During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Whitney Leonard.

During World War II, the increasing demand for farm labor in the United States of America, and the decreasing hands to do so, resulted in national and local initiatives to fulfill labor needs. The larger programs, such as the Bracero program, which contracted temporary workers from Mexico in agreement with the Mexican government, required more localized support, such as the Emergency Farm Labor Program (EFLP), founded by Oregon State College’s (OSC) Extension Services. In a January 1947 twenty-page circular report, OSC Extension Services described to Oregon citizens the role of the EFLP from 1943 to 1946 and its focus on migratory labor moving forward through 1947. OSC’s Extension program proved to be vital to the labor effort through its EFLP and its administration over the Bracero program in Oregon.

OSC cooperated with larger, national organizations to aid the farm labor efforts within Oregon. The Extension Services of OSC, created by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 to bring specialized research and expertise to the everyday people of Oregon, were given “increased responsibility in 1943 in the recruitment, training and placement of farm labor,” by the U.S. Congress, which allocated 26 million among the states to do so.[i] The Extension Services took on this responsibility through an increased focus on their already established county farm labor subcommittees and the founding of the EFLP.[ii]  The 1947 circular report, mentioned above, informed Oregon citizens that the Extension Service of OSC supported the EFLP by providing resources such as statistics to estimate the number of workers needed, placing available workers, organizing training courses, providing instruction on efficient labor practices, and planning for building labor housing.[iii] This was a big task, however, for the main Corvallis EFLP office to take on by itself, which is where the county agents came into play.

The EFLP, based in Corvallis, was simply at the center of this operation, providing aid for county agents who worked diligently for the Extension Services throughout the state. A letter from J.R. Beck, the Corvallis supervisor for the EFLP, dated October 30, 1944, to the county agents, offered support from Corvallis specialists in filing the monthly farm labor reports for their county, which the county agents sent to the Corvallis office responsible for compiling a statewide report.[iv] The April 1944 report disclosed that the number of seasonal workers (2,310) that farmers ordered through the county agents was much higher than year-round workers (479).[v] This means that a county agent would have been tasked with placing workers based on changing needs throughout the year.  

The variety and changing nature of labor demands led to the Extension Services mobilizing many different types of workers. The EFLP, in the 1947 circular report, mainly highlighted the placement of 338,542 Oregon women and school children as laborers and even leaders in this operation.[vi]  However, when these workers were not enough, the EFLP also placed laborers from Mexico and Jamaica, interned Japanese Americans, and prisoners of war.[vii] While the role of these other workers seems vital, the report leaves these key workers in the margins only in brief comments or even hidden in the captions of photos.

The transcript of a May 30, 1944 Oregon Farm Labor Radio national broadcast on May featuring a discussion between EFLP supervisors William Teutsch and J.R. Beck and a member of the Benton County farm labor committee, Harold G. Rumbaugh, brings the diversity of these workers into clearer view. The three men commented on different types of laborers, such as children, women, discharged soldiers and even Mexican workers, and how the EFLP, along with the county committees, allocated these laborers based on differing needs.[viii] Rumbaugh explained, for example, that his, “community can use local labor better because we do not have enough concentration of jobs at any one time to handle a camp of Mexicans.”[ix] Rumbaugh’s comment demonstrates the thought that went into placements, and how every county committee considered the demands of its community.  Although this script provides another mention to Mexican workers, the speakers still leave the origin, purpose, and labor and living conditions of the Mexican migrant workers unclear.

The Mexican workers under the jurisdiction of the EFLP in Oregon were contracted through the 1942 Bracero agreement, which was one major effort by the United States government to create a sufficient labor force during World War II. The U.S. State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) collectively established the August 1942 Public Law-45, and they did so in collaboration with Mexico. At the time, the U.S. War Manpower Commission, founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 to address and estimate labor needs, predicted an overwhelming need for farm laborers.[x] The purpose of this Bracero agreement was to fulfill this great need, and, for INS purposes, to prevent farmers from contracting undocumented workers.[xi] Through the Bracero program, and “Operation Wetback,” where the INS deported undocumented migrants to then return them to the same farmers as Braceros, the INS provided a controlled labor force from Mexico.[xii] Although responsible for the Bracero program on an administrative level, these national agencies did not work alone.

  The EFLP found the Bracero workers, as they were very able to adapt, to be very fitting for their shifting labor needs based on the seasons. Beck comments, in the same radio script mentioned above, that “1944 production could not be harvested without the aid of Mexicans,” and the EFLP, “hope to have enough Mexican labor to put into the 20 or more districts where extra help must be had.”[xiii] While a shortage in labor made these workers important, their ability to pick up the slack when children returned to school in September and for working, “distant from centers of population,” as a 1944 newspaper comments, seemed to make them perfect for the job.[xiv] One example of adaptability was on August 6, 1945, when Beck announced that Mexican workers would be moved to agricultural adjacent jobs, such as working in processing plants during a downturn in agricultural labor needs.[xv] Even though the Bracero workers met specific needs, the EFLP had an understanding that the program would be short lived.

Despite the EFLP’s original thinking, the program continued for many more years. After the war it was clear, through EFLP news notes from August 16, 1945, that jobs for returning military workers would be prioritized, and the United States would begin to repatriate Mexican workers.[xvi] This did not mean, however, that the Bracero Program in Oregon was over. Instead, in late August 1945, the OSC Extension Services aided in, “camp construction and loaning tents, tent platforms, cots, mattresses and tables” to a migratory farm camp in Malin (Klamath County).[xvii] As the Bracero program continued to thrive, it is clear how important these workers were to the EFLP in handling the shifting conditions of the agricultural industry during and after World War II.

Despite the support the Braceros provided to the American agriculture industry, they received little respect in return. The Bracero workers, unlike undocumented laborers, “received housing (albeit meager), food, transportation, and a greater assurance that they would in fact be paid for their work.”[xviii] However, the working conditions were difficult and hazardous, causing injuries.[xix] Additionally, Braceros often lived in tents, had little to eat, and received subpar medical treatment, if any.[xx] These workers, placed in an unfamiliar, and sometimes hostile, situation, had to make the decision between the path of least resistance, or the more risky path of authorship in their own story.

 Braceros, decided to not be passive victims, but worked diligently to advocate for their rights. Braceros were able to protest more in the Northwest, where the workers were said to be, “constantly on strike.”[xxi] However, closer to the Mexican border, in the Southwest, where farmers more readily returned rebellious Braceros for new ones, there were limited strike efforts.[xxii] Furthermore, the Mexican government worked to protect Bracero workers. For example, Mexican officials ended the flow of Braceros to Texas and Idaho because of high rates of discrimination in those states.[xxiii] It is clear that the Bracero program was more than a neutral labor exchange. Due to the power differential, the United States actors took advantage of the Braceros. However, the Braceros also proved themselves to be active participants in their own history.

In sum, the expertise of Oregon State College, with support from both the U.S. government and county agents, created and ran a program which aided Oregon farmers in fulfilling labor requests fit to their circumstances. The interdependence of these actors within the Bracero Program and the EFLP, spanning all the way from the national level to the state level all the way down to the individual farmers and workers, shows the complexity of programs such as these. The intricacies of every actor’s interest, as well as their power to enforce their interests, shaped these farm labor programs. The Bracero Program and the EFLP continued after the war to support the national interest of the United States. The end of the EFLP, in 1947, however, did not even mark the end of the Bracero program, which operated until 1964. Even today we can see the ripple effects of these programs in the faces of agricultural workers, and the United States’ interdependence on undocumented Mexican labor.

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[i] Frank Llewellyn Ballard, The Oregon State University Federal Cooperative Extension Service:1911-1961 (Oregon State University Extension Services, 1960), 1, 22, Oregon State University (hereafter OSU), Scholars Archive, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/c821gq42j?locale=en; “Rieder Starts Labor Checkup,” The Oregon Statesman, May 27, 1943 4, Historic Oregon Newspapers (hereafter HON), University of Oregon (UO) https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn85042470/1943-05-27/ed-1/seq-4/#words=county+farm+labor+subcommittee

[ii] Ballard, The Oregon State University Federal Cooperative Extension Service, 22; “1943 Farm Labor Problems to be Studies Locally,” Roseburg News-Review, March 1, 1943: 3, HON, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/2003260227/1943-03-01/ed-1/seq-3/#words=county+farm+labor+subcommittees

[iii] Oregon State College Extension Services, Fighters on the Farm Front: A Story of the 1943-46 Oregon Emergency Farm Labor Program (Oregon State Federal Cooperative Extension Services, 1947), 2,10,13-15, OSU, Scholars Archive, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/br86b846h.

[iv] J.R. Beck, Letter to “Certain County Agents,” Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, October 30, 1944, Special Collections and Archives Research Center at Oregon State University (hereafter SCARC), Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, Farm Labor Emergency, April 1943 – June 1946.

[v] “State Farm Labor Report,” Oregon State University Extension Services, April 5, 1944, SCARC, Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, Farm Labor Emergency, April 1943 – June 1946.

