Remembering the 1942 Nebraska Scrap Metal Drive
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
By JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star
Mary Ostergard keeps a 64-year-old mimeograph in her scrapbook about the heaviest homework assignment she ever completed.
The 77-year-old retired teacher was a 12-year-old school girl from Gothenburg when she was given the bulletin. It announced that classes would be cancelled Oct. 2, 1942, so she and other students could collect scrap metal for the war effort.
Ostergard’s friend, Betty Frasier, had a neighbor who told the girls they could have an old, cast-iron stove. On their day off from school, the girls carried the 60-pound stove about two blocks to the town’s scrap collection site.
Two Seton Hall University communication professors are working on a documentary about the 1942 Nebraska Scrap Metal Drive that supported the World War II effort. The documentary will highlight participation of Americans on the home front from the perspective of the more recent war on terrorism.
Assistant Professor James J. Kimble, a Nebraska native, has done extensive research on the drive. Thomas Rondinella, associate professor in broadcast and visual media, will co-produce and co-direct the documentary.
They still want to hear from people who were involved in the 1942 Nebraska Scrap Metal Drive or those whose relatives were involved. Reach them at tom@catfishstudios.com or toll-free at (877) 729-9642.
“We probably carried it two inches at a time,” said Ostergard, 77, who still lives in her hometown.
Such personal memories of Nebraska’s scrap drive will appear in a documentary film, if all goes as planned for two faculty members at Seton Hall University. The New Jersey filmmakers recently spent their spring break in Nebraska taping interviews with people who made a crucial homefront contribution — supplying the nation’s war machine with the raw material needed to make tanks, planes and munitions.
The idea to produce a documentary on scrap drives started with Jim Kimble, assistant communication professor at Seton Hall. Kimble, who grew up in Norfolk, has long had an academic interest in wartime propaganda. After researching World War II scrap drives, he wrote a historical essay on the subject. He later shared the essay with his colleague, Tom Rondinella, an associate professor at Seton Hall who teaches film and television production.
“I read it and saw it had real potential,” Rondinella said in Lincoln during a break in their rigorous taping schedule.
Rondinella has worked as an editor, sound designer and writer for a number of feature films, such as “Fool and His Money,” and “All’s Fair.” He immediately felt the scrap drive project would need to compare the citizen response to World War II with how people today react to the War in Iraq.
In summer 1942, scrap metal supplies at the nation’s steel factories had fallen so low that some plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania were shutting down. After having read a story about the problem, Omaha World-Herald publisher Henry Doorly came up with the idea of promoting a three-week scrap drive in Nebraska.
The newspaper challenged counties to collect scrap metals in July and August. Counties would compete on a per-capita basis with the winner receiving $2,000 in prize money, put up by Doorly.
People got behind the drive with enthusiasm. Gov. Dwight Griswold declared a scrap holiday for businesses to close so their employees could gather old metals.
At the end of the drive, Nebraskans contributed 67,000 tons of scrap, the equivalent of 102 pounds for every Nebraskan, Kimble said. Grant County won the contest.
The feat caught the attention of the Roosevelt Administration and Doorly was sent to discuss the “Nebraska Plan” with the War Production Board in Washington, D.C. Soon war planners announced a national scrap drive, a competition between the states.
And that’s when the propaganda machine kicked in, Kimble said. Posters and newspaper advertisements told citizens by collecting scrap, they could help win the war.
“They were very literal,” he said. “This is not just a fender, it’s a bomb that will fall on Germany. It’s not just an old toaster, it’s a wing of a plane.”
The response exceeded all expectations. Scrap mountains rose near railroad yards across the nation. Motorists removed bumpers from their cars and replaced them with boards adorned with the message: “My bumpers have gone to war.”
Ranchers had to keep an eye on old windmills if they didn’t want them to end up on scrap piles. When a group of Norfolk high school football players heard on the radio that residents of a nearby town were instructed to leave scrap on their curbs for morning pick up, the players made an nighttime raid on the town, which helped them win their own competition.
People wanted to do something to help, especially at a time when the outcome of the war was far from certain, said retired Gothenburg rancher Jack Ostergard, Mary’s husband.
“Everybody was gung ho, esprit de corps,” he said. “We’ll probably never see a time where people pulled together like they did then.”
By the way, Kansas won the state competition and Nebraska came in sixth place. The national drive produced more than enough scrap for the war effort, Kimble said.
“The drive, you could imagine, was the horseshoe nail that helped make the war a success,” he said.
More than 60 years later, Rondinella and Kimble sent out news releases asking to be contacted by Nebraskans who remembered the scrap drive. They heard from about 25 people and drove out to interview 10 of them on camera during the week of March 5.
Taping interviews and supplemental footage took them to Gothenburg, Lexington, Cozad, Arnold, Valentine, Thedford, O’Neill, Norfolk, Lincoln and Omaha. They also filmed newspaper clippings and other documents at the Douglas County Historical Society.
Their subjects are in their 70s and 80s, but all have shared vivid memories of the time. They also hold strong opinions about giving to something bigger than themselves, Rondinella said.
“I don’t see that same kind of sacrifice today in the War on Terror,” he said. “Gas goes up to $3 a gallon and we whine.”
The two plan to return to Nebraska this summer to collect more interviews. They hope to complete the project in about 18 months.
Currently, they’re funding the project themselves. During their tour of Nebraska, for example, they mostly stayed with Kimble’s old college friends. But they intend to seek outside funding as the project takes shape.
At this point, they don’t know for sure whether they will create a documentary to be shown in theaters or broadcast on public television. Even the film’s duration has yet to be decided.
“It will be long enough to tell the story, short enough to be interesting,” Kimble said.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.
Bill wrote on March 19, 2007 10:49 am: