ABSTRACT
In the middle of the nineteen-thirties the Spanish Civil War, a struggle that involved not only Europeans but also some American volunteers who fought in Spain, had helped raise international awareness of the impending threat of fascism. Still, even after Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia in the Spring of 1939 and then marched his troops into Poland on September 3, launching the Second World War, hostilities appeared to be limited to Europe. Although the reality of the war was brought home to European families in letters from the army announcing the death of their brothers and sons, for Americans, the war raged on a distant continent. Their cultural life proceeded relatively undisturbed, at least until America, too, was dragged into battle.
