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Best Books About the American Home Front During WWI & WWII
By: Angela & Melissa
Updated:
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we may earn a referral fee from qualifying purchases.Over the years, we’ve curated numerous book lists about WWI and WWII, but this year, in honor of America’s Semiquincentennial, we wanted to explore what life was like on the home front during these two pivotal time periods. These books shift the lens from the front lines to the everyday struggles of civilians in the US, offering glimpses into rationing, wartime work, societal shifts, fear and uncertainty, and even espionage.
As essential jobs previously held only by men were open during the wars, women’s roles in the workplace expanded in unexpected ways. This period accelerated the expansion of women’s rights, although wages lagged far behind what men were paid for the same jobs.
During WWII, thousands of Japanese Americans, along with some German and Italian immigrants and their families, were forcibly removed from their homes or detained in incarceration camps within the United States. Numerous books on this list examine the prejudice, loss of freedom, disrupted communities, and lasting consequences of these government policies.
Novels About Life in the US During WWI and WWII
The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In 1942, sisters Cadence and Briar Smith face the impossible task of holding their failing family farm together during World War II, as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha’s Vineyard and German U-boats lurk in the waters off the coast. Cadence and her best friend, Beth, start a book club in an attempt to find some normalcy in their lives. Soon, the book club has grown in members and influence, catching the attention of a publisher who could make Cadence’s dreams come true. But then a mysterious man washes ashore, and his arrival suggests there could be a spy in the community.
In 2016, Mari travels to Martha’s Vineyard after her mother’s death. She’s on the way to meet Elizabeth Devereaux, a reclusive painter. Under the guise of taking a painting class, Mari learns more about Mrs. Devereaux, the Smith sisters, and her own connection to the island.
Based on a True Story
This novel was inspired by true events and stories that the author’s mother shared about growing up on Martha’s Vineyard during World War II.
As Bright as Heaven
Book Summary
In 1918, the Bright family leaves rural Pennsylvania for Philadelphia, hoping to build a more secure future by joining an uncle’s funeral business. It is the final year of World War I, and life in the city is impacted by soldiers departing for Europe, families anxiously awaiting news, and civilians supporting the war effort through volunteer work and public campaigns.
When the influenza pandemic reaches the city, it overwhelms hospitals, fills funeral homes, and transforms everyday life. Pauline Bright and her three daughters each respond differently to the mounting losses. They are forced to confront grief, responsibility, and the fragility of their plans. Amid wartime shortages, military mobilization, and a public-health crisis intensified by crowded parades and troop movements, the family must find ways to care for one another and their community.
The Physicists’ Daughter
Book Summary
In 1944 New Orleans, 21-year-old Justine uses the scientific knowledge inherited from her physicist parents for a new and unexpected role. She works in a factory that is producing boats for the Allied war effort, but her job is to weld mysterious components.
When machinery repeatedly fails without explanation, Justine begins to suspect the problems may be deliberate rather than accidental. But her questions are not welcomed in a workplace where secrecy is essential, and where women are expected to simply follow instructions without challenging authority.
Nonetheless, Justine’s understanding of physics, fluency in German, and talent for solving puzzles make it impossible for her to ignore signs of possible sabotage. As accidents multiply and danger draws closer, she must determine whom she can trust while uncovering the true purpose of the factory’s classified work.
Genre Notes
This historical fiction novel blends science, espionage, and suspense while portraying the role of women factory workers and everyday life on America’s home front during WWII.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
97% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Henry Lee’s father desperately wants his son to be an American. But at his school, he is ignored by all of the white kids. The one friend he makes is a young Japanese girl named Keiko. Soon, Keiko and her family are rounded up into a Japanese internment camp. Forty years later, Henry finds himself searching for a way to reconnect.
In addition to giving readers a closer look at the Japanese internment camps in America, which are often glossed over in our history lessons, this book also peeks into the 1940s Seattle jazz scene.
Our Thoughts on This Book
Melissa really enjoyed learning about a part of WWII that she previously knew very little about. This one will make you think, but it’s NOT a graphic look into the horrors of war.
The Orphan Collector
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
During the final months of WWI in 1918, the Spanish flu brought a new threat to American cities. In Philadelphia, 13-year-old Pia, a German immigrant, is forced to venture into the quarantined city to find food for herself and her younger brothers.
Amid anti-immigrant sentiment in her city and the grief of losing her baby to the Spanish flu, Bernice Groves formulates a plot to transform the city’s orphans and immigrant children into “true Americans.”
