Perhaps nothing represents the community-minded patriotism of the US Home Front in World War II better than the scrap drive. Enemy conquests cut off supplies of crucial raw materials such as tin and rubber, and the need for products made from these materials skyrocketed due to the war. Since useful materials often ended up in the trash can or languished unused in homes and on farms, the War Production Board en... Read Article

On Memorial Day, we remember those who gave their lives in defense of our country. We live in freedom because they fought tyranny. We live without fear because they faced danger. We live in comfort because they gave up all comforts. We live because of their sacrifices.   Let’s never take these gifts for granted. They were purchased at high cost. Over 1 million Americans have given their lives in war (Sou... Read Article

What could be more American than Hershey bars, homemade cookies, and birthday cake? During World War II, these items were hard to come by in the United States. Short on Sugar When the Japanese conquered the Philippines in the early months of 1942, the United States lost a major source of sugar imports. Shipments from Hawaii and Central and South America had to be curtailed 50 percent as cargo vessels were diverted fo... Read Article

When Samuel Mattas returns home to Arkansas after serving as a sailor in World War II, he only wants to run the family peach orchard and start over with his beloved wife, Annie, and the daughter he’s never met. Annie has been getting by the best she can in Sam’s absence, with welcome help from Sam’s brother and his best friend – and unwelcome help from the father she’s rejected due to hi... Read Article

Lady Annabeth De Lacy is thrilled to her father’s new posting in Galway, Ireland, far from the pomp of British court. Using her father’s influence, Anna secures an apprenticeship at a jewelry shop renowned for making the Claddagh Ring, a symbol of love. Stephen Jennings wants nothing more than to leave the family jewelry business and all its nonsense about love and happily ever after. He’s appalled ... Read Article

During World War II, American Quaker Grace Tonquin works tirelessly to transport Jewish children from Nazi-occupied France over the dangerous Pyrenees into safety, a road ultimately taking Grace and some of the children back to Oregon, the home of her has-been movie star mother – the very place Grace longed to escape. In 2003, Addie Hoult is desperate to help a friend. Charlie has been like a father to her, eve... Read Article

When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, a budding romance between Dorie Armitage and Gordon Hooper is clipped short as Dorie is appalled by Gordon’s pacifism. Worse, in Dorie’s eyes, Gordon influences her brother Jack into becoming a conscientious objector. Dorie herself enlists in the Women’s Army Corps, even though her penchant for defying rules makes military life rather difficult for her. As cons... Read Article

All Mireilles has ever known is living in the Argonne woods with only her beloved father and grandfather. But then the Great War leaves her alone and in danger she can’t begin to fathom. Matthew Petticrew serves in the US Army, quiet and serious, with a deep need for the belonging he has never known in his lonely life. Out in the trenches, Matthew is surrounded by a mismatched band of misfits. Henry, the farm b... Read Article

In June 1940, Rosalie Barrieau watches in horror as the Nazis invade her beloved French village of Sainte-Mère-Église and execute her boyfriend, and as her young brother joins the Resistance. She just wants to keep the family nursery blooming and to protect her withdrawn mother. However, as Nazi brutality increases in the next few years, she decides she can no longer remain passive. Injured German SS soldier Franz ... Read Article

Imagine going to the store and not finding batteries, thumbtacks, alarm clocks, or paper clips on the shelves. During World War II, metals were needed for military purposes. Ships and planes and jeeps and guns and ration tins and helmets took precedence over civilian products. After the United States entered the war, factories quickly shifted from manufacturing civilian goods to military matériel. Preparation for Wa... Read Article