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Photographer: Mike Wintermantel
Taken: May 14, 2014
Caption: A United Homefront
Additional Description: December 7, 1941 was a Sunday, bright and sunny in much of the United States. At the White House, President and Mrs. Roosevelt had invited 31 guests for lunch. In Pittsburgh eight-year-old David McCullough was at his first stage show. His older brother had taken him to the Syria Mosque to see the ballet Rodeo. When they came out of the theater David knew that something had changed. "That day I realized there was a world outside Pittsburgh."

He recalled that the city quickly became a center of wartime production. "At night the sky pulsed red; blast furnaces were working day and night. Pittsburgh was making steel, aluminum, glass, landing crafts, and Jeeps. We were all proud; we knew Pittsburgh was helping to win the war."

McCullough remembers an exciting time for a young boy. "I was a junior commando: we went house to house collecting scrap and fat. Kids could go anywhere on their own then. Gas was rationed. War movies had us all steamed up and patriotic. I saw all the war movies. I checked the war cartoons in the Post-Gazette.

If there was a blue star in the window of a house it meant someone was in the service. A gold star meant someone had died. Next door the house had two blue stars: Bill and Bob Dickey were serving in the Army and Navy."

Historian David McCullough was born and raised in Pittsburgh
Submitted: May 14, 2014, by Mike Wintermantel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Database Locator Identification Number: p273322
File Size: 1.721 Megabytes

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