[vi] Oregon State College Extension Services, Fighters on the Farm Front, 4.

[vii] Oregon State College Extension Services, Fighters on the Farm Front, 7.

[viii] William L. Teutsch, J.R. Beck and Harold G. Rumbaugh, “Script for National Broadcast,” Oregon Farm Labor Radio, May 30, 1944, 1-4, SCARC, Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, SG 2 Director’s Office: IX: Projects, Extension Specialists: Farm Labor Emergency Radio.

[ix] William L. Teutsch, J.R. Beck and Harold G. Rumbaugh, “Script for National Broadcast,” 3.

[x] Erasmo Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” Pacific Historical Review 56, no. 3 (1987): 379, https://doi.org/10.2307/3638664; Marjorie S. Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers: The Bracero Program and the INS,” review of Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. by Kitty Calavita and Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947 by Erasmo Gamboa. Law and Society Review 26, no. 4 (1993): 851, https://doi.org/10.2307/3053955.

[xi] Erasmo Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” 379; Marjorie S. Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 851.

[xii] Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 853.

[xiii] William L. Teutsch, J.R. Beck and Harold G. Rumbaugh, “Script for National Broadcast,” 3-4.

[xiv] “Oregon’s Fall Harvest Calls 50,000 Pickers,” The Springfield News, August 24, 1944, 3, HON, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071003/1944-08-24/ed-1/seq-3/#words=centers+distant+from+population.

[xv] Fred M. Shideler, “Farm Labor News Notes,” Oregon State College Extension Services, August 6, 1945, SCARC, Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, Farm Labor News Notes.

[xvi] Fred M. Shideler, “Farm Labor News Notes,” Oregon State College Extension Services, August 16, 1945, SCARC, Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, Farm Labor News Notes.

[xvii] Fred M. Shideler, “Farm Labor News Notes,” Oregon State College Extension Services, August 27, 1945, SCARC, Extension Service Records (RG 111), Box 67, Farm Labor News Notes.

[xviii] Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 852.

[xix] Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” 390.

[xx] Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” 381-384, 389-390.

[xxi] Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” 393-394; Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 855.

[xxii] Gamboa, “Braceros in the Pacific Northwest,” 393-394; Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 855.

[xxiii] Zatz, “Using and Abusing Mexican Farmworkers,” 856.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Sylas Allen.

In July 1862, the United States government granted thirty-thousand acres of federal land to the states for the purpose of building universities. These universities aimed to fulfill this mission by creating institutions that would instruction in the fields of science, classical studies, agriculture and mechanical arts. Oregon State University (formerly Oregon State College) got its start as a one of these land grant colleges in 1868. In his book The People’s School: a History of Oregon State University, historian William Robbins writes, “Oregon State University exemplifies the importance of federal initiatives in fostering agricultural experiment stations, extension programs, and oceanic and space related research.”¹

Today we see many different course offerings at Oregon State and many choices for majors and studies. However, expanding the curriculum took time and effort to get where it is now. One large push towards expanding and diversifying curriculum occurred during World War II. This unexpected change happened in part due to the soldiers Oregon State College (OSC) housed on campus during the war. Many college campuses were charged with hosting Army training operations. OSC’s Army Navy Specialized Training Program (A.S.T.P) created demand for an expanded liberal arts program. The A.S.T.P aimed to create technicians and specialists for the army, and sent these men to a variety of colleges and institutions for the purpose of receiving academic instruction deemed important towards serving their positions for the army.² The army needed soldiers that had fundamental understandings of the conflict and political science and history classes were considered important foundations along with language classes (primarily German). The demand for these courses helped to push OSC authorities into expanding and improving upon their liberal arts offerings.

Published in October 1940, the 1939-1940 Biennial Report book from The Oregon State Board of Higher Education contains information about colleges and universities in the area, including their budgets, departments, and changes within them. In the past, liberal arts and humanities courses at OSC were referred to as “Lower Divison” or “Service Courses” and these programs were smaller and received less funding than the sciences. According to the budget for the year of 1938-1939, OSC spent a total of $68,838.10 on Arts and Letters, Lower Division and Service Courses (English, Modern Languages, Public Speaking and Drama). Social Science, Lower Division and Service Courses (Economics, History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology) received even less at a total of $36,990.58 for the year. This number is markedly lower compared what OSC gave to the School of Science (Dean of Science, Bacteriology, Botany, Chemistry, Entomology, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology and Science Survey). Their funding was a total of $202,640.52 throughout the year.³ This shows that the humanities was an underdeveloped program at the time.

Two Oregon State College Catalogs, one from 1940-1941 the other from 1943-1944, record enrollment numbers divided by major. Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1940-1941 had a total of 628 students enrolled in Lower Division courses.⁴ I hypothesized that enrollment numbers would be lower for 1943-1944 as enrollment rates dropped during the war. However, we can see that the number of students enrolled for Lower Division during this year was actually higher, at 713.⁵ This increase in students could be because of an uptick in students studying foreign language, history, or politics to aid the war effort. These classes provided foundational information to help understand and aid the conflict and build better informed citizens. Within administrative records there is record of a discussion about curriculum from March 10, 1942. During this meeting, Chancellor Frederick M. Hunter stated, “Characteristically all of the separate type have as a core curriculum basic science, and correlated and closely knit with this, broadening and liberalizing courses in language and social sciences. This, Oregon State College should have in considerably fuller provisions than it has at present.”⁶

More than three decades later, former OSC President August Strand observed in a 1975 interview that until 1953, OSC was still an agricultural college and was criticized during the war for not having a College of Liberal Arts.⁷ Unfortunately, he listed no further details about who specifically had criticized OSC or what was said. Another Biennial Report from 1941-1942 examined current liberal arts offerings and stated that OSC experiences, “the dominant interest in land-grant college education directed towards the applications of science.” The report then discusses ensuring that liberal arts education is up to standard.⁸

In November, 1941 Delmer Goode—a prominent figure within the OSC Publications department who advocated for changes regarding curriculum and higher standards—published a report titled “How ‘Complete’ is Oregon State College As a ‘Separate’ Land Grant Institution?.”⁹ In it he compared OSC to other universities and stated that the curriculum was “deficient in major opportunities in both liberal arts and professional fields.”¹⁰ In 1942, M Ellwood Smith, Dean of Lower Division, sent a letter to Goode drawing his attention to the new courses OSC had started offering that year. Smith noted a new course in Russian, and explained that new courses in English, American-European History, and other Lower Division courses provided foundational information to officers in training.¹¹ An Oregon State Barometer article published in April 1942 and titled “New Courses Added to Meet Educational Needs of Oregon” discussed plans to “liberalize the curricula of the entire institution to meet the needs of modern citizenship training.”¹² In January 1943, another Oregon State Barometer article talked about the A.S.T.P and their development of planned curriculum for their officers in training. It detailed coursework and training hours and shared that the army and a panel of specialists were working to create this curriculum and training plan.¹³

Despite the lack of specific classes, given what we know about the A.S.T.P and their goals for creating soldiers with foundational knowledge, at least some of this planned coursework would be Lower Division. A report from Winter Term 1944 shows that the curriculum would contain “Modern History and Contemporary World Affairs, 4 hours; Language Study, 13 hours; Police Science and Law Enforcement, 1 hour” along with several other items.¹⁴ These planned curriculum changes show us that OSC administration was listening to demands from faculty for new classes and were implementing new courses in order to meet these requests.

OSC was not the only institution going through curriculum changes during WWI; military training programs pushed other universities similarly to alter their curriculum. According to historian V.R. Cardozier, “almost 200 [small colleges] did attract college training programs sponsored by the military services.”¹⁵ Cardozier also shares that the war spurred greater interest in “social sciences, history, languages, politics, and international relations.”¹⁶ History and political science courses helped give students a better understanding of the current conflict through a more comprehensive grasp on the politics that caused it. Language courses provided valuable information to officers in training, especially with new German classes. Even without war influences on campuses, the period of 1920 to the 1950s was a time where many land-grant colleges wanted to start offering better liberal arts education. Educator Roger L. Geiger discusses this and the history of liberal arts education in his book The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture from the Founding to WWII. He shares that in the 1920s new standards were being created by education boards for teachers colleges. These new standards wanted to shape courses in the name of professionalism. Those in charge of higher education standards planned to remove any curriculum that was seen as not having functional value—primarily liberal arts courses. However educators and teachers disagreed with this course cutting approach. Geiger states, “By 1940 one-half of their [California state colleges’] enrollments were in liberal arts… However, other states failed to follow California’s lead until after the surge of postwar veterans under the GI Bill forced teachers’ colleges to expand enrollment and offerings.”¹⁷ This paints a picture of higher demand for a diverse education which included better developed liberal arts programs. These sources show us that OSC was not alone in experiencing pressure for diversified education.

