Talk:Schools at War

source
, I have that journal article now (via a request at WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request), so you can forget about that. I was going to remove the photo of Daniels School because it really doesn't add much to the article. I maybe since they bought a jeep, we could keep it with a photo of Stockton High that bought 275 jeeps. It was demo'ed in the 66, but here it is in 58. Do you have any place where we might get a useable photo for commons? MB 01:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

development, including on official vs potentially mixed views of program
In this edit I revised summary of Lamar County's achievement of having all 37 of its schools reach 90 percent participation. Feel free to revert/revise. This was to reword some grammatically as "Every one of the schools" doesn't match to appositive phrase "the only county in the state" (consider if original sentence was reordered as "The only county in the state, every one of the 37 schools in Lamar County, Alabama qualified for the flag in Spring 1945.") And to mention that all schools included all the white schools and all the Negro ones, as appears in the source. I think this usefully makes an appropriate although very light reference to Racial segregation in the United States.

I don't have specific sources to address controversy/tone type issues, but I have an overall sense so far that the article draft is taking the official, there-exists-no-controversy, we-are-all-in-this-together-and-we-have-no-differences, patriotism-is-all-we-need tone of this government program, a bit too exclusively. "Schools at War" was in fact a propaganda program, and I think if we covered an equivalent patriotic program in schools in Nazi Germany, say, that wikipedia coverage should/would provide some thoughtful recasting of the program as not entirely innocent and uniformly wonderful. In this U.S. program, I would think there were some aspects which today we would find hit some nerves. E.g. it could perhaps be striking how the program, if it was running today, might be wildly successful in conservative/Republican/white areas and not at all in black/Democrat areas (this is entirely speculation). Or there could be cases where the program encouraged young fanatics to act contrary to their own families, say stealing money to put into the savings program and causing hardship because the family could not afford that; we would be a bit creeped out if we were reading how some Nazi kid was doing the like (again this is entirely speculation). Or there might have been issues of corruption/stealing/bullying--after all this was sweeping up great amounts of cash money from children that I think would be easily vulnerable (how many kids put in a bunch of 10 cent stamps, did not have clear documented ownership of their tiny share of one bond, and were simply rooked 10 years later when the bond matured and some former teacher or some former classmate/bully pocketed the proceeds? And/or to what extent did the U.S. Treasury effectively confiscate monies, like how businesses benefit from failing to fully account for customer lay-away deposits or from running gift card programs where it was super-convenient for participants to lose track/control of their ownership of benefits.)  This was a huge program involving tons of cash with few if any controls in place, in a world when there was no internet and no potential for tracking/monitoring like there might be today. In my mind, then, _of course_ there must have been many many cases of theft/abuse/corruption. (IRL, in my own high school, the cash savings of 40 or so kids put towards a ski trip were stolen, disappeared from the school's safe, I recall.) Anyhow, if this were happening today and the official program was sweeping any/all issues under the rug, perhaps many/most/nearly all journalists would go along with it, but if this were today then I think some journalists would be finding cause for concern. So I think some suggestion, some open-ness to this being not entirely wonderful ought to be given. Again though, I do not have any contemporary or retrospective sources providing any critical tone. I just don't want this article to be too fawning, from following only the official sources and the fawning coverage in newspapers etc of the time. This is not at all meant to be negative about the writing so far; I really do like the article as drafted, and find it surprisingly informative and interesting about a program that I believe I had never heard of, before a few weeks ago. Even if no sources introducing criticism/imperfection of the program are found, it is still a great contribution to get out factual coverage of this. And academic/critical references, if/when they are found, can be added in the future. Thanks. --Doncram (talk) 13:45, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I was surprised that there was practically nothing about this program in "academic" sources. Its like it was forgotten after the war. I think I found one critique that called it "propaganda" but it wasn't a published RS. Mil Historians certainly cover every aspect of the military campaign, but social scientists don't seem to have commented about this. MB 14:28, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Yeah i think this program would be a good topic for a masters thesis and/or a few academic articles having some critique, although it is completely forgotten; glad this article somewhat remedies the forgotten part of that. I wonder if there automatically exist Treasury records kept forever, about redemption rates of bonds, and I imagine that bonds purchased through this program would have lower rates due to the diffuse ownership.  And then there might have been corresponding internal memos/reports analyzing some of this, which might be accessible by FOIA requests.  There might even have been prospective reports assessing that a program like this would have high-ish administrative costs for all the brochures and instruction support, but yielding extra-good returns due to likely non-collection of bond proceeds ultimately. Finding any internal records like this could give some purchase to an academic review, along with interviews/surveys of participants still alive today.  I don't currently have any history department connections to make the suggestion to, though. --Doncram (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Or maybe the program had fake-type benefits that were perceived to be important for social control purposes or whatever: it might have been non-economical, or less efficient than some alternatives might have been, but broadly public in a politically advantageous way.  Like how I have read that scrap metal collection drives in England during WWII were useful for morale and public relations, giving kids something to do and giving housewives who turned in old pots a sense of contribution, a sense of taking some control by doing _something_ in an out-of-control dangerous world.  These aspects would be psychologically beneficial, and have indirect but real effects upon war efforts.  Although the mixed metals collected were impossible to use, and were mostly just stacked up in piles hidden away from public view.  I have read stuff both ways, saying the metal was useful vs. was not useful.  I think it is good for Wikipedia to cover the bad/unexpected aspects as well as the official/positive, where sources are available.  I wish there were some broad channel to make suggestions/requests to academics. --Doncram (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Did you notice the very last paragraph of the article. It does say overhead was high and other programs (e.g. payroll savings) brought in more money / $spent on the program. That came from a right-after-the-war analysis (not sure how independent it was). MB 15:30, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * User:MB, glad you created the "Analysis" section. Including sourced statement "The bonds sales ratio to the program costs were lower than other programs like payroll savings."  I know you have done good writing in many other articles, but this one seems tops to me! --Doncram (talk) 15:22, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Drive-by comment
As this article is GA nominated, I thought I'd add a drive-by comment about one aspect which I really think ought to be addressed about what "sponsorship" actually means. If it worked anything like a Spitfire Fund, the idea of "buying" a jeep etc. was purely a fundraising gimmick and none were literally "bought" with any of the raised money. The campaign itself was about propagandising, raising money, and reducing inflationary pressure in the domestic economy. —Brigade Piron (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)