After collapsing on the street, Pia wakes up days later in a hospital, desperate to return to her brothers, but instead, she is taken to an orphan asylum.
What to Expect in This Read
Some readers find this book a bit slow to start and difficult to read because of the parallels to the recent global pandemic, but most find themselves drawn into the story and invested in the characters.
Great or Nothing
Book Summary
In 1942, while the US is reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the March family is grieving their own loss following the death of their daughter, Beth. Losing her causes the remaining March sisters to fracture, each going her own way. Jo works building planes in a factory in Boston; Amy lives a secret life in London, volunteering with the Red Cross; and Meg works as a teacher and holds down the home front.
More About This Book
In this YA retelling, each March sister’s perspective is written by a different author. The three living sisters are written in prose, while Beth’s perspective – holding the family together from beyond the grave – is written in verse. Readers say they enjoy that each sister has a unique voice, but that together the story still feels cohesive.
When We Were Enemies
Book Summary
Elise grew up with women who loved the spotlight. Her mother is an award-winning actress, and her late-grandmother, Vivian, was a 1940s Hollywood icon. Elise, on the other hand, prefers her privacy. But when her upcoming wedding coincides with a documentary being made about her grandmother, it seems she won’t be able to avoid the cameras. She’s convinced to hold the wedding in Edinburgh, Indiana, at the same church where Vivian was married.
Vivian grew up in Edinburgh with a strict Italian father. Eager to support the WWII home-front effort, she took a job in 1943 working as a translator at an Italian POW camp in south-central Indiana. She also sang at the local USO club, entertaining the troops. There she fell in love with a handsome soldier.
Upon arriving in her grandmother’s hometown, Elise begins learning more about her grandmother’s past. She is shocked to discover aspects of Vivian’s pre-Hollywood life that threaten to unravel her own.
Historical Context and Another Title to Consider
We’ve read many historical fiction novels about WWII, but this novel shares an entirely new perspective. We had no idea that Indiana was home to a POW camp. We researched the history behind this novel and learned that Camp Atterbury housed thousands of Italian and German POWs from 1943 to 1946.
Emily Bleeker also authored When We Chased the Light, which examines Vivian’s life during WWII from another perspective. While these two books are not listed as part of a series and can be read independently, readers highly recommend reading When We Were Enemies before When We Chased the Light.
The Enemy at Home
Book Summary
Nora is raising two teenagers in 1943 Seattle while her husband, a surgeon, is serving in the Army Medical Corps in North Africa. Eager to support both her family and the war effort, she enters the workforce as a riveter at Boeing’s B-17 factory. It’s a demanding job, but Nora gains both confidence and friendships. Soon, however, the city’s wartime energy turns to fear when one of her coworkers is murdered.
Before long, more women employed in war plants become murder victims, and Nora begins to suspect that the killer could be directly connected to her own life.
Thoughts on This Book
This historical thriller vividly depicts the challenges of home front life during WWII, from rationing and blackouts to women taking on new, dangerous jobs while dealing with anxiety about loved ones overseas.
The Lines Between Us
Book Summary
Friends Gordon and Jack are conscientious objectors who refuse to enlist during WWII because of their pacifist convictions. Instead, they provide “work of national importance” by serving as smokejumpers, fighting wildfires in Oregon. When Jack is seriously injured during a suspicious fire, Gordon begins to question if it was truly accidental.
Jack’s sister, Dorie, on the other hand, completely disagrees with her brother’s pacifist beliefs and serves in the Women’s Army Corps. Nonetheless, she is determined to uncover what happened to her brother, and she travels to Oregon under the guise of conducting an official Army investigation.
Forced to work together, Gordon and Dorie follow a troubling trail of clues while confronting their differing views about patriotism, courage, and sacrifice.
Genre Notes
This historical novel is based on the true experiences of the men who fought fires as conscientious objectors and the women who fought gender bias to serve in the Women’s Army Corps.
It is classified as Christian Fiction, and reviewers say that while religion is present and meaningful in the story, it does not dominate the storyline. Faith shapes Gordon’s pacifist views, but the main plot centers on the smokejumpers and the investigation into Jack’s injury.
Another Title by This Author
We also recommend Things We Didn’t Say by Amy Lynn Green. In this novel, Johanna is a blunt linguistics student who is strong-armed into working as a translator in the German POW camp that opens in her small hometown in Minnesota. Having felt the freedom of life in the Twin Cities, she is not eager to return home. However, she is determined to do a good job at the camp and to treat the prisoners with respect.
