National Mobilization Week For Farm Youth - 1942

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Hundreds of 4-H delegates, jubilant from a successful National 4-H Congress, started heading back home from Chicago on December 5, 1941. Little did they know that two days later their world would be turned upside down – December 7, 1941 – brought America into the war. Food became an important weapon in the hands of America's fighting forces, her allies and the liberated peoples. The youth in 4-H stepped up to help feed and supply the free world.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, it was decided to postpone holding the National 4-H Camp in Washington, D.C., until the cessation of hostilities. W. H. Palmer, State 4-H Leader in Ohio, soon after announced plans for a State 4-H Mobilization Week for Ohio as a means of focusing the attention of 4-H members on what they might do for national defense. This idea met with favorable response by state leaders throughout the country. As a result, the Federal Extension Service initiated National 4-H Mobilization Week (or National Mobilization Week for Farm Youth).

National Mobilization Week for Farm Youth, April 4-11, 1942, focused attention on the nation's need for food and fiber and the role youth could play, through 4-H, in meeting that need. National 4-H Gardening Programs inspired thousands of young people, and adults, too, to plant "Victory Gardens" in every free field and vacant lot. Women and children mobilized to do the work of men now overseas. Victory Farm Volunteers were organized as the youth branch of the U.S. Crop Corps – national volunteers to help harvest needed crops. Town and city youth over 14 years of age worked on farms under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, proudly wearing a VFV emblem offered through the National 4-H Supply Service.

At the request of the Federal Extension Service, the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work helped Extension promote adult participation too, by merchandising a Women's Land Army uniform through the 4-H Supply Service.

National 4-H News, in a single campaign, helped meet the nation's need for machinery and materials – a drive to raise funds to buy ambulances for the Army and the Red Cross. Money for the ambulances was secured primarily through scrap drives of badly needed materials.

During the 1942 National 4-H Congress in Chicago – the first wartime Congress, when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard told delegates that "Every farm boy and girl in America has a man's part or a woman's part to play in helping to win the battle of production," his audience responded with both enthusiasm and confidence. They were sure they could do the job.

"Feed a Fighter in '43" became the theme for that year's 4-H membership drive. Statistics were distributed showing how much was needed of each commodity to feed a serviceman for one year. The National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work developed member and leader recruitment posters. How successful was 4-H in meeting national goals during World War II? The nation's 1-1/2 million 4-H'ers produced or preserved enough food to care for a million fighting men for three years. In Georgia, club members raised almost $10 million in war bonds and produced enough food in one season to fill a 10,000-ton ship. Similar results were achieved by club programs in other states. Du Page County, Illinois, 4-H'ers harvested enough milkweed floss to make 1,100 life jackets.

For three years, 4-H nationwide had one key commitment – help win the war in any and every way they could. National Mobilization Week was held in 1942, 1943 and 1944.