Oregon State University has evolved much since its conception as an institution, and over time students have changed and so have their needs in regards to curriculum. We can very clearly track a shift within the WWII era encouraging colleges to offer more foundational liberal arts teaching. This shift happened not only within OSC but also within other colleges and universities across the country and it greatly improved course offerings. We can clearly see a correlation between A.S.T.P presence and the increase in class offerings within the liberal arts due to demands from military trainees and their leadership. This coursework provided students and soldiers in training with a more suitable framework for understanding the war and understanding the ways in which they could aid the war effort. Prior to this research, I would not have connected those two items but the story being told here begs to differ.

¹William Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (Oregon State University Press,2017), 1.

²John R. Craf, “Facts About the the A.S.T.P Reserve,” The Clearing House 18, no. 7 (1944), 402. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30187137?seq=1.

³Oregon State System of Higher Education, “Biennial Report 1939-1940,” Special Collections and Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), RG 013-SG12 Annual and Biennial Reports, Box 6, Folder 1.

⁴Oregon State University, “General Catalog, 1940-1941,” Oregon Digital, 492, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v902

⁵Oregon State University, “General Catalog, 1943-1944,” Oregon Digital, 377, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v93w

⁶Administrative Council Records, SCARC, Box-folder 2.4, 55, 1941-1955.

⁷August Strand and Mollie Strand, “August and Mollie Strand Oral History Interview,” 1975, SCARC, http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/omeka/items/show/35436.

⁸Oregon State University, “Biennial Report of Oregon State College, 1941-1942,” Oregon Digital, 34, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71d395d.

⁹Delmer Goode worked within the Publications department at OSC and was later declared the first director of Publications. He worked on an academic journal titled Improving College and University Teaching. There are many mentions of letters and reports from him about how OSC could improve its curriculum or teachings to better serve its students and faculty.

¹⁰Delmer Goode, “How Complete is Oregon State College as a “Separate” Land Grant Institution?” 1941, SCARC, Institution Memorabilia Collection, 97.11.pdf.

¹¹Oregon State University President’s Office Records, Oregon State University, “President’s Office General Subject File, Audit Reports, Correspondence reports with State Board of Higher Education Curricula, 1940-1942,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/qv33rz03k.

¹²Oregon State Barometer, April 29, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7448.

¹³Oregon State Barometer, January 26, 1943, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/871nj33f.

¹⁴Dean M Elwood, Winter Term Curriculum, 1944, SCARC, Historic Publications Collection, RG 013-5G12, Annual and Biennial Reports, Box 9, Folder 9.

¹⁵V.R. Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in World War II (Praeger, 1993), 109–19.

¹⁶Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in World War II, 109–19.

¹⁷ R.L Geiger, The history of American higher education : learning and culture from the founding to World War II (Princeton University Press, 2015), 436-438.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Nicholas Nowak.

As World War II began, and especially as the U.S. entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, virtually all institutions, from colleges and universities to film companies, adjusted their functioning to respond to the new environment and needs created by the war. These institutions had new restraints (lower enrollment and loss of faculty), opportunities (funding from the War Department), and goals (contributing to the war effort and preparing for the end of the war) that made change necessary. Colleges in particular had to adjust their functioning as the role of colleges and education in general grew.

Oregon State College (OSC, now Oregon State University), was no exception. One document, titled “Minutes of Meeting November 4, 1943,” offers insight into how the OSC administration responded to the war.[i] This document was likely typed by a secretary during the Administrative Councils November 4th, 1943 meeting for use by the meeting attendees. The OSC Administrative Council, consisting of the president and deans, attended this meeting to discuss current operations and potential changes at the college. The War Fund Canvas, a fundraising venture for the war set up by the community, was discussed, with the attendees claiming they exceeded the set quota by raising $5,394.57. The attendees also spent the majority of the time discussing the curriculum, particularly how they should change it for the upcoming year and after the end of the war.

This information offers some insight into how the administration changed in response to the war by taking practical steps towards contributing to the war effort and adjusting the curriculum. Overall, OSC, like most colleges in the U.S., faced increased restraints during the war due to limited resources, and responded by adjusting the curriculum and directly aiding and contributing to the U.S. war effort.

The war created a variety of new problems and issues that colleges throughout the U.S. had to respond to. After the U.S. entered the war in late 1941, many young men who would have previously gone to college entered the military, decreasing male enrollment throughout the country. This left a variety of jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, open to be filled by women, who also would have previously gone to college, decreasing female enrollment throughout the U.S.[ii] Given enrollment was a significant source of funding for most colleges, college administrators had to find new ways of funding their colleges (which will be discussed later). Faculty at colleges also entered into military or war related services, even if it wasn’t the military itself. This resulted in some departments, such as the psychology department at OSC, losing a significant amount of faculty. The psychology department had four full-time staff before the war, which turned into one full-time staff member with two emergency appointments. This loss of faculty made it difficult for those departments to function.[iii] The OSC administrators were concerned about how this loss of faculty might impact the ability of the college to function, as seen in the 1944 Biennial Report for the Lower Division and Service Departments. During the war, OSC administrators even considered cutting certain programs, for example, the biology program.[iv] While it is unclear why administrators thought biology should be cut specifically, given their concerns about the loss of faculty and lower income due to lower enrollment, it is possible administrators thought cuts were necessary, and prioritized cutting programs that were not as important to the military (engineering and humanities programs were particularly important to the military). The OSC administrators’ concerns, overall, related to their ability to keep the college operational amid the scarcity of students, faculty, and funds created by the war effort.

OSC administrators responded to these concerns and restraints partially by adjusting and adapting their curriculum. As mentioned earlier, administrators had to seek out alternative sources of funding amid declining enrollment, and one major source of funding came from the War Department. Many colleges in the U.S. adapted their curriculum to better suit the needs of the War Department in order to attract more funding and support.[v] Initially, the military focused on engineering related education, because they needed officers who understood how to use certain technology, but as the war dragged on, the military also began prioritizing humanities education. The military had to send soldiers to a variety of different locations in Europe and Asia during WWII, so having soldiers and officers well versed in the language, culture, and geography of the areas they were serving in became important.[vi] OSC, while initially an engineering and science school, expanded into the humanities. OSC administrators became increasingly concerned with creating viable and useful humanities programs for the war effort.[vii] OSC also offered different, special registration and starting dates for students enrolled in the ASTP (a World War II program that trained officers and soldiers in technical skills necessary for the war effort, such as in engineering and languages).[viii] OSC did not offer special registration and starting dates before WWII,[ix] and stopped immediately after the war ended.[x] OSC also emphasized physically training students to better prepare them for the demands of the war.[xi] These changes administrators made to the curriculum demonstrate that OSC adapted to the restraints brought on by the war, particularly financial ones, by aiding the needs and goals of the War Department.

These changes, while likely being adopted partially because of financial restraints, may also have been adopted due to administrators’ desires for a U.S. victory in WWII, given OSC went out of their way to contribute to the war effort in much more direct ways. As mentioned earlier, OSC began a War Fund Canvas to help raise money for the war effort.[xii] On top of this, in 1943, administrators implemented a war bond buying program.[xiii] This program, set up by individual towns and cities, helped raise money for the war effort by buying bonds from the government, so that the government could fund the war, then pay back the buyers at a later date. The athletic department alone bought $15,000 worth of war bonds to kick off sales on the first day. The administration also created a program where students rolled bandages to contribute to the medical needs imposed by the war.[xiv] These efforts likely wouldn’t have been necessary to receive additional funding from the War Department, indicating that while some of the administration’s contributions to the war effort were likely an attempt to gain additional funding, it’s also likely that the administration was genuinely concerned about the U.S. winning the war.

The war forced the administrators of OSC, like the administrators at most U.S. colleges, to adapt to new demands and a new environment. OSC, like many colleges in the U.S., saw enrollment decline, and with it, funding. They also saw faculty leave for military related service, further contributing to the difficulties of keeping the college running during the war. Partially in response to these challenges, OSC adjusted its curriculum to better serve the needs of the War Department and prepare students for war. OSC administrators did, however, also contribute to the war effort beyond what was necessary to get increased funding, such as by engaging in fundraising efforts and implementing bandage rolling programs.

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[i] “Minutes of Meeting November 4, 1943,” Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), Administrative Council Records RG 032, Box 1, Administrative Council Minutes 1941-1942 to 1945-1946.

[ii] Taylor Jaworski, “‘You’re in the Army Now:’ The Impact of World War II on Women’s Education, Work, and Family,” The Journal of Economic History 74, no. 1 (2014): 174-176, doi:10.1017/S0022050714000060.

[iii] M. Ellwood Smith, “Biennial Report, Lower Division and Service Departments 1942-43 and 1943-44,” 1944, SCARC, Annual and Biennial Reports RG 013 – SG 12, Box 9, Folder 9.

[iv] F. A. Gilfillan, “Biennial Report, School of Science 1942-43 and 1943-44,” 1944, SCARC, Annual and Biennial Reports RG 013 – SG 12, Box 9, Folder 9.

[v] Charles Dorn, “Promoting the ‘Public Welfare’ in Wartime: Stanford University during World War II,” American Journal of Education 112, no. 1 (2005): 108, doi: 10.1086/444525.

