Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Preferred Citation
Biographical / Historical
Scope and Contents
Bibliography
Contributing Institution:
California State University Dominguez Hills, Gerth Archives and Special Collections
Title: Armed Services Editions (ASE) Paperback Collection
Creator:
Armed Services Editions, Inc.
Identifier/Call Number: SPC.2024.002
Physical Description:
136 items
Physical Description:
3 boxes
3 boxes (two record storage boxes, 1 document box)
Date (inclusive): 1943-1946
Abstract: This collection contains a sample of the paperbacks published under by the Armed Services Editions effort during World War
II. The 129 titles comprises under ten percent of the 1322 titles published between 1943 and 1947, but it contains a representative
sample of the variety of books sent to military personnel around the world, including classic world literature, American classic
and popular fiction, mysteries, westerns, humor, history, science, and current events.
Language of Material:
English
.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no access restrictions on this collection.
Conditions Governing Use
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Archives
and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical
materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Preferred Citation
Biographical / Historical
With the 1940 passage of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, Congress established the first peacetime draft in
United States history. Initially, those selected served for a period of twelve months. Following Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent
declarations of war against Japan and Germany, service was extended to last through the duration of the war (with an additional
six-month stint in the Organized Reserves). In all, between 1940-1946, over 10 million Americans would be drafted into the
armed services.
The explosive growth in number of civilians entering the service taxed a Federal Government that had not yet established the
mechanism of turning tens of thousands of civilians into effective soldiers. Miliary bases had to be built and recruits needed
to be clothed, fed, armed, and trained. The government realized that, particularly for those drafted early, morale would be
an issue unless they found some way to fill the recruits' abundant leisure time as facilities and training issues were worked
out. The military needed something that was cost-effective, portable and more versatile than sports or other team activities..
More than anything else, books seemed to be the answer.
Richard Trautman, a reserve Army lieutenant, and professionally-trained librarian, was put in charge of the Army's Library
Section. The Army's initial goal was to purchase one book per enlisted soldier, hoping to use that to build a library at each
of the dozens of military bases around the country. However, the reality was that already-large military installations (5000
or more men) received an ample budget for books, while smaller installations (1000 men or fewer) received no book budget at
all.
Without adequate funding to purchase books, Trautman turned to fellow librarians, many of whom began book collection drives
for nearby military bases. The success of these drives came to the attention of the American Library Association (ALA), who
began to envision a collection drive on a national level. Librarians across the country were enthusiastic about the idea,
and the Red Cross and United Service Organizations (USO) each donated $50,000 to cover administrative cost, and the National
Defense Book Campaign (NDBC). Trautman put noted librarian Althea Warren in charge of the program. Following Japan's attack
on Pearl Harbor and America's subsequent entry into war with the Axis powers, the NDBC was renamed the Victory Book Campaign
(VBC).
The VBC was heavily publicized, and the public responded, donating a million books in the first month; by March, 1942 four
million books had been donated. In sorting the books, however, the VBC centers noticed a lot of the books were determined
to be outdated, of little interest, or otherwise unsuitable for young soldiers (for one reason or another). The sorting centers
rejected a million and a half of the four million. Additionally, most of the donations were hardcover books. While this was
acceptable for the larger military installations, it was not tenable for those stationed overseas, particularly those who
already had to carry heavy packs in the field. While very well-intentioned, the VBC did not offer a viable means to get quality
books that were usable to all soldiers. With donations dropping in 1942, the VBC program was discontinued in 1943.
Even before the VBC was discontinued, the Army and Navy realized they couldn't build a viable book program for soldiers through
donation; they needed to purchase the titles they wanted for the soldiers. In 1942, representatives from major publishing
houses, publishers, and editors looked to aid the war effort. These representatives formed a working group called the Council
on Books in Wartime. Initially concerned with promoting specific books to the non-military public to educate them on wartime
"imperatives, the Council soon turned to their major project: finding a way to address the problem of selecting the books
for soldiers, and then making them available in lightweight, compact, paperback editions.
The editors settled on two sizes for the volumes – 5 ½ X 3 ⅝ and 6 ½ X 4 ½ , with each page containing two columns of type
per page. These sizes were determined by the size of pockets on a soldier's uniform: the larger size could fit in a pants
pocket, while the smaller size could fit in a shirt pocket. These sizes – smaller than contemporary trade paperbacks – required
special printing procedures. The Council used magazine presses, which could accommodate the thinner paper used for the paperbacks.
