Table of Contents

OAH Magazine of History
Volume 15, No 4
Summer 2001

Copyright ©
Organization of American Historians

Lesson Plan

Fatherhood, Childhood, and War: 1945

Robert Griswold

The Second World War brought great disruption to family life. Migration, changing work patterns, hasty marriages, housing shortages, rising rates of juvenile delinquency, sexual promiscuity, and unwanted pregnancies created great consternation during the war. In 1943 many worried that such instability would increase if Congress endorsed the armed services’ call to draft fathers. Thus, in September 1943 Congress held hearings on the drafting of fathers. Proponents of drafting fathers made a simple case: The military needed the men. By contrast, opponents argued that drafting fathers was unnecessary and would heighten juvenile delinquency, force women into the workforce, ruin small businesses, and ultimately undermine the family biologically, psychologically, economically, and morally. Such blows would ultimately weaken America itself.

In the end, however, the military prevailed and fathers became subject to the draft. As these men left for war, attention centered on their psychological indispensability to family life, particularly to sex-role development and early father-child bonding. Commentators worried that fatherly absence promoted maternal overprotection, effeminacy, softness, and perhaps even homosexuality. They called upon mothers to do everything in their power to find proper father substitutes and to keep absent fathers present in the lives of their children. Child advisers urged wives to remind their children constantly of their fathers, and testimonials during the war suggest that women took such advice to heart. Writing in Parents’ Magazine in 1944, one mother seemed confidant that her efforts to acquaint her daughter with her absent father had succeeded: “I was amazed at how many opportunities present themselves for talking about Daddy, for making him a part of our lives. And I know that when he comes home Debbie will experience no shock, for he will be no stranger to her.” Looking back, a veteran testified in the same magazine that his wife’s efforts to keep him informed about his child had been successful: “I, like many other men who had never seen their children, used to receive letter after letter that was meant to prepare me for parenthood. My wife, like many other wives, tried determinedly to teach her husband the joys and responsibilities of being a father—by correspondence.”

In the document that follows, an Iowa mother adheres to the advice of child experts and writes a letter to her husband, who was stationed in Okinawa awaiting the invasion of the home islands of Japan. The author of the letter, Kathryn Wisdom, had graduated from Iowa State College in 1934 with a degree in home economics and had taught high school for three years in small Iowa towns. Later she worked in the test kitchens at General Mills in the Twin Cities and wrote for Farmer’s Wife Magazine, and then moved to Des Moines where she continued her career in home economics and journalism. While in Des Moines, she met William Wisdom, a lawyer, and they married in 1942. Bill joined the service in that same year and worked in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota with Army Intelligence before attending Officers Training School at Camp Lee, Virginia. After a stateside assignment with the Quarter Masters Corps, he left for the Far East, but not before Kathryn gave birth to their first daughter, Virginia, in 1944 (three more daughters would follow after the war). With his departure, Kathryn and Virginia went to live with Kathryn’s parents in Rolfe, Iowa, where her father published and edited the local small town newspaper. With the help of her mother and father, Kathryn cared for Virginia and pursued her journalism career by writing for her father’s paper.

As a home economist, journalist, and dedicated reader of child guidance literature, Kathryn undoubtedly had seen the admonitions about keeping absent fathers informed of their children’s intellectual, psychological, and physical development. To this end, she sent Bill a letter on 1 August 1945 while he was stationed in Okinawa, a letter written as if the one-year-old Virginia were the author. As you read this letter, what conclusions can you draw about Kathryn’s attitudes toward child rearing? What is the general view of children that comes through in this document? Would you characterize it as permissive, and if so, why? What role do grandparents have in rearing Virginia? How might they have made it possible for Kathryn to combine child rearing with her career as a journalist? What benefits and liabilities did this living arrangement offer Kathryn? Can you tell anything about her actual living accommodations from the letter? What are Kathryn’s assumptions about a father’s relationship to his children? How might a G.I. like Bill Wisdom have responded to such a letter? As you think about the family dynamics outlined in this letter, do you see any difficulties for Lt. Wisdom once he returns from the war?