[vi] William Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (Chicago: Oregon State University Press, 2017), 152-156.

[vii] M. Ellwood Smith, “Oregon State College, Lower Division,” 1944, SCARC, Annual and Biennial Reports, RG 013 – SG 12, Box 9, Folder 9.

[viii] “General Catalog, 1943-1944,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v93w.

[ix] “General Catalog, 1938-1939,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v86g.

[x] “General Catalog, 1947-1948,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v84x.

[xi] “The Beaver 1943,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719t41x.

[xii] “Minutes of Meeting November 4, 1943.”

[xiii] “The Beaver 1943,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719t41x.

[xiv] “The Beaver 1943,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719t41x.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Michael Metz.

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, nationwide mobilization to contribute to the war effort began. The economy saw rapid changes to meet the needs of the US and its allies in the fight against the axis powers. In 1944, Ernest Wiegand, the director of Oregon State College’s (OSC) Food Industries Department, sent a report to Ralph Besse, the assistant director of the School of Agriculture. This report details the activities of the department’s research station, which included several food preservation methods such as: freezing, canning, and dehydrating. The college was using federal funding to carry out studies related to food preservation.^[i] This funding was critical to the college’s contributions to the war effort. During the Second World War, OSC aided the war effort by conducting research on food preservation and production, as well as educating the public on how to increase food production and how to preserve it more efficiently.

The report, released in 1944, provides insight into OSC’s role in food preservation studies. It was written by Ernest Wiegand for Ralph Besse. The report’s purpose was to inform Besse, and likely other department members, on the food preservation research that the department was conducting. This would have been important especially when considering that the school was using federal funding directed towards agricultural research. This includes the Purnell Funds, an agricultural-based federal grant. Wiegand wrote this report in 1944 and it describes types of food the department was freezing, canning, and dehydrating—mostly fruits and vegetables. This document serves as an introduction to OSC’s involvement in the effort to increase the country’s food stock during the war, as it provides readers with information on the type of work the college was doing and introduces important figures in the School of Agriculture.

Wiegand’s report is an example of OSC’s contribution to food preservation and production, but it does not entirely illustrate the school’s agricultural research during the war. Through the Federal Cooperative Extension Service at OSC, the school conducted intensive research on food science. The Extension Service, an OSC program focused on community education, was mobilized during the war and staff were ordered by the college to make the war effort their top priority.^[ii] Researching food preservation became a major focus of the extension service and Ernest Wiegand worked with the program to tackle a variety of issues regarding food preservation. A major issue that the country faced was maintaining the nutritious value of preserved food. In fact, according to the Journal of Environmental Studies and Science, when the United States entered the war, “two out of five US men could not serve because of disabilities related to malnutrition, especially rickets.”^[iii] This reality prompted the need for better nutrition in the country.

In 1944, Wiegand and other members of OSC extension service studied freezing as a method of preserving perishable food, in particular meat and poultry. Their study, titled “Food Preservation by Freezing,” reports that when freezing food, “a greater quantity of essential vitamins can be preserved; less labor and time are required for preparation; and the finished product more closely resembles fresh food in palatability and appearance.”^[iv] A common theme in OSC’s research into food preservation during the war was nutrient retention. Food that wouldn’t spoil and would also maintain much of its nutritious value was not just valuable for soldiers, but also for civilians faced with the challenge of rationing. Wiegand and his colleagues’ report provides the reader with information on how to improve the value of food with proper preservation. Their suggestions include selecting the proper ripeness of a fruit or vegetable, immediately freezing food after picking it, and how to properly blanch foods.^[v] A year later, Wiegand and other researchers investigated methods to improve dehydration of berries and cherries grown in Oregon. Their findings include viable procedures for effective dehydration, techniques for retaining higher vitamin content, and different uses for dehydrated fruits.^[vi] Despite the war coming to an end, the need for food preservation was not over, as many nations were facing food shortages. While these findings may not be revolutionary, they serve as a valuable educational resource that OSC would utilize in its outreach to communities across Oregon.

OSC’s effort to improve food preservation and production during the war extended out of the lab and into the community. With the nation facing food shortages, many ingredients were subjected to rationing. Products such as sugar were in high demand and in order to obtain them for canning, Oregonians were required to apply to receive an allotment of one pound per four quarts of canned fruit, plus an extra pound for each household member.^[vii] This restriction was necessary for the country to keep its armies fed, but it put a strain on Americans who depended on ingredients like sugar to properly preserve much of their food. Extension services played a variety of important roles in order to ensure that people across the state had the knowledge and resources they needed to make an impact in the war effort. The Medford Mail Tribune reported that OSC sent a survey to homemakers, on behalf of the War Production Board (WPB), in 1943 to assess their knowledge of food preservation and the need for preservation equipment in Jackson County.^[viii] Surveys such as this were useful in assessing the needs of Oregonians and were just one way the college provided community support during the war. Another task the college faced was increasing the state’s food production. OSC Extension Service reported that in 1943, for the third straight year, Oregon’s total crop acreage harvested and total livestock was at an all-time high. However, the state’s farmers had been tasked by the government with increasing that acreage to 151,000 acres in 1944.^[ix] This was a major challenge for Oregonians, as labor was already hard to come by since many of the state’s men were deployed overseas.

The task largely fell on Oregon’s youth. OSC Extension Service, as well as other extension services across the state, was directed by the state to mobilize Oregon’s 4-H clubs. 4-H clubs are youth clubs that provide children with leadership opportunities in their community. Across the country, 4-H clubs tasked their members with a variety of projects aimed at increasing food production. Their efforts earned the recognition of President Roosevelt who, in 1944, called them the “shock troops of food production.”^[x] OSC was essential in organizing Oregon’s 4-H clubs. Extension services were tasked by the state with organizing the state’s clubs, as well as increasing club membership from the 25,000 youth members serving in the club at the start of the war. State leaders had identified 80,000 children across the state as eligible to join.^[xi] However, this was not a program unique to Oregon. Across the country, 4-H clubs were mobilized with the help of local and federal governments, and were given the goal of increasing food output. In Utah, two teenagers and 4-H members, ages 13 and 15, received awards for producing and preserving the most food from their victory gardens. Their gardens turned a combined profit of $208.^[xii] From victory gardens to farm labor, the nation’s youth were essential in winning the war at home and in Oregon, OSC’s effort to rally teenagers to the cause was invaluable.

During World War II, Oregon State College played a critical role in improving food production methods and community outreach to increase knowledge of food preservation and to increase production. From breakthroughs in the lab, to community engagement, the college was a key player in Oregon’s contribution to the war effort. However, OSC was not alone in this endeavor. Educational institutions across the country were vital in keeping the nation afloat during the war and continued to aid the country well after its conclusion.

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^[i] Ernest Wiegand, “Report Station Activities – 1943-44,” Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), Annual and Biennial Reports: Farm Crops, Farm Management, Fish and Game Management RG 25 – SG 1, Box 1.

^[ii] Frank Ballard, “The Oregon State University Federal Cooperative Extension Service: 1911-1961,” 21, Scholar’s Archive at OSU, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/c821gq42j.

^[iii] Alesia Maltz, ““Plant a victory garden: our food is fighting’: Lessons of food resilience from World War,” Journal of Environmental Studies and Science 5 (2015): 392-403, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0293-1.

^[iv] Ernest Wiegand, et al, “Food Preservation by Freezing,” Scholar’s Archive at OSU (1943): 2, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative_report_or_publications/0g354k10d.

^[v] Wiegand, et al, “Food Preservation by Freezing,” 16.

^[vi]  Ernest Wiegand, et al, “Development of a commercially feasible method of producing dehydrated berries and cherries,” Scholar’s Archive at OSU (1945): 42, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/bv73c8011.

^[vii] Glen Schaeffer, “Housewives Given Canning O.K.,” Oregon State Barometer, April 22, 1943, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nj813.

^[viii] Richard McMillan, “Jackson County Pantries, Lockers Bulge with Food,” Medford Mail Tribune, November 16, 1943, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071090/1943-11-16/ed-1/seq-10/#words=food+preservation+preserved.

^[ix] William Schoenfeld, Oregon Food-For-Victory Objectives, Scholar’s Archive at OSU (1944): 3, https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative_report_or_publications/h415pf30f.

^[x] Katherine Sundgren, “Feeding Victory: 4-H, Extension, and the World War II Food Effort,” Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy 14, no. 3 (2019): 7, https://doi.org/10.4148/1936-0487.1098.

^[xi] “Youths of Oregon to be Mobilized for Victory,” Beaverton Enterprise, January 1, 1943, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn96088480/1943-01-01/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Extension+OSC+service+Service.

^[xii] Sundgren, “Feeding Victory,” 16.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Lucas Ainsworth.

