83 Years Ago
The December 18, 1941 Colorado Transcript showed Golden at a transitional time. After the December 6th bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had declared war on Japan. On the 11th of December, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, so the U.S., in turn, declared war on them.
The front page of the paper announced that Golden had lost a native son, Allen A. Davis. For reasons of national security, the Navy had not yet announced where Fireman 3rd Class Davis had been killed, though there was little mystery about it. A later issue mentioned that Davis’s parents received a Christmas gift from their son—a pillow cover from Hawaii—on December 30th. He was buried in the national cemetery in Honolulu.
In Golden, Christmas celebrations were in full swing and the paper was full of advertisements for consumer goods. Many of those items—from lumber to appliances to silk stockings—would be unavailable during the holiday seasons of 1942, ’43, ’44, and ’45. The same was true of the wide variety of food advertised in 1941.
The editorial section reflected this divided thought process, as the Transcript was torn between expressions of patriotism and its usual encouragement to shop at the local stores.
“I’M GOING TO DO MY PART,” SAYS SANTA
Are we down hearted at this Christmas time? Hell No! It’s gong to take more than a war with Japan, Hitler and Mussolini to rob Golden and Jefferson county people and particularly the children of the MERRY CHRISTMAS. On Washington avenue, …the stores are full of shoppers, the post office is flooded with mountains of packages–cakes, cookies, candies, warm scarfs, mittens, and all sorts of gifts are speeding to our boys in training camps and at the front.
Interestingly, the Transcript anticipated women filling in on “men’s jobs” during the war:
The rumor that Santa Claus has been drafted is false–but if it were true Mrs. Santa Claus, God Bless her, will be right on the job, as she always is, seeing to it that the stockings of all good little boys and girls are filled to overflowing.
One Golden business had begun incorporating the war into their advertising. The Golden Mill reminded its customers that “Soldiers Must Have Good Food.” Egg output would be better with their Purina chicken chow. “Eggs for Defense!”
A local labor union–International Hod Carriers and Builders of America, Golden 410–sponsored an advertisement encouraging people to buy war bonds.
The Transcript from a year later shows Golden in a more restrained mood, with much talk of rationing, conserving, re-using, and making do.