This letter remains in the private possession of the Wisdom family and was discovered in 1995 when Kathryn’s daughters were going through her papers as part of the process of moving her from the family home to a smaller apartment. It illustrates a simple fact: interesting, valuable historical documents chronicling the lives of common Americans are everywhere around us.

Robert Griswold is the O’Brien Presidential Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the chair of the history department. He has published widely on the history of gender and the family, including Fatherhood in America: A History (1993). His most recently published essay is titled “The ‘Flabby American,’ the Body, and the Cold War,” and he is currently at work on an essay titled, “‘Russian Blonde in Space’: Americans View the Soviet Woman in the Early Cold War.” He is also at work on a book on the history of youth and sport since World War II.

Dear Daddy:

My first letter to you, and my first birthday is the reason! I want to tell you all about what I did today when I became one year old. But first, thanks for the nice present. It came this afternoon, and Mamma was lots more excited than I was. I like my little sunsuit and T-shirt, and those leis are really something. Didn’t they have a grass skirt little enough for me?

I was awake bright and early this morning, but when I saw Mamma with her eyes shut on the cot next to my bed on the porch, I lay down again and rested. Grandpa came over to me about three times and finally took me into the kitchen. When Mamma got up at seven o’clock, Grandma had Grape-Nuts Wheatmeal all cooked for breakfast, and I was hungry. So Grandpa and Mamma both fed me bites of cereal just like the big folks ate, along with applesauce and milk. I munched on my toast and stood up several times. They just can’t keep me down in that old chair, even when they tie me. I get loose.

It was real hot today, so I wore just my didy and shirt. Mom says I have to wear that shirt to keep my didy on. I don’t see why. When I cried a bit, just for attention, Grandma and Mamma took pity on me and took me out of that old pen. Then I got to roam at large through the house till Mom was ready to take me for a ride in my Taylor Tot. Mamma was ironing and had the kitchen table jammed up against the cupboard so I couldn’t get my favorite door open. That made me mad, but I found some magazines to play with.

Milk and nap till noon, and then I got up for lunch with Grandma and Grandpa. I had mashed potatoes, bacon, string beans and spinach, and milk, of course. I played around a lot and gave Grandpa bites of my toast. Why don’t they like it when I stand up and then sit on the tray of my high chair? Mamma let me crawl again while she washed up the dishes. Then I had a graham cracker and orange juice, and I pointed to the boy on my high chair tray and said “boy” and laughed. Mamma laughed too. About 3:00 I went to bed for another nap but I just talked and played till about 4:30, and then when Mamma came up to get me I was asleep. It seems she was in a hurry to take some pictures of me today.

I woke up after a while, and Mamma dressed me up in the new pinafore Aunt Margie sent for my birthday. Grandma and Mamma posed me for a lot of pictures. I had to sit in my high chair and look at my cake, a big white one with pink hollyhocks around it, and then sit on the new little chair Mamma bought me, with my birthday presents all around me. It was so hot outdoors that I just couldn’t smile. I had a little fun sticking my fingers in the cake frosting and pounding my high chair tray.

We had a kind of a special supper, with my cake on the table and one little white candle burning on it. Before the big folks ate, Grandma fed me egg and toast, rice and vegetable dish, and applesauce again (I love that). Then I crawled around till Grandpa came home and played with me. Grandma was wanting me to talk for Grandpa tonight, since I have a new way of chattering. I say “Buda, buda wida wooda abada” now instead of just “Ada, da, gi gi.”

I ate a little ice cream for supper but no angel food cake. I don’t like cake at all. Mostly I just stood up and sat on my tray and tried to crawl out on the table. Finally, they took the hint and let me loose on the floor.

I was pretty tired after such a big day, so Grandpa let me rock in his big rocker all alone for awhile, and then Mamma washed my dirty face and hands and knees and feet and put me to bed on the porch. I have to get my rest, because as you can see I have a full schedule, and I got up so early in the morning.

Lots of love to you Daddy,

Virginia