Southington, Connecticut

Connecticut

In 1942 the War Department picked this one Connecticut town to represent all of America, and dropped the pictures over occupied Europe from airplanes.

historicalmilitarydisaster

In May of 1942, the War Department went looking for a town that could stand in for the whole country. It chose Southington. Photographers spread out through the community and shot residents at work, at play, in their homes and in their churches. The result was a booklet called Southington, Connecticut, Microcosm of America. It was meant to show friends and enemies alike in Europe what typical American citizens and families looked like, and what they believed. Thousands of copies were loaded onto military airplanes and dropped over Europe during the German occupation. That same year, a mural went up inside the town post office. Ann Hunt Spence painted it and called it Romance of Southington. It came out of a Treasury Department program that put artists to work on public buildings between nineteen thirty-four and nineteen forty-three.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
Thousands of copies were dropped from military airplanes over Europe during the Nazi German Occupation.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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