Through letters and newspaper articles, the reader sees the daily lives of both the prisoners and staff at the camp, as well as the reactions of the townspeople. When Johanna is accused of treason, can her personal correspondence save her?
The Heirloom Garden
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
After losing her husband in WWII and her daughter to illness, Iris walled herself off from the world. She’s spent many decades hiding behind the tall fence around her home. In place of human connection, Iris has surrounded herself with a family of flowers. She propagates her daylilies and roses and tends a garden that keeps the memories of those she loved alive.
In the early 2000s, Abby is a young mother whose husband has recently returned from military service in Iraq. When Abby’s family rents a cottage along Lake Michigan, next door to Iris’ property, the older woman can’t help but view the young family as a window to the life she once had.
As Iris and Abby are drawn together by their shared love of flowers, the friendship that blossoms between them is a testament to the healing power of both gardening and human connection.
Why This Book Made the List
While this is largely a contemporary novel about the family of an Iraq War veteran, but it also includes Iris’s memories of life on the American home front during and immediately after WWII. It depicts her experiences as a war widow and the importance of Victory Gardens during that time period.
What to Expect in This Book
This book is an interesting look at PTSD for soldiers returning from war, and its effect on the soldier’s family. The comparisons between the 1940s & 2000s add depth to this theme.
Readers particularly enjoy the audio version of this heartwarming book because of the two different narrators who read for Iris and Abby. Keep the tissues nearby as you read because you’re sure to shed a few cathartic tears during the ultimately uplifting tale.
Book Summary
Bess is the college-educated daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx. In 1945, she competed in the Miss America pageant, bringing traumatized Jews an opportunity to root for one of their own in Atlantic City’s Warner Theatre. She hoped to win the $ 5,000 scholarship to further her education.
This is a fictionalized look at the early years of the real Bess Myerson, who became the first (and only) Jewish Miss America. Bess was nearly six feet tall and gorgeous, but in her world, success was measured by intellectual attainment. In this precarious post-war period, she searched for love and acceptance as she tried to make her mark on the world.
Why This Book Made the List
Although this novel takes place in 1945, the year after WWII ended, the war and the Holocaust strongly influence the cultural context of the story. This book provides a glimpse into both pageant life and the struggles of the Jewish community in 1940s America. Many did not want a Jewish woman to represent America, but Bess wasn’t focused only on her own barriers. She also noticed that there were no Black contestants, which motivated her to win and push for broader change.
Until We Meet
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
95% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This story of friendship introduces us to three young women in 1943 New York. Although their struggles differ from those who had the war on their doorstep in Europe and around the world, they were each impacted in different ways.
Margaret works at the Navy Yard by day, but at night, she knits socks for soldiers. When she sticks a note inside a pair of socks, she ends up with an unexpected pen pal.
Gladys is a feminist before the rise of feminism, but when she meets someone who respects her, she wonders if she can have it all.
Dottie’s fiancé has been deployed to fight abroad, but she became pregnant before he shipped out. She’s terrified her parents will make her give up the baby if she tells them, so her friends are even more important than ever.
Author Interview
You can see our interview with author Camille Di Maio here.
The Last Year of the War
Book Summary
Growing up in Iowa in 1943, 14-year-old Elise considers herself entirely American despite her parents having been born in Germany. But her ordinary American life is thrown into upheaval when her father is arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. Soon, her entire family is sent to a government internment camp in Crystal City, Texas.
Within the confines of the camp, Elise meets Mariko, a Japanese American teenager from Los Angeles whose family has also been detained. Their growing friendship gives both girls hope and helps them to hold on to their identities and their dreams for their futures, even amid all the fear and uncertainty.
More About This Book
This novel is told entirely from Elise’s perspective, but it alternates between her teenage experiences during WWII and her later recollections of that time, as an elderly woman in 2010.
The Last Thing You Surrender
Book Summary
This novel follows the lives of three characters, each of whom is transformed during WWII.
George Simon grew up in a wealthy white family in Jim Crow-era Alabama and joined the Marines. As a young man, he survived the attack on Pearl Harbor thanks the sacrifice of a Black Navy messman named Eric. When the US enters WWII, George is sent to the Pacific theater, where he is haunted by what happened to Eric. And his wartime experiences further compel him to reconsider the beliefs he was raised with.
Back home in Alabama, Eric’s widow, Thelma, takes a job at a segregated shipyard. While wartime creates new opportunities for women of color, it does so without erasing the dangers of racism.
