From Rosie to Roosevelt: A Film History of Americans in World War II
Where were you in World War II?
Weekly film screenings, lectures, reading, and discussions will deepen participants' understanding of the history of World War II and the war's impact on our world today. Participants view award-winning documentary films, read from Studs Terkel's The Good War (the excellent oral history of people who served abroad and on the home front), and talk about how the experience that defined a generation still shapes lives today.
Format: VHS
The American Command
This series focuses on issues of leadership and character and their impact on the military, political and domestic events of the war. These presidents and military commanders simultaneously adjusted to and shaped their times and the years ahead.
Session 1: Roosevelt and the Wartime Presidency
Film: FDR
Session 2: Marshall and the Strategy of War
Film: George Marshall and the American Century
Session 3: Eisenhower and the European Campaign
Film: Eisenhower
Session 4: The Navy's Wars
Films: The Navy Holds (“Crusade in the Pacific”) and Wolfpack (“The World at War”)
Session 5: MacArthur and the Pacific War
Film: General Douglas MacArthur
Session 6: Truman and Victory
Film: The Bomb (“The World at War”)
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
This series focuses on the experiences on the home front during the war. It explores the social and economic issues that emerged in America during the war years, with special attention paid to those trends that continue to influence American life today.
Session 1: The Home Front
Film: The Homefront
Session 2: Women Join the Workforce
Film: The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
Session 3: Japanese Americans and World War II
Films: The Color of Honor & Days of Waiting
Session 4: The Double V - African Americans and the War
Film: Proudly We Served: The Men of the USS Mason
Session 5: America and the Holocaust
Film: America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference
Session 6: The Experience of Combat
Film: D-Day