However, even magazine presses could not be adjusted to print items as small as needed for the ASE paperbacks. The problem
was solved by printing pages for two books at the same time on the same sheet of paper, one in the top half of the page and
the other on the bottom. After printing, the pages were sliced to create the two books.
The Council's selection committee chose a wide range of books – established classics, new classics, westerns, mysteries, biographies,
humor and art, mathematics, sciences, history, and current affairs. Beginning in September 1843, thirty ASE paperbacks were
"published" each month, numbered consecutively with each month's selections prefaced by a series letter (Series A 1-30, Series
B 31-60, Series C 61-90, and so on). In July 1944 the monthly number was increased to 32, with numbering of 1-32 each month).
In January 1945, the monthly number was increased to 40, with each month's selections still numbered 1-40. Beginning in May
1945, though each month's selections were technically a series, the volumes no longer carried a monthly series preface. From
655-1322 (in June 1947) books carried only the number.
While the ASE project was imagined and executed to benefit the war effort and the many soldiers serving in it, publishers
participating in the program had their own interests in mind as well. Many realized that the paperback was going to be a huge
part of the postwar publishing industry, and they hoped the Armed Services Editions would help prepare the public for the
coming paperback revolution. However, they also wanted to make sure the ASE volumes themselves did not have an impact on the
coming market; publishers cooperating in the program demanded there would be no stateside distribution of the paperbacks,
nor any resale of surplus books domestically after the war.
In all, the Army and Navy distributed 123 million ASE paperbacks to servicemen around the world. The books were wildly popular
among soldiers, many of whom wrote fan letters to authors whose work they found especially meaningful (Betty Smith's
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was a special favorite, and Smith received letters of gratitude from many soldiers). The ASEs are credited with getting previous
non-readers "hooked" on books. While scholars continue to study the ASE effort, and glean societal intentions in the books
selected for the program, it remains one of the highlights of American publishing and is credited with helping create a generation
of readers.
Scope and Contents
The Armed Services Edition (ASE) Paperback Collection contains 136 items, comprising 129 individual titles (with seven duplicates).
While this is only a fraction of the 1322 titles published in the ASE effort, the collection reflects the wide variety of
titles sent to soldiers around the world. Samples of the ddifferent genres of books include world literature (Typhoon, by
Joseph Conrad), modern literature (The Grapes of Wrath. by John Steinbeck), westerns (Hunted Riders, by Max Brand), mysteries
(The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck, by Alexander Laing), biographies (Walt Whitman, by Henry Seidel Canby), humor (The Middle-Aged
Man on the Flying Trapeze, by James Thurber), mathematics (Mathematics and the Imagination, by James Newman and Edward Kasner),
science (Science Yearbook of 1944, edited by John Ratcliff), history (Combustion on Wheels, by David L. Cohn), and current
affairs (The Time for Decision, by Sumner Welles).
In the vast majority of cases, ASE paperbacks contined the entire book in its small size. Most books carry a note on the cover
"This is the complete book -- not a digest." Those that were condensed (seventy-nine out of 1322 total) were cut for length
rather than editorial content. This collection holds five of the condensed editions (Science Yearbook of 1944, edited by John
Ratcliff, Stars on the Sea, by F. Van Wyck Mason, Look Homeward Angel, by Thomas Wolfe, Boston Adventure, by Jean Stafford,
and While You Were Gone, edited by Jack Goodman). The covers on condensed versions published in 1944 and 1945 note "Condensed
for wartime reading," while the one published in postwar 1946 (While You Were Gone) declares "Slightly condensed for rapid
reading"
As the books were published to be handed around among soldiers, many of the items show signs of wear and tear, several with
covers missing or torn pages.
Bibliography
Loss, Christopher P. "Reading between Enemy Lines: Armed Services Editions and World War II." The Journal of Military History
67, no. 3 (2003): 811–34. Manning, M. G. (2014)
When books went to war : the stories that helped us win World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Poole, Alex H. "'As Popular as Pin-Up Girls': The Armed Services Editions, Masculinity,
and Middlebrow Print Culture in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States."
Information & Culture 52, no. 4 (2017): 462–86.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
World War, 1939-1945 -- United States -- Literature and the war
Publishers and publishing -- United States -- History -- 20th century