Ralph LaRossa, author of Of War and Men 

Hi this is foundry jackson and this evening lewis writes this will be going between the lines with ralph leroux sent author of of war and then world war ii and the loves of fathers and their families.

Warren debacle is with a this in your attic described at same place by remember going up to my attic and opening up but i realize now is footlocker and inside that footlocker was pieces of my dads were worth to you and how old were you at it's hard for me to put a time-honored but my recollection would be at like eight or nine years old little boy i and in their there was a jacket which i now realize is often called an eisenhower jacket because it's a short at the waist jacket and there also was a hat which i described as rectangular but it's the kind of hat that i realize now that the soldiers were often wear when they were en route as it lies flat and also as a handkerchief of sorts that had all these lines under the should to be a mat is made of silk and as a result of finding those materials that sort of initiated a conversation with my parents know what these items were and started telling me about the war involvement in and writing this book has brought you will circle to it as a man i know i would ask him the same kinds of questions that a lot of it in nine -year-olds would ask and later on would periodically asked them my dad was in the army air corps was radioman and be serious bombers but mom was worked for a while in brooklyn factory that manufactured the bomb sites and gyroscopes but writing this book is you have learned so much about the war and about its impact that i wish i could ask some more questions today but unfortunately most of your research and sociology has been studying the family and more recently past two decades center father who did it take you tell us what you mean by the culture on father well it's a very important distinction between culture and the conduct of fatherhood and it's one that i've accentuated to a lot of my writings by the culture fatherhood i generally mean the norms and values lease the expressive symbols that are associated with father so if there's a sense of hope this is what fathers are expected to do that would be the cultural father if were talking about the value that is attached to fathers versus as to the value attached mothers that culture were talking about father's day was a ritual that would be the culture it's important to distinguish the culture father from the conduct of fatherhood which is basically what fathers actually do when there engaged in trying to be a father and the resorts important distinction to this because you can have changes in the culture of fatherhood that are not necessarily mirrored in the conduct of father so for example for the over the course of the twentieth century the culture fatherhood is shifted to and fro and sometimes going up in courage and greater involvement of the times actually shifting down encouraging little bit less and what happened this happen for example is the culture fathered my chest up in the sense of encouraging greater father involvement but dads would not necessarily becoming more boxes important to look at the two to see whether they're in sync and if they're not ask yourself why oil many people might be surprised to learn that before world war ii there was what you called a new fatherhood movement tell us about god it's been increasingly surprising to see that the notion that in a father should get more involved this is not a recent occurrence but it really goes back to the nineteenth century but it was accelerated in the twentieth century in part because of the whole scientific approach to child-rearing that was emerging in the you know in the nineteen twenties in particular in the nineteen thirties as well and there was this idea that you you couldn't rely an instinct to be a parent you can rely on folklore had to rely on science and so you have this proliferation of child rearing books popular magazines for example parents magazine is initiated in nineteen twenty six and and and and a lot of this literature was encouraging men to become increasingly involved suffer simple parents magazine between nineteen thirty to nineteen thirty seven had special column called for fathers only which it said outright that had initiated because there were so many father supposedly reading the magazine and then world war ii broke out and what happened while i was always there wrote the book i wanted to see what happened when world war ii broke out well it basically put a lot of the new fatherhood movement on halt if you look at popular magazine articles that say throughout the forties and they basically focusing on the war if you look at advertisements prior to the war that the world jolie more advertising showing man in a domesticated role joy to see much of that during the forties a lot of the ads during the war were touting the significance of this event product in winning the war for example to dixie cup company was was saying in effect that it was helping fight the war because in dixie cups kept people healthy.

Well if stepping back again a few years.

They actually debate in congress about whether it was appropriate to draft fathers or whether fathers young children should be exempted.

Its cure is to think about now when we don't have a draft when both men and women are on the front.

How how different the roles are now in terms of parents who are often wore her off in the service and you spend a good bit of time interesting how the father 's role was impacted while he was serving you in whatever capacity and and some of these latter 's are just heartbreaking.

