The Council of Books in Wartime - An NGO of another time

I recently wrote a post about The Great Gatsby, and in that post I mentioned the novel was resurrected from literary death partly by “The Council of Books in Wartime.” In the comments someone said they like to know more about this organization. I thought, “I’d like to know more about this organization." So, I set out to do exhaustive research to get to the heart of who founded the council, its goals and objectives, how it began and ended.

But I get exhausted pretty quickly. So, I just looked it up on Wikipedia and a few other articles, and there I found some things of interest.

These days the council might be dubbed an NGO (non-governmental organization), a non-profit founded by publishers, writers, librarians, booksellers and others connected to the book industry. World War II had begun, and the outcome of the war was far from certain. It was important not only for the military to be prepared to fight, but also for the general public to support them in every way.

The goal of the council was to use books as “weapons in the war of ideas.” That was their motto. The goal was to promote the general public’s will to win the war by exposing the nature of the enemy and reminding people of American values. In other words, it was propaganda. But for a righteous cause. And they also sought to entertain and inspire through literature. President Roosevelt highlighted the work of the organization and contrasted their work of producing books with the Nazi's burning them.

From 1943 through 1947, the organization produced over 122 million paperback books for service members. The books were designed to fit in the pockets of any United States military uniform. And there was a wide variety of books.

Just a sampling:

Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War by Gil Gilpatric - A Scottish ship engineer who tries to avoid the war that keeps finding him.

Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson - A 1904 novel about a traveler in the Guyana jungles, a touchstone of the conservation movement.

Joseph Lister: Father of Modern Surgery by Rhoda Truax - A biography of the surgeon who pioneered antiseptic technique.

This Chemical Age: The Miracle of Man Made Materials by William Hayes - An exploration of the rapid rise of industrial chemistry.

Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith - A controversial novel about interracial romance.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - This fictionalized autobiography proved to be one of the most popular books the council distributed.

And the following books were classified by the council as “Imperative,” meaning books with a vital message:

They Were Expendable by William L. White - The story of the Philippine campaign from the perspective of four officers of the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron

Into the Valley: A Skirmish of the Marines by John Hersey - A firsthand account of the Battle of Guadalcanal

One World by Wendell Willkie - The Republican candidate’s argument for world co-operation after the war, and a plea for the end of colonialism

U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic by Walter Lippmann - An explanation of the fundamentals of national security

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey - A novel about an Italian-American officer serving in Sicily.

People on Our Side by Edgar Snow - A reporter’s account of the peoples of India, Russia, and China

There were a total of 1.324 titles published in the ASE (Armed Services Editions) collection. The Library of Congress is likely the only place that has all of the titles. The books were published for the United States Armed Forces to distribute, charging an average of six cents a book. The council co-operated with the Office of War Information and other government agencies, but its staff was voluntary and unpaid.

A prime mover seems to have been William Warder Norton, founder of W. W. Norton & Company (perhaps you were assigned a Norton Anthology of Literature in college). Other publishers included George Hecht of Doubleday and Company and Bennett Cerf of Random House. A panel of editors was assigned to choose which titles would be published, which included representatives from the New York Herald Tribune, Saturday Review of Literature, The Infantry Journal, and The New York Times Book Review.

The council also released pamphlets for the armed services and the general public detailing the evils of Fascism in Germany and Japan and the inherent good of American democracy.

But one of the most remarkable things about the Council of Books in Wartime is that after the war ended in 1947, the council realized that their goals were accomplished, their mission accomplished. In that way it was very different from any “non-governmental organizations” of our time. It was different also in that the people didn’t serve in the organization to make a profit. It seems their motivation was patriotism.

It really was another time.