'War Bonds'

War Bonds were a popular commodity during the two big WWs’! The way I understand it, War Bonds were basically the government borrowing money from the citizens to finance the war!! Let’s say, Willie bought $25 in war bonds for $18… In 10 years that bond reaches its maturity at which time its face value earns Willie a small return on the money Uncle Sam borrowed!!!

This made many uncomfortable to invest in a new uncertain market and others saw it as a means of coercion to be patriotic! Nonetheless it is fun to look at the old patriotic propaganda used to sell those Bonds!! Americans in those days were very patriotic and proud and they wanted to serve the country the best they could, rather if it was rationing to help the war effort or buying bonds to invest in our military!! But misuse of government influence over its people resulted in a backlash as saw during WWII with disappointing sells of the war bond!!!

 

Through the selling of Bonds, the government raised $21.5 billion for the war effort! The majority of sales were not to individuals but to banks and financial groups that ignored the patriotic appeal and bought the bonds principally as an investment opportunity!! The bond campaigns themselves proved relatively ineffective at gaining widespread public support!! The majority of Americans were simply uncomfortable converting a significant portion of their savings into what was, for them, a new and uncertain form of investment!!!

 

Prior to 1941 the Bonds were called Defense Bonds but after the attack on Pearl Harbor, they changed the name to War Bonds!  The War Finance Committee was placed in charge of supervising the sale of all bonds, and the War Advertising Council promoted voluntary compliance with bond buying!! The government appealed to the public through popular culture and contemporary art to promote these War Bonds. They recruited the likes of Warner Brothers to advertise with cartoons and held Bond Rallies across the country with famous Hollywood film stars to enhance the effectiveness of advertising such bonds!!!

The sports world did its part as well, holding special football and baseball games with a war bond as the price of admission! An unusual baseball game took place in New York City with the New York Yankees, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Each of the teams came to bat six times in the same nine-inning game!! Their final score was the Dodgers 5, Yankees 1 and the Giants 0, and the U.S. Government was $56,500,000 richer in war bond sales!!!

At the end of World War II, January 3, 1946, the last proceeds from the Victory War Bond campaign were deposited into the U.S. Treasury! More than 85 million Americans purchased bonds totaling $185.7 billion!! Those incredible results, due to the mass selling efforts of helping to finance the war, have never since been matched!!!