Two women overlook the construction of the Chemistry Building, now Gilbert Hall, 1938.^[i]

Introduction

As World War II escalated, more and more resources were required from the home front, leading to sacrifices needing to be made. Colleges and universities across the United States were hotbeds for social and economic changes due to the war, with Oregon State College being no exception. Still a growing academic center, the college had aspirations to expand and build up its college campus, with new buildings and projects needing to be planned and constructed. However, wartime reductions of labor and finances made these projects difficult to plan and even more difficult to build. Throughout this blog, we will explore evidence from a variety of sources, including the President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, that add clarity as to what challenges Oregon State College (OSC) faced when planning out building programs for years following the outbreak of war in Europe.

Document Description

A memo promoted and adopted by the Wage and Hour Commission of the State of Oregon on May 23, 1941 mandated a list of orders that all firms, corporations, and private entities, including Oregon State College, must adhere to.^[ii] These orders outlined building and occupational conditions that employers of women and minors must meet, including the availability of drinking water, adequate lighting, heat, and general cleanliness. The order ends with a declaration that any individual, firm, or corporation that is found to have disobeyed the mandate would be charged with a misdemeanor and fined no less than $25 and no more than $100 (roughly $540 and $2,150, respectively, in modern US dollars). This document was typed and printed on bright pink paper, ensuring it would be seen and read, as it was meant to be displayed publicly in spaces where workers would gather.^[iii] While the document itself does not directly reference Oregon State College, it provided a list of mandates that the college would have to comply with should they hire any women as employees. With much of the male population being drafted into the war, this was a likely scenario. Additionally, the order would impact any future building plans, as it functions as a new building code that subsequent projects would have to adhere to.

Snell Hall under construction, circa 1942.^[iv]

The Broader Issue

The 1941 memo from the Wage and Hour Commission highlights the changes made to construction projects following the outbreak of war in Europe. At the time the previously discussed memo was published, the United States had not yet entered the war, but economic changes to labor and housing were impacting agricultural workers and minorities looking for housing.^[v] After the U.S. entered the war, construction projects slowed due to a lack of funding and/or a lack of labor. Many buildings took much longer to complete, with several being started during the war but not being completed until well after.^[vi] These impacts left colleges like OSC with a decision: what projects should be completed—and which would be left on the cutting room floor?

Connection to OSU History

Due to limited resources during WWII, OSC had to shelve several campus projects that were initially planned and approved. On October 20th, 1943, a memo from the Oregon State System of Higher Education (OSSHE) was sent to several Oregon college presidents requesting that each institution provide a list of building projects planned for the following ten years. The OSSHE asked colleges to list the cost, status, site, and finances of each project. The OSSHE would then review and approve the proposals.^[vii] Additionally, a November 9, 1943 letter from OSC President August LeRoy Strand to the college deans passed along the request and acknowledged the time constraints, as the building program was due back to the board by December of that year.^[viii] Importantly, Strand mentioned that any future project not included on the list would have to be brought to his office and the Campus Plan Committee. On November 23, 1943, landscape architect Arthur. L. Peck and architect L.N. Traver listed proposed building projects, including a social science building and the president’s residence.^[ix] The short timeframe of the OSSHE request and the acknowledgement of the difficulties in getting this list completed suggest that budgets for construction projects were running thin and that projects deemed unnecessary or overly expensive were potentially at risk of being denied. 

Notably missing from the proposal brought to President Strand were plans for a Naval ROTC building, which letters from Mr. Traver and Naval Captain J. Carey discussed in December 1945. These letters state that preliminary plans for the NROTC building/Naval Sciences Building were cleared by the naval and architectural offices and now needed presidential approval, as directed by the 1943 memo from President Strand.^[x] The blueprints and sketches of the building’s exterior show how finalized these plans were, with classrooms, offices, and military equipment storage all present.^[xi] However, this building was never built, potentially due to limited budgets during wartime and because the project was not included in the initial ten-year plan requested by the OSSHE. As stated in William Robbins’ chapter, “the State Board of Higher Education reduced the system’s budget by $141,000 for the 1944–1945 biennium” due to declining enrollment, meaning fewer funds were available for construction projects.^[xii] As the previously mentioned building projects were already submitted in the years prior, funds were not allocated for future projects, resulting in the Naval Sciences building never breaking ground. This alludes to a greater issue within higher education: decreased budgets led to fewer funds available for campus projects and maintenance.

Floorplan for planned Naval ROTC building, 1945.^[xiii]

National Context      

OSC was not the only college in the nation dealing with labor shortages and/or forced changes to previously established building programs. Across the U.S., colleges and universities faced depleted capital funds for campus projects. In his chapter about WWII’s effect on higher education, V.R. Cardozier states that the expenditures for building programs were “virtually halted on most campuses during the war not only because of lack of money but due to unavailability of materials, shortage of labor, and in recognition of the need to conserve resources.”^[xiv] Most importantly, between 1941 and 1943, administrators from some 130 colleges reported that expenses for construction and capital equipment faced a reduction of nearly 70%, with additional reductions in funds for athletics, instructional salaries, and library purchases.^[xv] Military training during the war resulted in reduced funds for less-essential expenditures. The reduction of enrollment and tuition income led to decreased funds for these projects.^[xvi] Michael Bezilla’s 1991 article from the Penn State Libraries outlines how Penn undertook expansion in a budget-conservative manner. An influx of enrollment after the war led to the need for more residence halls and campus facilities, but wartime expenses depleted budgets.^[xvii]

In 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, otherwise known as the G.I. Bill. This law sought to prepare veterans for civilian life and made many buildings available for housing, which allowed for depleted budgets to be saved for other areas.^[xviii] OSC felt these challenges as well, where reduced budgets called for new plans for construction and campus facilities.

Picketing outside the Sackett Hall construction site protesting the unfair conditions and expectations, 1947.^[xix]

Conclusion

To conclude, Oregon State College, as well as other institutions of higher education around the nation, faced financial and labor shortages during the Second World War. These reductions in resources led to the delaying or cancelling of construction projects, as well as causing preapproved projects to take much longer. Universities had much to adjust to following the war escalating and eventually ending, including preparing for veterans to return from war as well as adjusting existing construction projects. Because of requests from the board of education and resource management, some projects, including OSC’s planned NROTC building, never had the chance to break ground.

Works Cited

Bezilla, Michael, “Challenges of the Post-War Era” in Penn State: An Illustrated History. Penn State Special Collections Libraries, Penn State University Press, 1991

Cardozier, V.R., Colleges and Universities in WWII, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993

Historical Images of Oregon State University, Oregon State University. “Picketing adjacent to the Sackett Hall construction site”, 1947. Oregon Digital. Accessed 2025-02-15. https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df719c417

Historical Images of Oregon State University, Oregon State University. “Snell Hall under construction” Oregon Digital. Accessed 2025-02-15. https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df72s7363

OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. “Chemistry Building (Gilbert Hall)”, 1938. Oregon Digital. Accessed 2025-02-15. https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df70d2774

OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. “President’s Office General Subject File, Physical Plant – Buildings, Saddle horse barn, 1941” Oregon Digital. Accessed 2025-02-15. https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/5x21th01w

OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. “President’s Office General Subject File, War Activities, Office of coordinator, 1942” Oregon Digital. Accessed 2025-02-15. https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/g445cf551

President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, “Memo from Oregon State System of Higher Education to Oregon College Presidents”, RG 013-SG 11, 174 https://oregonstate.app.box.com/file/1781119845278 

President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, “Letter from President Strand to Deans of Oregon State College”, RG 013-SG 11, 175 https://oregonstate.app.box.com/file/1781119845278

President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, “Building Program Proposals”, RG 013-SG 11, 176-180 https://oregonstate.app.box.com/file/1781119845278 

President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, “Naval Sciences Building Plans”, RG 013-SG 11, 334-343 https://oregonstate.app.box.com/file/1781119845278 

President’s Office General Subject File, Physical Plant, Building program, 1940-1941, 26 https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/m900nv99b 

Robbins, William, “Wartime: 1938-1950,” in The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (2017), 145-169

Springate, Megan E., The American Home Front During World War II: The Economy, National Park Service, last updated February 2025

Wage and Hour Commission Order No. 16,  May 23, 1941. OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. RG 193

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^[i]  “Chemistry Building (Gilbert Hall),” 1938, OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df70d2774 

^[ii] Wage and Hour Commission Order No. 16,  May 23, 1941,  SCARC, RG 193, Buildings.

^[iii] Wage and Hour Commission Order No. 16, SCARC, RG 193, Buildings.

^[iv] “Snell Hall under construction,” 1942, Historical Images of Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df72s7363

^[v] Megan E. Springate, “The American Home Front During World War II: The Economy,” National Park Service, last updated February 2025

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/wwii-american-home-front-economy.htm

^[vi] “Snell Hall under construction.”

^[vii] “Memo from Oregon State System of Higher Education to Oregon College Presidents,”1943, SCARC, President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, RG 013-SG 11, 174.

^[viii] “Letter from President Strand to Deans of Oregon State College,” 1943, SCARC, President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, RG 013-SG 11, 175.

