ABSTRACT
In World War II, government officials needed information about the "home front" just as surely as they needed information about the military conduct of the war. Wartime involved massive mobilizations of people and resources, new programs and regulation, and a new need for civilian understanding, cooperation, and support. With polls and surveys, administrators were able to monitor wartime rationing, the sales of war bonds, cooperation with price controls, absenteeism in war plants, the currents of national hope and worry, the morale of soldiers-and they learned something of enemy morale, too, for that matter.
