In 1944, the U.S. government feared the flood of returning World War II soldiers as much as it looked forward to peace. To avoid economic catastrophe, FDR, the American Legion, William Randolph Hearst, and others began crafting the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944. It would be the single most transformative bill of the twentieth century.
Spun as the G.I. Bill of Rights, this program for vets included home loans, health care, educational funds, and career counseling. The effects were immediate and enduring—the suburbs, the middle class, America’s ever-increasing number of college graduates, the lunar landing—all are tied to the G.I. Bill. The Greatest Generation would not exist without it: Norman Mailer, Bob Dole, John F. Kennedy, Paul Newman, Jimmy Carter, Clint Eastwood, and many others benefited from its provisions. Here are the stories of some of these men and women, how their lives changed because of the bill and how this country changed because of them.
QUICK STORY: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, Edward Humes' latest book is FORCE OF NATURE: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart's Green Revolution (Harper Collins, May 2011). His other books include the PEN Award-winning NO MATTER HOW LOUD I SHOUT: A Year In the Life of Juvenile Court, the bestseller MISSISSIPPI MUD, and MONKEY GIRL: Evolution, Education, Religion and the Battle for America's Soul, now under development at HBO.
BACK STORY: When I was six I decided I wanted to be a writer, and I've been at it ever since. I started my writing career in newspapers, and I think I probably would have paid them, instead of the other way around, for the thrill of seeing my first byline in print. As a newspaper reporter, I gravitated toward stories that allowed me to dig behind the scenes and beneath the surface, looking for questions others hadn't asked or imagined. For me, the job amounted to this: license to find out the things I had always wanted to know, about anything and everything that interested, touched or outraged me. Then, within the space and time limitations of a daily newspaper, I had the chance to mold it all into a story to pass onto others. I loved that work.
When I left newspapers to write nonfiction books, I suddenly had weeks or months, rather than hours or days, to immerse myself in the inner workings of the places, characters and events I seek to understand and write about. I had found the greatest job I can imagine.
In my books, I try to take readers inside worlds most don't get to visit or see close up on their own. My first stories were about crime -- real-life murder mysteries-- and I still enjoy reading and writing true crime. But I've pursued broader and more varied narratives in my more recent books. I've written about the nation's crumbling juvenile justice system, the California high school that went from worst to best in the state, the harrowing but surprisingly humane world of a neonatal intensive care unit, the front lines of a modern-day Scopes Monkey Trial, a Gulf Coast murder mystery solved by the victims' own daughter.
Lately - in ECO BARONS and my next book, FORCE OF NATURE (due out in spring 2011) - I've focused on narratives about the environment and sustainability. I believe this to be the most important story of our age - for ourselves, and for our children.
OTHER WRITING: I've written for numerous publications, including Los Angeles Magazine, Sierra Magazine, Readers Digest, California Lawyer, the Oxford American, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. I have taught writing and journalism at the University of California, Irvine, Chapman University, and the University of Oregon.
SPEAKING: I enjoy speaking about my work, and have been invited to address a wide range of groups and organizations:the National Education Summit, the National Steinbeck Center, the ALOUD series, the National Association of District Attorneys, the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the Dole Center for Politics, the National High School Journalism Conference, the National College Newspaper Convention, the National Association of Teachers of English, the California Department of Corrections, the California Appellate Project, the American Psychology and Law Society, the Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Poynter Institute, the Crichton Club and numerous universities and other schools. I was called to testify about my reporting on juvenile court before the U.S. Senate and a joint session of the California Senate and Assembly. I've had the pleasure of delivering a commencement address at Hampshire College in Amherst, my alma mater, and have enjoyed speaking at venues throughout California as a contributing writer to MY CALIFORNIA, an anthology from which all proceeds were donated to the California Arts Council to support arts and writing programs for the state's school children. I served as a Regents Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, and taught writing workshops at the University of Oregon graduate program in literary nonfiction.
HONORS: I received a Pulitzer Prize for my newspaper coverage of the military, a PEN Center USA award for NO MATTER HOW LOUD I SHOUT, a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for "The Forgotten," my LA Magazine account of life inside Los Angeles's nightmarish home for neglected children, and a Silver Gavel honor for MONKEY GIRL. The Washington Post named SCHOOL OF DREAMS a best book of 2003; the Los Angeles Times named MEAN JUSTICE a best book of 1999.
This review is from: Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream (Hardcover)
I enjoyed the book and learned a lot that I wasn't aware of. Humes did a nice job of weaving the 'human element' of how the GI Bill changed people's lives and changed our country. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that inadvertently the GI Bill was one of the best investments in the United States and its citizens---even though when they wrote the "Serviceman's Readjustment Act" and got it passed through Congress--no one had any idea how powerful it would be.
I'd suggest it is time for another one!
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This review is from: Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream (Hardcover)
Most high school history teachers will tell their young charges that the most important event of the last century was the Second World War. That's probably an accurate statement, but there's another event that is probably just as important to the United States' rise to super power status. The passage of the G.I. Bill in 1944 would pave the way to a better life for millions of Americans and is an important a piece of legislation as the Civil Rights Act.
The benefits of the G.I. Bill like help with home loans and funds for college are taken for granted by Americans today but in the 1940s it was a revolutionary concept. Edward Humes delivers a solid book, Over Here - How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, detailing how the G.I. Bill was created. He lays out how politicians of the day were anxious to create some type of package for returning soldiers, but they were not necessarily anxious to craft something that would change America. He carefully spins out the drama behind the creation of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 for modern readers. One of the interesting sub-plots in the book is how the primary sponsor of the Bill, Congressman John Rankin, wanted to give a lesser benefit package to women and blacks so he made sure he was in charge of the Bill's fate.
Humes takes the lives of a handful of veterans and overlays them over the various components of the G.I. Bill to show how individuals were impacted. He does a good job of showing how things like the expansion of the arts in America and the suburbs were unintended side effects of the Bill. It's an interesting approach to take and makes the book feel very personal to the reader.
But towards the end of the book Humes falls into a trap that is becoming all too common in the history books being published over the last couple of years. He spends the last chapter waxing poetic about how the G.I. Bill does not do enough. The agenda being pushed calls for things like national health care and revamping the Bill's education programs. While that may be a good goal in the bigger picture of things I'm getting tired of reading history books that are pushing an agenda. It would be nice to read a straight forward history book again.
Cut out the last chapter and this is a good book on a topic that does not get nearly the attention or credit it deserves.
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