America's Children in Wartime: Beyond the 'Latchkey Child.'

An American historian writing about the experiences of American homefront children during the Second World War sought to add authenticity to his book by including in it the personal stories of people who had been children during the war, told in their own words. The writer's letter of appeal, published in about 100 U.S. newspapers and about 75 African-American, Hispanic-American, and Jewish-American publications, received an overwhelming response, and this paper discusses the impact that some 2,000 letters received from people who were children on the homefront during World War II had on the book. Focusing on two topics, the paper first discusses the way in which the letters changed the book by expanding the writer's conception of what was going on in the homefront children's lives. The second topic concerns how the letters illuminated the chronological divisions within the homefront children's cohort itself, revealing significant differences in the development and lives of children born during three time periods: 1932 to 1935, 1936 to 1941, and 1942 to 1945. (DB)