Luther Hayes, a Black man scarred by racial violence, is drafted into the Army and assigned to the all-Black 761st Tank Battalion.
Why This Book Made the List
This novel includes substantial home-front scenes set in Alabama, as well as military scenes in both Europe and the Pacific. As the stories of these three characters unfold, we see each grapple with the fight against tyranny abroad while also confronting the realities of injustice within the United States.
Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
Book Summary
Gifted violinist Maddie Kern dreams of attending Juilliard, but her future changes when she falls in love with her older brother’s best friend, Lane Moritomo, who is Japanese American. Despite their families’ disapproval, Maddie and Lane marry in secret, but shortly after, the attack on Pearl Harbor drastically changes their world.
As fear and prejudice sweep the country, Lane and his family are forced into an incarceration camp. Determined to remain by her husband’s side, Maddie gives up her musical ambitions and follows the Moritomos behind the barbed wire. In the camp, she faces harsh conditions, divided loyalties, and the challenge of earning acceptance from Lane’s family. Meanwhile, the war also pulls Maddie’s brother, TJ, into military service abroad.
What to Expect in This Book
The story is primarily set on the American home front, with a secondary story about TJ’s experiences in the Pacific theater. It explores love, sacrifice, racism, patriotism, and the difficult choices ordinary people faced when war tested their deepest loyalties.
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion
Book Summary
In 1941 Wisconsin, Fritzi and her sister are forced to find work when the men are sent off to war. They become experts at everything from fixing flats to driving the tow truck. They put their own spin on these tasks, including short skirts and roller skates. Before long, however, women were also needed to fly planes for the war effort.
In 2005 Alabama, Sookie’s last daughter has just married and now Sookie is looking forward to relaxation. Her plans are turned upside down when a package arrives that sends her right back to the 1940s in her memories.
Our Thoughts on This Book
We love learning more about what life was like stateside during WWII, and we were especially fascinated by the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP).
Beyond That, the Sea
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
As bombs fell on London in 1940, many parents made heart-wrenching decisions to send their children out of the city for their safety. In this book, we’ll watch Bea travel to America as an 11-year-old to spend the remainder of the war with the Gregory family. They live most of the year in Boston but spend summers on their private island in Maine.
As she becomes closer to the Gregorys, life feels right. Perhaps even better than with her old life in England. In 1945, she is suddenly called back home. While she’s reluctant to return, she does, but memories of her American family fill her thoughts. You’ll continue to see her try to balance both of her worlds as she tries to find love and a life of her own.
Why This Book Made the List
While this is a transatlantic story rather than one set wholly on the American home front, the time Beatrix spends with an American family offers an interesting contrast to the experiences of her British family in wartime England.
Miss Dimple Disappears
Book Summary
In the small town of Elderberry, Georgia, the citizens are tired of the war, especially the teachers. They are worried about the hometown boys fighting the war overseas. They are exhausted from the restrictions and rationing, but they show their patriotism by planting Victory Gardens, making packages for soldiers, and holding collections of all sorts.
Then one day, the first-grade teacher, Miss Dimple, disappears. With the local police stretched thin and wartime concerns occupying the community, Miss Dimple’s fellow teachers begin searching for answers themselves. Their investigation reveals secrets, old resentments, and suspicious behavior hidden beneath Elderberry’s friendly surface. As they follow the clues, they must also navigate blackouts, bond drives, and the constant worry of bad news arriving from abroad.
About The Series
This cozy historical mystery is the first in a series of five books that each combine a small-town investigation with a vivid portrait of ordinary Americans adapting to sacrifice, uncertainty, and shifting responsibilities during World War II, while women take on broader roles in their communities.
When the Emperor Was Divine
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This short (144-page) literary fiction takes you into a rarely talked about aspect of Utah history – the Topaz internment camp in Delta, Utah. When it was in use, Topaz became the 5th largest city in Utah, with more than 11,000 people of Japanese descent held there for up to four years until its closure in 1945.
The poetic book follows one family from the moment they receive news of the forced relocation from their home in San Francisco to the Utah desert, through their trip to the camp and time in the barracks, and finally their difficult return home after three years.
An Additional Resource on This Topic
Today, visitors to Delta, Utah, can learn more about the history of this WWII incarceration site at the Topaz Museum.
Florence Adler Swims Forever
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Each summer, the Adler family rents out their Atlantic City home to vacationers and moves into the cramped apartment above their Jewish bakery. Their daughters are now young adults, with Florence home from college and Fannie on bed rest during pregnancy following the loss of a baby. Florence plans to spend the summer training for her plan to swim the English Channel.
