. After the bomb fell, a lot of work went into educating the American public about the bomb and the dangers it presented. The Federation of American Scientists formed with the intention of working to educate the American people about the destructive nature of the bomb in an attempt to discourage them from using it again. They worked diligently with the United States government and other nations to devise a means for controlling atomic energy to help stop the end of the world. (Barnhart Sethi, M. 2012) The FAS brought in Public Relations experts to help them get the message out about the dangers of atomic power. They went before Congress, spoke in front of various citizens’ groups, published articles and education resources, and designed traveling exhibits to educate the public as best they could.  This work was effective in spreading the fear of the bomb and would carry on into the next few decades as the Cold War carried on. The fear based educational films like Duck and Cover and Atomic Attack are prime examples of the work done to spread the information from the FAS to the public.

Implications

I think in part we can learn a lot about the role that education has in being both an equalizer and a divider. During this period, we witnessed a significant change from previous decades. We saw people of color and women being brought up to work new skilled jobs that had been dominated by white men. While many of the jobs that had been occupied by these outsiders were taken back when the war ended, the skills they learned offered them the chance to pursue new job opportunities. Conversely, we also witnessed how higher education and degrees could create a divide and would then bolster a new generation of highly educated workers prepared for the next few decades which would only see the value of a college education increase. The introduction of the GI Bill gave returning soldiers the opportunity to pursue an education that may not have been available to them previously and gave them the opportunity to pursue the upward social mobility which has characterized the American Dream. The energy and investment put into adult education throughout the 1940s showed as a nation we can agree to invest in the future of our citizens. Those investments would grow and change as time went on, but the 1940s paved the way for adult education as the country entered the second half of the century.

Area	Summary
Social Background	Exiting the depression, attack against Pearl Harbor, entering World War II, death of a sitting president, experiencing the first look at atomic destruction, rising tensions at the end of the decade between Russia and America, stage set for the Cold War
Highlights	Women and Minority Workers filling the vacant positions for men at war, Servicemen’s Readjustment Act gave free education for time served in the war, Atomic Bomb reframed the conversation about science and destruction.
Influential Factors	Government investment, World War II, propaganda, military industrial complex.
Implications	Investment from government in formal post-secondary education, investment in education on nuclear warfare and it’s dangers.

Barnhart Sethi, M. (2012). Information, education, and indoctrination: the federation of american scientists and public communication strategies in the atomic age. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 42(1), 1-29. doi:10.1525/hsns.2012.42.1.1

Davis, E. Holmes., Price, B. (1943). War information and censorship. Washington, D. C.: American Council on Public Affairs.

Goldin, C. (2006). The quiet revolution that transformed women's employment, education, and family. The American Economic Review, 96(2), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30034606

Jaworski, T. (2014). “You're in the Army Now:” The impact of World War II on women's education, work, and family. The Journal of Economic History, 74(1), 169-195. doi:10.1017/S0022050714000060

Levine, A. G., & Levine, M. (2011). WWII and the home front: The intersection of history and biography. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(4), 433–441. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2011.01119.x

Rogers, R. (2011). Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In C. Allin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, Revised Edition. Hackensack: Salem. Retrieved from https://online.salempress.com

Stanley, M. (2003). College education and the midcentury GI bills. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(2), 671-708. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25053917

United States. Adjutant-General's Office. (1953). Army battle casualties and nonbattle deaths in World War II: Final report 7 December 1941-31 December 1946. [Washington: Dept. of the Army.