In a festival that the question whether father should be drafted was debated in the summer of nineteen forty three in some lasers in a growth of the new fatherhood movement of the that preceded the war because of the emphasis given to the role of fathers it was increasingly emphasize helm porn fathers were in the hall so fathers were sent from the draft if they had conceived a child on or before december seventh nineteen forty one which is of course debated the attack on pearl harbor in nineteen forty three the debate start a debate started as to whether the country can continue to exempt what some person calculated to be about six million man from active duty or being at least potentially drafted and that they would on congress was filled with military generals coming to a basically make the case that if we don't draft these people we could lose this war as little is happening in nineteen forty three although italy had surrendered and so there was that opportunity in terms of of moving forward of the battle of salerno was a really problematic and people were very concerned so what did they continued people who were very much in favor father did fathers being more involved in emphasizing how important they were arguing that the exemption should continue in the end it was it was eliminated and six million fathers were put in a position where they would be susceptible to the draft that doesn't mean that or any fathers and the military prior to nineteen forty three because in the wake of pearl harbor first of all there any number of fathers are in the military is active-duty personnel in ivey made the army career or just being in the army army that in the wake of pearl harbor in a number of fathers went in and and basically enlisted sometimes alongside their sons fathers and sons were often do this together and so the war as happens today removed a lot of men out of the home often for extended periods of time and created a difficult situation all around in terms of trying to maintain contact with the children and then when they came home things were difficult than it in that portion you have titled reentry use time describing out other aspects of american involvement in world war ii that were very unattractive.

That horror of japanese american internment and and describing how fathers were separated from families and the impact that had on families and also the dichotomy with african-american father 's and others will laser one of the doing this book was to.

Communicate the diversity of experiences sometimes and in an effort just to simply talk about an event will so here's what happened the man or his would have been women and will present a picture and very monochromatic terms but the diversity experiences were significant of course first you have the act now japanese-american men.

In over hundred and ten thousand japanese were eventually imprisoned of these were a ghetto of men and and and also women and children dislodged from their home dislodged from their possessions and basically carted off to to in a present tense that is where america yes some of them were american citizens some of the men fought in world war ii and there are pictures of the lease in some instances that when it was time for them to to leave some of the men were actually wearing world war i uniform in the experience for blacks and would often assemble what happen with the war is it ended the depression that gave men an opportunity to feel that they were important again of course that didn't necessarily apply to japanese as they were being imprisoned as for blacks they were being denied the opportunity to be in the military and if they weren't being given the opportunity to be in the military they were pushed into noncombat roles so i had to fight to make a strong case that they should not only be in the military but that they should be allowed to be in combat because they felt as others had felt before them from the revolutionary war forward in which blacks vote was flawed that if they could show that they're willing to know give up their life for this country but they should be given freedoms and otherwise didn't exist before i were given the opportunity to fight in part because we could know we were free to losing the war and when they did serve the servant distinction in the same thing was true for the japanese americans were eventually given the opportunity to serve one of the letters that particularly moving is from captain gerald marnell of parsons says who wrote his first letter to his two -year-old daughter just hours before he lost his life a combat mission if you read this i know that you can't read this letter now but her mother were read to you and she will say refer you to your old enough to read yourself your daddy held you in his arms when you're only a few minutes old.

Your daddy so you grow you would beam with pride and joy when he would watch her mother talk you to sleep in our wrongs that he saw you start to crawl and how you did get around you remembered you standing alone in taking your first step in cutting her first tooth is saying your first word then came the day when your daddy had to say goodbye you cried so hard when daddy was driving away and daddy shed a tear himself the daddy didn't want to leave you that he had to go to help make your country is safe and free place to live and little baby god has blessed you with the finest mother in the world and daddy loves your mother very much be good to your mother geraldine is no one else like her the world that he won't write much more to you will be back home someday and you and he will play together again that he asked god every night to guide and watch over you and your mother.

In letters like that were tough to read as they are now especially when you knew what happened and he didn't.

And you know that it it down this is hard to read those letters if you're just joining us we're going between the lines with ralph laroche author of a book about world war ii in the lives of authors and their families of war and may let's talk about the different ways in which fathers were judged over the decades you mentioned this momentum of this fatherhood movement before the war in the twenties and thirties and and after the war there is a division between the first part of the nineteen fifties and the second part will discuss back to the culture of fatherhood versus the conduct of father who look at the culture fatherhood let's say from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of world war ii we see the cultural father becoming increasingly open to the idea that men should become evolved there essentially no three messages that were given to men one that the is that they should be good providers good economic providers the second was that they should be pals and companions to their children and the third was that they should be male role models to both their daughters and her sons she can plot these three messages over time when the questions i had was there was this modernization of fatherhood so to speak there was occurring as a set from the turn-of-the-century beginning world war ii so are my questions is what happened when the war at and thereafter.

