"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943 presents approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Many songs in this collection, such as the song "Pearl Harbor," reflect reactions to the war.
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection presents Charles Todd's and Robert Sonkin's documentation of the everyday life of the residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941.
The images in America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945 emphasize rural life and the negative impact of the Great Depression, as well as the mobilization effort for World War II.
The posters presented in By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions and theatrical and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. Of particular interest are the posters telling citizens about how to contribute to the war effort.
"Suffering Under a Great Injustice": Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar presents images by Ansel Adams (1902-1984) documenting the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II.
The Archive of Folk Culture in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress houses diverse and international multiformat ethnographic collections, including 1.5 million photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings, and moving images. It is America's first national archive of traditional life and one of the oldest and largest such repositories in the world. Refer to AFC finding aids: World War II Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture and Radio-Related Recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture. Contact the reference staff of the American Folklife Center for further information about Archive collections.
The Veterans History Project calls upon the American Folklife Center to collect and preserve oral histories on audio and video tape, along with documents such as letters, diaries, maps, photographs, and home movies, of America's war veterans and those who served in support of them during World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars. The site's "List of Official Partners" includes links to veterans' and military organizations, libraries and archives, museums, oral history programs, universities, and civic organizations outside the Library of Congress working with the Veterans History Project to promote the collection.
Journeys and Crossings brings to life some of the Library's most exciting and historically significant materials through Webcasts offering the personal insights of the staff who know them best--and online conversations in which you are invited to join.
The New Deal Network, a research and teaching resource devoted to the public works and arts projects of the New Deal, includes a database of photographs, political cartoons, and texts (speeches, letters, and other historic documents from the New Deal period). This site includes curriculum guides and additional resources related to World War II and the New Deal era.
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, Behring Center has numerous collections and exhibitions related to the United States during World War II and the New Deal, such as July 1942: United We Stand and A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution.