Paul Douglas Newman

Making Do in World War II Paul Douglas Newman

Making Do in World War II: A Child's Memory of the War and the White House is the memoir of Margaret Lucile Magruder Newman. She was born in 1932. Her father was a uniformed Secret Service officer from 1932-1946. As a result, she grew up partially in the Roosevelt White House and Hyde Park as the Roosevelt's invited her to play with their grandchildren, Curtis and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. She also grew up in the segregated southern town of Rockville, Maryland, where she played with Carolyn Hall, the daughter of her family's African-American domestic worker. They were not allowed to attend the same school, or go together to the theater. Margaret's father required his family to go above and beyond all that the nation asked of its citizens to do for the war effort. The experiences of "fighting the war" as a child on the "home front" to liberate the world, while living in a racially segregated society pushed her to act for democratic change. Children, like adults, worked for the war effort, and some of them, like some adults, recognized the contradictions between the nation's stated goals and its actions at home and strove to correct the incongruity. Black and white Americans who made this connection were responsible for the Civil Rights Movement that the Second World War sparked in America. Margaret wrote this book with the assistance of her son, Paul Douglas Newman, Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. While this is a memoir of childhood, the stories have been contextualized with facts and interpretations from the most relevant professional historical scholarship on "the home front" and studies regarding children during World War II. Margaret and Paul wrote the book in a style that is accessible for readers beginning at the age of twelve, and appealing to readers at any grade or age level beyond.