Jeffrey Macmillen

History 297W Oral History

Professor Stave

December 5^th 2001

Summary

This interview is with my grand mother, Ruth Macmillen. She was a house wife in the time of the war and she explains the life of a typical house wife in the period of World War Two. Though there is not much information of the military aspect of the war, we can get a well rounded understanding of the life that went on in the United States during that time. It reveals the average persons thought pattern, while out solders were abroad fighting. In so many aspects this interview shows us the interesting programs of the times and the way inflation has forever changed the prices of goods and services in America. It is an comparison from old to new, and a reality check of what was and is now. Ruth Macmillen has lived through a turbulent time in a growing America, and here, in this interview she shares it with us.

Key Quotes

Jeffrey Macmillen: After the U.S entered the world did your life change at all

Ruth Macmillen: Well yes we had to uh they had uh submarines in Long Island Sound and they had black out curtains or papers or something up in all our windows, see I lived in West Haven and were only a mile or so from Long Island Sound and they were some submarines, well everybody I guess near the shore had to blackout some of the city.

JM: Were there pictures in the newspaper that would give a little more of a general view

RM: Yes pictures of the war what they were doing over here a lot of the people working in the factories you know helping out making different parts a lot of that going on like I said there's a lot of rationing you had to be very careful about how much you used you know food what we did and um um I don’t think you could buy everything you needed sometimes it was hard after the war ya know there were certain things if you were building a house there were certain things you couldn’t get as good as you used to have.