^[ix] “Building Program Proposals,” 1943, SCARC, President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, RG 013-SG 11, 176-180.

^[x] “Navy ROTC Building (Not Built),” SCARC, RG 193, Buildings.

^[xi] “Naval Sciences Building Plans,” 1945, SCARC, President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, RG 013-SG 11, 334-343.

^[xii] William Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (Oregon State University Press, 2017), 164-167.

^[xiii] “Naval Sciences Building Plans,” 1945, SCARC, President’s Office General Subject and Correspondence Files, RG 013-SG 11, 334-343.

^[xiv] V.R. Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in WWII (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993), 213.

^[xv] Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in WWII, 214.

^[xvi] Ibid., 213.

^[xvii] Michael Bezilla, “Challenges of the Post-War Era” in Penn State: An Illustrated History, Penn State Special Collections Libraries, Penn State University Press, 1991, https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/penn-state-university-park-campus-history-collection/penn-state-illustrated-1

^[xviii] Michael Bezilla, “Challenges of the Post-War Era.”

^[xix] “Picketing adjacent to the Sackett Hall construction site,” 1947, Historical Images of Oregon State University, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df719c417

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Logan Bledsoe

Many Oregon State College (OSC) alumni and students gave up their education and even their lives to serve in WWII. These young men and women faced all the horrific trials and tribulations that WWII had to offer, among the worst being the Japanese-perpetrated Bataan Death March. Captain Howard H. Amos, an OSC alumni, was one among thousands of men marched to the Japanese death camp, or their deaths.

Captain Amos received a degree in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University in 1940 and subsequently joined the U.S. Army as a field artillery officer on July 1st, 1940. After the American loss at Bataan, Captain Amos and his brothers in arms were forcibly marched and tortured in the Bataan Death March. Six weeks after the death march concluded, Captain Amos succumbed to his maltreatment in Japanese captivity.^[i]

The Oregon State Archives contain a record of Amos’s War Service Record, as OSC tried to keep a comprehensive record of students and faculty who served during WWII. This document was also shared with Amos’s parents. Attached to the document is a newspaper clipping containing his obituary. The newspaper clipping was an obituary and a tribute to his life and service. Captain Amos’s date of death is listed in his Oregon State University (OSU) War Service Record as June 27, 1942, notified by the War Department, Office of Adjutant General. His OSU War Service Record is a typed military format document and filled in by hand in pen by an unknown administrator at OSC. The newspaper clipping is reproduced from the original. Despite the age of his original War Service Record, it is in fairly good condition with slight bending of the sides of the paper, and yellowing. This document was archived by Luther S. Cressman as part of OSC’s Oregon State College History of World War II in the Special Collections & Archives Center (hereafter SCARC), for the purpose of commemorating OSC’s wartime history and contributions to the war effort on an individual community member basis.

The impact of WWII on the student population of The Oregon State College (OSC) proved to be dynamic and multifaceted in nature, beyond the deaths of singular students in war, and on to the more personal, social, and educational losses of the OSC community. Captain Amos’ story serves as a severe example of the temporary loss of an OSC community member, which given the lethality of WWII, often had the potential to be a permanent loss for the community.

A picture of the Cadet Corps. Published by the Agricultural College on December 9, 1921. This corps, like other pre-military programs, would become the bedrock for training in universities and indoctrination into the armed services with the onset of WWII.^[ii]

The Bataan Death March, both directly or indirectly, affected OSU students, faculty and Alumni who served. The Battle of Bataan lasted from January to April 1942, and the subsequent American defeat prior to the Bataan Death March considerably dampened American morale, which was naively optimistic after Pearl Harbor. This is due to the American people’s enthusiasm to quickly strike a blow against the Empire of Japan which is reflected in the newspapers of OSC and the greater news establishments of the time. Even as Bataan and its surrounding areas were crumbling under the weight of the Japanese offensive, The Daily Barometer, OSC’s daily student newspaper, continued to publish updates on the second page, depicting the battle as a hard fought stalemate.^[iii] These news stories from The Daily Barometer offer a stark contrast to the realities on the ground. Pending the devastating loss, the attitude of the time was briefly reflected on by The Daily Barometer, and then promptly summarized as a slight delay of victory rather than the foreboding specter of reality that would come to epitomize the war in the Pacific.^[iv] Approximately 35 OSU students and faculty were summarily killed in the Battle of Bataan and its encompassing engagements, or taken as POWs. Indicative of the Japanese Empires attitude towards POWs, which was one of disdain and non-cooperativity towards any of its adversaries, many soldiers and military personnel taken prisoner were listed as MIA.^[v] This included members of the Oregon State University community who joined the military at the onset of WWII.^[vi]

There was a period of shock at this time, as Americans, and more specifically the OSU community, were deeply involved in supporting the war effort. There was eventually a piece in The Oregon Stater, published in June 1942, that listed approximately 35 OSC community members who were missing.^[vii] For the OSC community, these losses must have been more personal, beyond a warring nation tasting its first real even-sided defeat, it would bring the reality of the war home far more personally than Pearl Harbor had. As OSC community members read the front pages of popular newspapers littered with anything but good news of the war, they also grappled with the personal loss of their peers, as reflected by The Evening Herald April 9, 1942, published in Klamath Falls, Oregon stating, “…We have known from the beginning that no other end was possible. We have been merely waiting.”^[viii]

OSC students taking the Oath of Service to be sworn in as new cadets ca. 1942. Many students at many different universities would be doing the same thing in 1942.^[ix]

While many OSC students went missing or perished early on in the war, some Oregon State College community members who were lucky enough to survive such brutal defeats ended up dying in Japanese captivity later on in the war. As the war progressed, it slowly robbed Oregon State College of the great generation of men who could have returned home after the war to continue their education. One of these survivors was First Lieutenant Harry Burton Black who died in Fukuoka Military Prison Camp on the Island of Honshu, Japan on February 11th, 1945. An all too familiar theme, the American Military listed First Lieutenant Black as MIA until his death was confirmed by the Japanese Government months after his death on September 9th, 1945.^[x] Unfortunately, Lieutenant Black’s experience was not an isolated incident, men like him from every department at Oregon State College joined the service in their hundreds. Men like Captain Amos and Lieutenant Black are just a few of the OSC community members who would leave OSC to serve their country. Their absence alone would drastically affect the college.

The population of the College of Liberal Arts alone went down by almost one thousand students in 1941-1942 due to America’s silent preparation for the war.^[xi] From the years of 1942-1943 to 1943-1944, the ratio of men to women students went from 5:3 to 1:3.^[xii] Nationally, the ratio of male to female undergraduates approximately followed this trend, but there was a steady decline that started from 1942 onwards.^[xiii] The records of the OSC Alumni Association indicate an official still-actively-growing list of 5,000 men in service, out of an approximate estimate of 8,500 men in total in their service in 1944.^[xiv] This means that approximately 3500 men still had yet to be officially registered with the OSC Alumni Association records. Oregon State faculty and staff were no different in their commitment to serve their country, with 89 men and 8 women getting approved for leaves of absence for military service from 1940-1946.^[xv] The Oregon State College Community lost many members temporarily in their service to the nation at war, and in grave cases, permanently.

ROTC Students of Third Detachment at “Retreat” next to Strand Hall. Although this picture was taken before World War II, it is a shining example of the military programs at OSC who had helped take on the challenge of preparing OSC for war.^[xvi]

Just like at Oregon State College, the pull of young men and women from universities to take part in the fight of WWII was felt all throughout American universities. Higher education institutions were the most highly affected branch of education, more than any other branch in the American education system.^[xvii] The U.S., at this time, grappled with the issue of young men in college, and how and when they would enter service to fill the growing ranks of the U.S. military as it gathered steam for the years ahead. Originally the U.S. government developed a rushed plan to give occupational deferments to college students so they could continue their education before entering military service. Unfortunately, this led to shortages in manpower across the military in varying fields, which would then be filled with young men who were still continuing their college education.^[xviii] Students and universities knew that selective service was just over the horizon, regardless of their current enrollment status, and universities like the University of Virginia offered accelerated courses to try to quickly graduate their students before leaving for war.^[xix] The accelerated courses served a double purpose, as this also freed up students’ time to participate in pre-military programs provided by the universities, or by ever expanding military programs already on campus^[xx] During this time, campus life, as well as the individual students’ day-to-day activities changed almost in every aspect, as even the education they were receiving was slightly and afterthought, as their primary focus was now inevitable wartime service.

WWII affected everyone in the United States, and many college students would never return to higher education again because of the war and its consequences for them. For the universities of this time, one would be hard pressed to find another group of entities who were as severely affected by the onset of WWII, and whose community members would be directly affected as well. Not only did the sudden absence of thousands of men and women from the college drastically affect enrollment and campus life, but their sacrifices would leave holes in the OSC community for decades to come.

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^[i] Luther S. Cressman, Howard Amos Service Record, 1944, Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), Oregon State College History of World War II project records, Box 01 SC 33 03 02 11.

