In this issue: Author Sara Rutkowski on the Federal Writers' Project; Constitution Day Film Screening; The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City with Kevin Baker; A Conversation with Basil Smikle PhD; Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence; Be Careful What You Say or Write and #TheArtOfWar; World War II Facts.
Author Sara Rutkowski discusses Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers' Project. The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) sent over 6,500 unemployed historians, teachers, writers, and librarians out to document America’s past and present in the midst of the Great Depression.
Sara Rutkowski is an Assistant Professor of English at the City University of New York: Kingsborough Community College. She has published work on postwar American writers and the cultural and political contexts of twentieth century global literature.
Constitution Day Film Screening
A More Perfect Union
Tuesday, September 17
2pm ET
Henry A. Wallace Center
Free public event. Registration is required. CLICK HEREto register.
The FDR Presidential Library will commemorate Constitution Day with a film screening of A More Perfect Union – depicts events surrounding creation of the United States Constitution, and is focused mainly on James Madison, who wrote most of that document and took extensive notes during the convention's discussions and proceedings.
Author Talk and Book Signing
The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City
with Kevin Baker
Tuesday, September 24
6pm ET
Henry A. Wallace Center
Free public event. Registration is required. CLICK HEREto register.
The FDR Presidential Library presents an author talk of The New York Game: Baseball and The Rise of a New City – A hugely entertaining history of baseball and New York City, bursting with larger-than-life figures and fascinating stories from the game’s beginnings to the end of World War II.
Kevin Baker (born 1958) is an American novelist, historian, and journalist. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in New Jersey and Rockport, Massachusetts.
Conversation
Foundations of a Movement: Black Americans, Civil Rights, and The Roosevelts
with Basil Smikle, PhD
Saturday, October 5
4pm ET
Henry A. Wallace Center
Free public event. Registration is required. CLICK HEREto register.
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and the Poughkeepsie Public Library District present the annual Paul M. Sparrow Lecture focusing on the Roosevelt-era foundations of the Civil Rights Movement.
Registered attendees can visit the Library's special exhibition, BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, free of charge before the program, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
This year's Sparrow Lecture is held in partnership with the Poughkeepsie Public Library District's BIG READ program, recognizing 60 years of the Civil Rights Act.
The entire vast, modern American intelligence system — the amalgam of three-letter spy services of many stripes — can be traced back to the dire straits the world faced at the dawn of World War II. Prior to 1940, the United States had no organization to recruit spies and steal secrets or launch covert campaigns against enemies overseas and just a few codebreakers, isolated in windowless vaults.
(Originally broadcast November 4, 2022; 71:54 minutes)
Margie Stewart was a model and actress who became the Army’s official poster girl during World War II. 94 million copies of Margie posters were printed during the war.
World War II formally began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland without a formal declaration of war. Poland, France and Great Britain issued ultimatums to Hitler for the immediate withdrawal of German forces from Poland. When the ultimatum deadlines expired, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 2, 1939.
"A package for Hitler. An infantryman in training at Fort Belvoir, Va., prepares to hurl a pineapple of the inedible variety. American soldiers make good grenade throwers."
"Whatever our individual circumstances or opportunities, we are all in it, and our spirit is good... and do not let anyone tell you anything different." FDR, Oct 12, 1942, fireside chat.
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