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.