^[ii] “History of the Military Department,” Oregon State Agricultural College Pamphlet, 7, stamped December 9, 1921, SCARC, Memorabilia Collection, Box 106, Folder 17.

^[iii] “Japs Concentrate on Pany,” Oregon State Barometer, April 25, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p741f.

^[iv] Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University, Oregon State Barometer, April 10, 1942,” Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7316.  

^[v] “Listed Among the Missing,” Oregon Stater, June 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71bk924.

^[vi] “Listed Among the Missing.”

^[vii]  “Listed Among the Missing.”  

^[viii] “Bataan Defenses Finally Fall,” The Evening Herald, April 9, 1942, Historic Oregon Newspapers, https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn99063812/1942-04-09/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Bataan. 

^[ix] “ASTP and Navy V-12 Program swearing in ceremony, circa 1942,”Oregon State College History of World War II Project Records, Military Photographs (P 002), Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df71zj280.

^[x] Oregon State College history of World War II project record, 1944, Box 01 SC 33 03 02 11, MSS OSCWW2.

^[xi] “Ratio of Male to Female Students at OSC 1940-1944,” SCARC, Annual and biennial reports, Office of the President, Box 09 RG 013 – SG 12, Box 09 SC 43 02 04 20.

^[xii] “Ratio of Male to Female Students at OSC 1940-1944,” SCARC, Annual and biennial reports, Office of the President, Box 09 RG 013 – SG 12, Box 09 SC 43 02 04 20.

^[xiii] Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 4 (2006): 133, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fjep.20.4.133&fbclid=IwAR2YgNWGj5pMpZpEpG5a97ahef4Dwi8Wk7rUpLqqRGPMqwOGOnJYmGvcLys.

^[xiv] “Military Records at Office Of Alumni Association,” SCARC, Oregon State College history of World War II project record, 1944, Box 01. 

^[xv] “Ratio of Male to Female Students at OSC 1940-1944.”

^[xvi] “Oregon Agricultural College, Education for Enlisted Men,” December 15, 1918, SCARC, Memorabilia Collection, Box 106, folder 17.

^[xvii] I. L. Kandel, The Impact of the War Upon American Education (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 123.

^[xviii] Kandel, The Impact of the War Upon American Education, 123.

^[xix] Jennings L. Wagoner and Robert L. Baxter, Jr.,“Higher Education Goes to War: The University of Virginia’s Response to World War II,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 3 (1992): 404, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4249294?casa_token=nGrQ7uf5ndAAAAAA%3AN128Mv94tKlGmPT8VvizaAUDL1JcZQfNJ5Q7h1VPhv-TPtHNvbWEDPXidF5g-nFj9uBpJlzzuJZTSX4oWMszTgkUm6wk5HCuszvBttLSLvA794j7NVY.

^[xx] Wagoner, “Higher Education Goes to War,” 407.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Kelly Tabel

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which resulted in the United States’ declaration of war on Japan. After the attack, the government and other American citizens grew suspicious of Japanese Americans, believing they were engaged in espionage. Two months later on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which authorized the relocation or internment of Japanese American citizens on the West Coast. Executive Order 9066 designated the western portions of Washington, Oregon, and California as the Western Defense Command – an active military area. Nobody suspected of espionage could be in an active war zone, causing the forced relocation of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. This included both Issei, meaning the first generation of Japanese immigrants to the U.S., and Nisei, the second generation of Japanese ancestry born in the U.S., citizens by birthright.^[i] This order affected Japanese Americans throughout the West, with 70,000 of the 120,000 evacuees being American citizens.^[ii] With no direct charges against Japanese Americans, there could be no appeal, causing Japanese Americans to lose their homes, property, jobs, businesses, and opportunities for an education. This order also imposed hardship on all Japanese American university students attending schools in the Western Defense Command, including those at Oregon State College (OSC).

In the fall of 1941, thirty-eight Japanese students were enrolled at OSC, with a majority of them being from Oregon. Only two had been born in Japan.^[iii] On December 11, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, thirty-six students of Japanese descent at OSC signed a letter to the acting President of OSC, F.A. Gilfillan, stating, ​​“… we the undersigned American citizens of Japanese ancestry desire to express to you, our College President, our unswerving loyalty to our country, the United States of America, and to all her institutions.”^[iv] It is likely that after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese American students at OSC faced some level of fear, which motivated them to sign a letter pledging their loyalty to their country and OSC. Their fears were soon a reality with Executive Order 9066 and the War Relocation Authority (WRA), a federal agency created in 1942 that cared for the Japanese Americans removed from the West Coast and placed in internment camps.^[v] On April 2, 1942, OSC President Gilfillan addressed a letter to all Japanese American students concerning their status at the college. The letter stated, “‘American-born Japanese students as well as all aliens will only be allowed to remain in school until such time as evacuation is announced by the Commanding General. The exact time is not known but will be in the near future.’”^[vi] The fears students had addressed in their December letter were becoming true. Due to their ancestry, they were being stripped of their education and their freedoms. Sam Naito, who was forced to abandon his studies at OSC due to Executive Order 9066, later described it as “‘the most devastating feeling I ever had.’”^[vii]

A May 1942 Barometer article, Oregon State College’s student newspaper, addresses the status of Japanese American students at OSC to the students and the public. A short article published on the paper’s second page, states, “Oregon State students affected by the new order may, by fast work, finish the term, for the evacuation will not begin until next Monday and will be over by noon Wednesday, June 3.”^[viii] While Japanese American students were granted the ability to finish the school year by OSC, the evacuation orders still stood as the Western Defense Command included Corvallis. With this being on the second page of the paper, we can conclude that for many students, this was not a priority or a major issue, with little documented backlash or protest from OSC.

The removal of Japanese American students from their established institutions in the West resulted in the creation of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council (NJASRC). NJASRC was a branch under the WRA that helped resettle Japanese American evacuees and college students from the West to colleges in the Midwest and East Coast. NJARSC worked with students, families, private organizations, government agencies, colleges, and the larger Japanese American community.^[ix] Two students from OSC, Tony Takashiman and Jack Kato, both Americans of Japanese ancestry, received permission from OSC executive secretary TP Cramer to transfer to the University of Utah, if they were permitted travel permits.^[x] This was an opportunity that many Japanese American students took because they were no longer permitted to attend school in the Western Defense Command and forced by the government to reside within the internment camps, many not having anywhere else to go as their homes, belongings, and everything they once knew existed in the West.

University and college leaders throughout the West Coast began to discuss with each other what the next steps should be for their Japanese American students, and these conversations included OSC administrators. After Executive Order 9066, Japanese American students at OSC and other institutions throughout the West were still enrolled. However, on April 22, 1942, the Oregon State System of Higher Education sent a letter to President Gilfillan addressing the fact that California institutions had begun to gather numbers in regards to the enrollment of Japanese American students and asking OSC to do the same.^[xi] The relocation of Japanese American students became a growing topic within institutions across the West Coast, as this was considered an impending issue. OSC received a letter from the University of Washington addressing the goals of the Student Relocation Committee that they needed to adhere to, “One of our chief functions, as I understand it, will be to accumulate information about each of the students for the Army and the institutions to which they transfer. Evacuation of the Nissei college students in Oregon and Washington is imminent.”^[xii] Schools in Washington, Oregon, and California began to collaborate to collect information on their students and explore colleges willing to accept transfer students. It was important for the schools throughout the West to be in contact with each other to share as much helpful information as possible for a safe relocation for the students, but also to follow the looming demand of Executive Order 9066.

With the NJARSC’s help, many Japanese American students succeeded in transferring to new universities. In October 1944, a brief article in the New York Times addressed the topic of Japanese American students. It explained that the college population of Japanese Americans had returned to the same rates as before Pearl Harbor, with 2,500 Japanese American students enrolled in 550 colleges across the country, most of them being young evacuees who desired college training after leaving the assembly centers.^[xiii] However, receptivity to Japanese American students varied across the country. For example, Indiana University denied Japanese American students in June 1942 allegedly due to the uncertain military status of southern Indiana, where the university is located. However, in a town hall meeting discussing the topic, responses diverged, with one attendee asserting, “‘Can’t be done – this is war!’”^[xiv] With the differing receptiveness to Japanese American students across the country, a new pressure for Japanese American students emerged as more eyes were on them than ever.