Some scholars have suggested that the modernization of father pretty much continued that men were in fact increasingly being called to become more involved to move increasingly being asked to be male role models and so on and so forth to some degree that's true but you have to be careful and not treat the postwar era as if it were a single unit in poring over these materials and plotting changes over time for example looking at the first edition of spot comparing it with the second edition looking at the infant care manuals with the government put out and looking at one addition to the next and seeing in particular what did they change now even if was a single word what became clear was from the end of world war ii to the election of john f. kennedy the modernization of fatherhood that would have been occurring prior to the war was reversed the net effect was a traditional allies in fact that the warhead on on the culture of fatherhood so that if you look at the early fifties in the late fifties are very different the late fifties being a very traditional time in oregon history and is a lot of evidence in support of that with you look and i did with you looking at insecure manuals whether you're looking at popular magazines like parents magazine with your looking at television you can compare the early fifties show with the late fifties shows olivia locate trips which we've pored over to tom that you had on i and yet i did like the funeral i enjoyed love looking at the television shows they brought back a lot of memories have to admit that i watched a lot more tv and when i was a kid that i should've but i remember all of the shows but what i also remember to do it i was reminded of it by this is that younger affluent people dug about father in the fifties the talk about father knows best leave it to be the ozzie and harriet ellen these were not popular shows at the time were as popular as we think they were remarkable in that the shelves that were extremely popular with the west and if you look at the nielsen ratings they were there were beating out to many of the shows that we go for whatever reason continue to remember so there's this wastefulness and our collective memory for what father knows best and leave it to beaver and ozzie and harriet said to him i there certainly is a nostalgia that this associated with the fifties that there continues to be nurtured on late-night tv in reruns and so on and so forth.

But if you go back and you try to do it again or ask yourself what was it like for the people at the time you have to look at the evidence and the evidence shows a very different picture of course there was an entire part of the population who not only was not represented in those columns but who were in the throes of a terrific struggle is without a doubt i'm in again if you look at the plight of black americans and you appreciate what it meant to be young and black or black father and mother and compared it with the what people were thinking at the time is a huge difference john lewis says that when you he he she was aware of the murder of emmett till and he followed the trial and he was about the age that emmett till was and he in his own in his book walking with the wendy said i could've been emmett till i could've been me and it's important that we look at the diversity of experiences that were in we look at the fifties that we appreciate the different experiences that people have and that for blacks in particular was a horrific time and get them to try to paint the nineteen fifties and no nostalgic terms without root in paying sufficient attention to the racism that existed is really a disservice.

Interesting that you need out emmett till 's father served in world war ii himself an awful story attached that you mentioned john lewis and his mother local connection interjection here is talking about his grandfather and about how proud he was and.

Jackson dobbs 's grandson and atlanta's first black mayor was shown a photograph of his grandfather picketing the store picketing bridge yes dobbs is a tired fine three-piece suit and gray trench trenchcoat and carried a placard that read quote where old clothes with new dignity don't buy here " seeing his father in the photo brought tears to jackson's eyes it's seeing the node 's grandfather in the work tears to maynard jackson's eyes look at that jaw set the grandson declared he would've walk through hell bare feet if he had to what a man in the title that chapter what a man at the conclusion of the book you talk about you write about the nineteen sixty presidential election and suggest that father would move may have factored into the victory of john f. kennedy and i think it is effective in and in two ways.

One might expect today and was the effect of the extent to which caroline was being you basically talked about in the press and was photographed with the candidate of the jf case plan was called caroline and zero one one newspaper editor or journalist referred to carolinas that in the best person on the trip campaign trail for jfk.

It's interesting when we look at the results of the election we find that jfk and nixon broke pretty much evening even with older women but with young women many of whom were mothers of jfk beat nixon by ten percent as a other in a very close election so one real possibility as his fatherhood factor of young jfk being the father of her young child and he and another child was on the way that could've been in a key factor the other thing was that during the election during the campaign martin luther king junior was arrested and here in atlanta and the decision had to be made by the candidates is whether they will speak out on it and nixon chose not to feeling that as a lawyer would not be appropriate for jfk chose to intervene and he goes through his brother robert f kennedy intervened to help get martin luther king jr. junior and jeff martin luther king junior did not as a result of that and doris can a martin luther king senior did and basically said i have to acknowledge what he did for my family and martin luther king senior said he would do whatever he could to deliver as many black votes in secret for jfk and so you have a concerned father conveying in outlook but he did with very stirring words about you can't have someone do this and i have to paraphrase the weekend have someone do with this man did for my children and not a knowledge how important it is basically it would be a paraphrase the book of war ended when world war ii in the lives of authors and their family the author professor ralph leroux said thank you very that you must woo between the lines is brought to you in part by jack on hospitality and a generous anonymous supporter thank you to learn more about the books and authors featured on between the lines go to our website at w abe.

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