Lewistown, Montana, on the Home Front: Civilian Volunteers in World War II

A wartime poster encouraging Red Cross volunteers, 1941–1945, photograph by Toni Frissell. It wasn't made for Lewistown, but Lewistown had Red Cross volunteers. Library of Congress.

About the lesson

This Teaching with Historic Places lesson looks at how civilians in Lewistown, Montana — an American World War II Heritage City — supported the war: Red Cross volunteering, scrap and salvage drives, air raid wardens and victory gardens. Its essential question: how did Lewistown's civilians contribute to the home front, and why did it matter?

By the numbers

• Lewistown's population: about 5,874 in 1940, and 6,573 in 1950.
• Fergus County's six-month scrap quota: 1,637,000 pounds (early 1943).
• By September 22, 1942, 100 local people had finished a voluntary air raid warden course.

Red Cross surgical dressings

In December 1942, the county paper reported that nearly 250 women in Fergus County were making Red Cross surgical dressings — nearly 175 in Lewistown, and 60 more in a workroom at Denton. Their chairman was Mrs. A. W. Johnson, whose son, Second Lieutenant Stanley W. Johnson, went missing in action over the Pacific on November 7, 1943; a building at Malmstrom Air Force Base was renamed Johnson Hall for him in 1963.

• The work: tedious folding, aiming at perfection, not speed, in daily classes on weekdays and Monday evenings. Every dressing went to U.S. forces and was applied directly to wounds.
• Keeping sterile: each worker changed into a fresh cotton dress, preferably white, covered her hair, and wore no nail polish.
• Secrecy: each chapter's quota was a military secret.
• The scale: it was the largest single project the Red Cross had ever undertaken; American women volunteers would make 90% of the dressings used, following the Army Surgeon General's specifications exactly, with lessons learned from the first reserve stock of 40 million dressings.

The scrap metal drive

In October 1942, Lewistown's part in the county's intensified scrap metal drive shifted into high gear. Scrap piled up in front of nearly every home, and inside stores and at alley entrances downtown; three trucks from the county salvage depot ran from early morning to late at night collecting it. Among the more unusual donations: a rare Japanese prayer mirror and a World War I shell. The drive ran to October 17, and every ounce, residents were told, was needed to keep the nation's war machinery moving.

A salvage poster printed by the Work Projects Administration in Southern California; similar posters appeared across the country. Library of Congress.

Mounted air raid wardens

In May 1942, Lewistown announced what was believed to be the first mounted air raid warden unit in Montana's civilian defense organization — the idea of horsemen Cy Price and Charles Cooley, who recruited other local riders toward a unit of 15 or 20. It was to work with the regular wardens under Sheriff Tullock and Assistant Chief of Police A. C. McKnight.

Victory gardens

To encourage victory gardens — home gardens to stretch family food supplies under rationing — the Democrat-News offered $25 in war stamps for the best gardens in 1943, and displayed unusual homegrown produce in its window. Merchants, seed houses and others added prizes; gardens large and small competed on neatness, variety, size and growth.

Questions the lesson asks

• How did the women of Fergus County contribute, and how did they ensure the quality of their work?
• Why were there scrap drives, and how effective was Lewistown's?
• Why might mounted wardens make sense in a rural county?
• Across the readings, how did Lewistown's civilians contribute to the war effort, and why did it matter?

Other lessons in the series cover the Lewistown Army Airfield and B-17 training, and the home front experiences of young people.

Sources

Based on Sarah Nestor Lane, "(H)our History Lesson: Civilian Volunteerism and Contributions on the Home Front in Lewistown, Montana, World War II Heritage City," National Park Service, drawing on the Fergus County Argus, Lewistown Democrat-News, Lewistown Evening Telegram and Judith Basin Farmer of 1942–1943; published by the National Park Service and in the public domain; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The newspapers are paraphrased; a family photograph is not reproduced.