Buy Used

$8.45

+ $0.00 shipping

Used: Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks - Green Earth

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II Hardcover – April 17, 1997

by Lawrence R. Samuel (Author)

1 customer review

See all 3 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$41.37

$4.48

Hardcover
from $4.48 18 Used from $4.48 2 New from $41.37 1 Collectible from $10.95

Pledging Allegiance: American Identity and the Bond Drive of World War II

Available from these sellers.

Special offers and product promotions

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

During World War II, the U.S. Treasury Department mounted seven campaigns to sell bonds that helped fund the war effort. These campaigns, writes Lawrence R. Samuel in this illuminating work of social history, turned on a conception of Americans as a people united against Fascism, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or class. The pitch worked extremely well, raising more than $150 billion. It also raised expectations, especially among African Americans, that the pledge to fight racist policies abroad would apply to the home front as well. The 1942 Double-V campaign, in fact, included a slogan promising a commitment to fight democracy's enemies at home and abroad--a slogan that was dropped after certain politicians complained that it was subversive. Samuel makes tentative links between such progressive ideas and the birth of the civil rights movement, which adds to an already fascinating study.

From Library Journal

Samuel, the president of a Minneapolis consulting firm, explores here the role of the World War II bond drives. The author builds a convincing case that the drives were developed to help consolidate American society. Besides raising money for the war, the drives were intended to build public consensus by including all racial and ethnic groups. This aspect of the bond drives became one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever devised. Samuel writes engagingly, especially on the African American community, whose participation was not a "given" in those days?for good reason. While the author has a tendency to overuse examples, some 40 illustrations and photographs show the wide support for the drives. Recommended for World War II collections.?Mark E. Ellis, Albany State Univ., Ga.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press; Illustrated edition (April 17, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1560987073
ISBN-13: 978-1560987079
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 1 customer review
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,995,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #265 in Books > Business & Money > Investing > Bonds
- #17837 in Books > History > Military > World War II
- #40103 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		0%
4 star		100%
3 star		0%
2 star		0%
1 star		0%

Write a customer review

See all verified purchase reviews

Top customer reviews

Who Gave and Why?

ByL. M YoungVINE VOICEon January 13, 2016

Format: Hardcover

This book sounds as if it should be a history of the Pledge of Allegiance, but it's actually a fairly engrossing history of the bond drives during World War II. To raise money for the war effort in the first World War, the fundraising efforts were called "Liberty Loans" and some exquisite artwork came out of these efforts, but it was thought at the beginning of the second World War that the Liberty Loan drives were meant to appeal to only the wealthy or at least well-to-do. These new fundraisers wanted Americans to realize that the Nazi and Japanese regimes threatened everyone's way of life and attempted to sell war bonds to everyone, even children.

Therefore, one of the things they did was make war bonds available in small denominations. One didn't have to make an executive salary to buy one: the janitor, the dog-catcher, the factory worker could afford them. Children, who had less money than anyone, could buy war stamps to paste into a book that would eventually be worth enough to buy a war bond. War bonds were touted as perfect gifts: no wallets, toys, or expensive dresses!

The chapters I found most fascinating were the ones selling war bonds to African-Americans. The Liberty Loans had only concentrated on whites; War Bonds were for everyone. People of color treated as they were had no especial reason to support a war effort that excluded them on so many fronts: segregation, black men only recruited as orderlies or janitors, blatant prejudice. Yet the War Bond chairmen fought that they not be excluded from the war effort, and the results are impressive: people of minimal salaries sometimes gave more than white people with higher wages.

If this book has one problem, it's the quoting of too many statistics. It's at its best when it talks about the individual efforts of those who gave.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: investing in bonds

Buy Used $8.45