The small space becomes even more crowded when the father, Joseph, takes in a woman he helped emigrate from Nazi Germany. When a tragedy strikes, mom Esther begins a web of lies to protect her daughter, Fannie, but will it really help in the long run?
Why This Book Made the List
Although this book is set in the pre-WWII years, Melissa felt she learned a lot about life on the American home front while reading it. The Jewish family at the heart of the story is dealing with the rise of antisemitism as the war draws near, and is working to help another Jewish family escape Germany.
Boy Underground
Book Summary
In 1941, in rural California, 14-year-old Steven lives a privileged life. His friends Nick, Suki, and Ollie are the sons of farmworkers on his parents’ property. Their bond gives Steven a sense of belonging, but he’s also beginning to realize that his feelings for Nick might be deeper than friendship.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor thrusts the US into World War II, each of the boys’ lives is turned upside down. Suki and his Japanese American family are sent to the Manzanar incarceration camp. Ollie enlists, and Nick becomes caught up in a dangerous situation. As wartime prejudice, family expectation, and fear close in around Steven, he must decide what he is willing to risk for loyalty and love.
Why This Book Made the List
While Ollie enlists and is sent overseas, the central storyline focuses on how World War II affects the civilians who remain in California during the war. The incarceration of Suki’s family illustrates the realities of wartime prejudice, but the novel’s narrative is more about Steven’s life in rural California.
The Women of Arlington Hall
Book Summary
In 1947, Radcliffe graduate Catherine “Cat” Killeen abandons the conventional future expected of her and accepts a secretive government position at Arlington Hall in Virginia. Trained in cryptoanalysis, Cat joins a team of brilliant women working to decode intercepted Soviet communications and identify spies operating within the United States.
The assignment offers intellectual excitement and a new sense of purpose, but it also demands secrecy, sacrifice, and constant vigilance. Cat’s family connection to the Communist Party places her under suspicion, while her growing relationship with an FBI agent complicates an already dangerous investigation. As the team follows fragments of coded intelligence, Cat must decide whom she can trust and how much she is willing to risk for her country and her own independence.
Timeline Note
This novel is set in 1947 and follows female codebreakers working on the early post-WWII Venona Project to decipher encrypted Russian messages and uncover Soviet spies. While this places the story after the end of WWII, the Venona Project is deeply related to the Second World War. It was a top-secret U.S. counterintelligence program that began in February 1943 and continued for several decades, also providing vital intelligence on Soviet espionage throughout the early Cold War.
Another Title to Consider
If you are interested in another book about female code breakers, consider The Codebreaker’s Daughter by Amy Lynn Green, a Christian fiction novel that follows a mother who worked as a cryptanalyst during WWI and her daughter, who serves with the OSS during WWII. Much of the WWII storyline unfolds in Washington, D.C., and focuses on U.S.-based intelligence, propaganda, and the women’s contributions to the war effort.
Snow Falling on Cedars
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
90% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In 1954, when a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, a Japanese American is charged with his murder. Haunted by the memories of the Japanese internment camps during WWII, just a decade before, events during the trial make it clear that much more is at stake in this community than one man’s guilt or innocence.
Why This Book Made the List
While the murder trial takes place in the mid-1950s, a substantial portion of this novel is devoted to flashbacks, with roughly one-third of the book depicting the wartime years. The narrative moves fluidly between his childhood, the 1940s, and the 1954 trial, rather than being divided into clean timelines.
Thoughts On This Book
This book is on the longer side at 460 pages, but some readers say it feels longer because it’s a slower-paced, descriptive read. This novel was also adapted into a 1999 film of the same title starring Ethan Hawke.
Non-Fiction Books About Life on the American Home Front During the World Wars
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
Book Summary
Readers who enjoyed Hidden Figures will love this astonishing, untold story of the American women who cracked Axis codes to help secure the Allied victory.
Recruited by the US Army and Navy, more than ten thousand women from small towns and elite colleges served as codebreakers during WWII. Unfortunately, their efforts were largely erased from history due to their strict vow of secrecy.
Consider This Before Reading
This book is on the long side, at more than 600 pages, but it’s well worth it!
The Girls of Atomic City
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, didn’t even exist before 1942 and didn’t appear on any maps until 1949. The town was created from scratch as one of the Manhattan Project’s secret cities, and at the height of WWII, it was home to 75,000 – many of them young women recruited from small towns throughout the southern US.
