#armed services

[blondebrainpowered]

A sailor eats his Thanksgiving dinner while keeping an eye on the radar scope on November 26, 1987.

[goshyesvintageads]

The Coca-Cola Co, 1952

[popculturelib]

Do you prefer your books horizontal or vertical?

Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were softcover paperbacks distributed to American soldiers during World War II. After campaigns to collect donated books for soldiers fell through -- in part due to books' large size and hardback covers -- the Council on Books in Wartime (CBW) developed a plan to print pocket-sized softcovers of hundreds of books and deliver them to overseas soldiers.

Many ASEs were printed on presses normally used for magazines, which were too large for soldiers' pockets, so publishers printed two copies per magazine page and cut them in half, resulting in the horizontal format. Seen here are two paperback copies of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood (printed in 1945 and 1940, respectively) for comparison.

The books chosen for ASEs were a wide range of subjects and genres, including fiction and non-fiction, and were hugely popular among soldiers -- many authors received large quantities of fan mail from soldiers who credit them with keeping up morale during the war. The success of ASEs encouraged publishers to print more softcover books after the end of the war, leading to the mass-market paperback industry still seen today.

For more information about Armed Services Editions, or these specific editions of Captain Blood, check out the books below:

Books In Action: The Armed Services Editions (1984) ed. by John Y. Cole

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II (2014) by Molly Guptill Manning

Captain Blood: His Odyssey (1940), published by Pocket Books

Captain Blood (1945), published by Editions for the Armed Services

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.

- Joseph Joubert

[donnatroyprincessofthemyscira]

[entwife508]

Servicepeople need to know this. You don't have to comply with illegal orders.

[pewresearch]

What it means to be a military veteran in the United States is being shaped by a new generation of service members. About one-in-five veterans today served on active duty after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Their collective experiences – from deployment to combat to the transition back to civilian life – are markedly different from those who served in previous eras.

Read more in our new report “The American Veteran Experience and the Post-9/11 Generation”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]