All of the women working in Oak Ridge knew that something big was happening, but the penalty for talking about even the most mundane details of their work was eviction, so few of them pieced together the true nature of their work. But when the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, the secret was out – the women of Oak Ridge had been enriching uranium to build the atomic bomb.
Through historical research and interviews with dozens of the surviving women – many of whom still call Oak Ridge home – Denise Kiernan tells the story of the science and the women in a format that makes this the perfect book for fans of Hidden Figures and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Another Book on This Topic
If you’d rather read a historical fiction novel based on the real-life events that unfolded in Oak Ridge, pick up The Atomic City Girls.
Dark Invasion 1915: Germany’s Secret War & the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America
Book Summary
In 1914, the United States remained officially neutral as war spread across Europe, but American factories and ships were supplying the Allied powers. Determined to disrupt that support, Germany sent a network of spies and saboteurs to wage a secret campaign on American soil.
Their targets included munitions plants, cargo ships, livestock, financial leaders, and other resources vital to the Allies. With the US federal government lacking a modern intelligence service, the task of uncovering the conspiracy fell largely to New York Police Department inspector Thomas Tunney and his small team.
As suspicious fires, explosions, and attacks multiplied, Tunney followed a trail of coded messages, hidden explosives, and unlikely operatives.
The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America
Book Summary
After learning more about Anna Marie Rosenberg, it’s hard to believe this is the first book about her. When she became a close advisor to FDR during the war, Life magazine called her “the most important official woman in the world.” Yet, the name of this groundbreaking woman was unfamiliar to both of us today.
Rosenberg was a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant with a high school education. She was also the power behind the policies that ended WWII and helped America prosper afterward. By 1950, she was the Assistant Secretary of Defense. By 1962, she was organizing the infamous JFK birthday dinner with Marilyn Monroe. And, for the rest of her life, she continued her service to the country, fighting for causes from racial integration to women’s equality to national health care.
Thoughts on This Book
We can’t wait to pick up The Confidante and learn more about this inspiring woman whose legacy should be better known.
The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
Book Summary
As WWII engulfed Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called upon American industry to become the “arsenal of democracy.” In Detroit, father and son, Henry and Edsel Ford, clashed over what this meant for the Ford Motor Company. Henry was an isolationist who opposed the war, while Edsel was a visionary who saw the potential to transform the company.
In this fast-paced non-fiction book, Baime traces Ford’s extraordinary effort to build Willow Run, a massive factory designed to mass-produce B-24 Liberator bombers at a rate previously considered impossible. The project demanded new engineering methods, a huge workforce, and the conversion of automobile manufacturing expertise to military production. All of this unfolded amid labor tensions, family conflict, political pressure, and urgent wartime deadlines.
The Radium Girls
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
The newly discovered element of radium made gleaming headlines. Across the US, hundreds of girls toiled in the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories where they helped make watches and instrument dials that could be read in the darkness by American military personnel.
The glittering chemical covered the girls working in the factories from head to toe, causing them to light up the night after work like industrious fireflies. Soon, radium was also touted as the fresh face of beauty and the wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shone bright in the dark years of World War I.
With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. This shocking non-fiction book explores the radium craze and its lasting aftermath.
Our Thoughts on This Book
While this book is ultimately more about workplace safety than about life on the American home front, it ties directly to women taking on new roles in factories during WWI.
We have both read this book, and both highly recommend it! It is heartbreaking and, at times, hard to read because of the terrible illnesses that the women suffer. Still, it’s a riveting account of a little-known and important piece of American history.
Summer at Tiffany
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
92% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Fresh from their sorority house at the University of Iowa, Marjorie and her best friend Marty arrive in New York City hoping for summer jobs as shopgirls. After being turned away from numerous department stores, they find jobs at Tiffany & Co., becoming the first women to work on the sales floor and making them the envy of all of their friends.
Telling of the magical summer that the author spent in NYC with her best friend, Hart’s short memoir allows us to see snippets of history through their eyes. As she reflects on it many decades later, she recalls it as the best summer of her life, spent rubbing elbows with the rich and famous.
Why This Book Made the List
While we are both huge fans of vintage New York glamour, this book made the American home front list because it climaxes with the girls celebrating V-J Day in Times Square alongside joyous, cheering crowds. This is a great pick if you are looking for something a little lighter.
In Honor of the Semiquincentennial
The United States is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Join us for our Reading Through US History Mini Reading Challenge to explore six pivotal moments in the country’s history.
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