With Japanese American Students transferring to universities across the country, specifically the Midwest and East Coast, the NJASRC stressed the importance of these students being “ambassadors of goodwill.”^[xv] Japanese American students were arriving at new colleges and communities that may have been unfamiliar with Japanese Americans. To make an excellent impression, the students were pressured to be involved and receive good grades. It was believed this would help create a safe environment for Japanese Americans and help create a safe postwar period.^[xvi] In July 1942, an editorial in the Santa Anita Peacemaker, details the scrutiny these students experienced, “Upon their scholarship, their conduct, their thoughts, their sense of humor, their adaptability, will rest the verdict of the rest of the country as to whether Japanese Americans are true Americans.”^[xvii] With the scrutiny Japanese American students were under, they took the role of being an “ambassador of goodwill” seriously. For example, Kenji Okuda, who had been a student at the University of Washington, transferred to Oberlin University in Ohio, where he was elected student body President.^[xviii] Another example is Kaz Tada, who attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, played on the basketball team, and was editor of the student paper.^[xix]

The relocation of Japanese American students to the Midwest and East Coast had an impact on individuals throughout these regions. Ruth Nomura Tanbara, whose parents were from Japan, states, “‘The dispersal of the Japanese American community from the West Coast to the Midwest and East was a ‘blessing in disguise.’ It broadened our knowledge of the United States to get away from the ghettos of the West. It also widened educational opportunities for the Japanese American students.’”^[xx] She believes that this opportunity expanded opportunities for many who would have never left the West. Yoshiteru Marukami, who attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota during World War II and then graduated, chose to stay in Northfield where he taught choir at the high school and raised his family. ^[xxi] The relocation of Japanese American students created a lasting impact on regions within the United States and the students themselves. The students’ perseverance and resolve after Executive Order 9066 helped ease the country into a post-war period; their contribution and what they were forced to endure cannot go unnoticed.

With the help of the NJARSC, these Japanese American students broadened the viewpoints of Americans, bringing diversity to new places and helping everyone across the country acclimate for a postwar period. This is a difficult period of history to examine, but it is important, as it influenced our country and is a grim reminder of what the government is capable of. During my research, I could not find many secondary sources relating to Japanese American students during WWII. Yet it is essential that we discuss this history so that it can be brought forward and heard. This history is integrated throughout the West Coast and Western universities/institutions, including OSC, leaving an impact for many today.

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^[i] “Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration (1942),” National Archives,  https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066

^[ii] “Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II,” National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation

^[iii]  “List of Japanese Students – Fall Term 1941, 1941,” Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724m06c

^[iv] “Letter to the President from Japanese American Students,” December 11, 1941, OSU’s WWII Era Japanese American Students Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724m117

^[v] “War Relocation Authority,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/War_Relocation_Authority/ 

^[vi] “Official Letter to All Japanese American Students,” April 2, 1942, Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k98w

^[vii] Ian Halcomb, “Oregon internees to get honorary degrees,” High Country News, May 11, 2007, https://www.hcn.org/articles/oregon-internees-to-get-honorary-degrees/

^[viii] “Japanese Are Ordered From 11 Counties,” May 26,1942, OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center (hereafter SCARC), Oregon State University (OSU), Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k72r

^[ix] “National Japanese American Relocation Council”, Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/War_Relocation_Authority/

^[x] “Telegram Regarding Student Transfer,” May 20, 1942, Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k81q

^[xi]  “Letter from the Oregon State System of Higher Education,” April 22, 1942, Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k90p

^[xii] “Letter Regarding the Northwest College Personnel Association Student Relocation Committee,” May 5, 1942, Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k83

^[xiii]  “2,500 Japanese American Studying in 550 Colleges,” October 29, 1944, New York Times, 101, https://nyti.ms/3CYSq5e

^[xiv] Katie Martin, “‘Can’t be done–This is war!’: The Admission of Japanese Students During World War II,” Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Blog, April 18, 2016, https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/iubarchives/2016/04/18/japanesewwii/

^[xv] Allan W. Austin, From Concentration Camp to Campus: Japanese American Students and World War II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 3.

^[xvi]  Austin, From Concentration Camp to Campus, 2.

^[xvii]  “Students Bear a Great Burden,” July 11, 1942, Santa Anita Peacemaker, 6, https://cdm16855.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16855coll4/id/10370 

^[xviii]  “Courage and Compassion: Student Biographies.” Oberlin College and Conservatory, 28 July 2022,www.oberlin.edu/courage-and-compassion-student-biographies.   

^[xix] Taylor Harwood, ““It feels mighty good to go to classes again”: Experiences of Japanese American College Students in the Midwest During World War II.” in a History Senior Seminar (May 2015) 13. https://tcharwood.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/history-senior-project.pdf

^[xx] Harwood, Taylor. ““It feels mighty good to go to classes again,” 7.

^[xxi] Harwood, Taylor. ““It feels mighty good to go to classes again,” 20.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Ian Busby

The demands of the United States’ war effort broadly reduced male college enrollment during WWII. Science and engineering were both part of a push and pull between a need for soldiers and a need for technically trained individuals for other aspects of the war effort. Due to the School of Science structure, changes in curriculum, and losses in faculty, the war led to increasingly freshman and sophomore dominated sciences at Oregon State College (OSC). General catalogs provide key information on both enrollment and courses at OSC, and are a critical resource when investigating trends in enrollment.

The summary of enrollment and degrees in the 1943-44 Oregon State College General Catalogue helps describe student focuses going into the height of wartime. The Oregon State Board of Higher Education published the catalogue in August 1943 to inform incoming and on-going students of the available degrees and courses. Of particular interest are pages 378 and 379, which detail the demographics and numbers for enrollment in the previous academic year of 1942-43. In the catalogue, OSC splits curriculum primarily between professional schools and liberal arts and sciences. Upper division coursework in the school of science is divided into the subjects of General Science, Bacteriology, Botany, Chemistry, Entomology, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology, nursing education, and science education, the last two not explicitly shown in Figure 1.^[i] This catalogue is neatly typeset, and is clearly mass-produced. At nearly four hundred pages, the catalogue is quite large. It appears to be in good condition, and presumably due to its mass-produced nature a number are still in existence. In 1942-43, there was a total enrollment of 709 Lower division students in the Liberal Arts and Sciences and only 91 total students in the upper division.^[ii] That said, only 421 students are enrolled in lower division science courses. This means that the ratio of upper division to lower division science students is less than one to four, in other words for every four lower division students there is less than one upper division student.

It is first necessary to understand what the Lower Division was in order to contextualize its enrollment information. Established in 1932, the Lower Division and School of Science are recent additions to Oregon State College (OSC) as of the early 1940s.^[iii] Particularly, OSC President Francois Gilfillan in his 1941-42 Biennial report stated the goal of the Lower Division was to provide two years of generalized education, after which students focused on science would continue at OSC and those focused on the liberal arts would attend the University of Oregon.^[iv] The Lower Division was specifically connected with science; all students studying liberal arts or science would have spent their first two years in the Lower Division. This is confirmed in a 1944 advertisement for the college where OSC describes the Lower Division as a balanced set of classes for those studying liberal arts and sciences, with opportunities for students to test several different fields.^[v]  It seems that students of science would not choose a particular major until after completing two years of Lower Division study. This may seem like the current “Bacc core” system, however, this was isolated to the School of Science. For example, in the 1943-44 Catalog, a bachelor’s in Agriculture required freshman to take zoology, botany, astronomy, chemistry and English composition all from the Schools of Science and Liberal Arts.[vi] Most engineers on the other hand only have to take English composition and possibly general chemistry.[vii] At this point, aside from two years of required military instruction for all male students under age 26 and possibly English composition, there is appears to be no college wide general requirements like the modern “Bacc core” system. [viii]

The bottom-heavy enrollment in 1942-43 raises two questions. First, was the bottom-heavy enrollment a one-time occurrence, or did OSC consistently exhibit this sort of enrollment during WWII? Second, if OSC did consistently show bottom-heavy enrollment, why were so many more students enrolling in lower-level science courses?

 To answer the first question, this bottom-heavy enrollment indeed continues into the 1943-44 academic year. Enrollment data shows only 49 students combined across the various science majors and a comparably huge 303 students in the Lower Division sciences.^[ix] Comparing enrollment to the other six schools, Agriculture, Education, Engineering, Forestry, Home Economics, and Pharmacy, reveals that even prior to the war the School of Science was bottom heavy with about two upper-level students to every five lower-level students.^[x] The School of Science as well as Engineering both saw steady increases in enrollment until the 1943-44 and 1944-45 academic years, where there were large dips in enrollment across the board except in Home Economics, Pharmacy, and Education.^[xi] While not shown in Figure 3, near the end of the war, OSC appears to have removed Secretarial Science from the Professional Curricula and instead there was a new Division of Business and Industry.^[xii] Post war, most schools saw both an increase in total enrollment and in the ratio of upper level to lower-level students, while Education and Home Economics remained mostly steady in both metrics throughout the entire date range.^[xiii] This is likely due to the higher female enrollment in these fields, particularly in Home Economics. Full graphs of total enrollment, ratio of upper to lower-level enrollment, and enrollment by class can all be seen in detail by year in Figure 3. Broadly speaking, the School of Science had the most bottom-heavy enrollment of all the schools for a vast majority of the eleven-year span considered.

To answer the second question, the uniquely bottom-heavy enrollment in the School of Science was likely caused by a combination of the Lower Division Structure and war related changes. As already mentioned, the Lower Division was meant for a general education, so it is natural to expect a high enrollment compared to the upper-level majors. Students focusing on liberal arts likely would have still taken science courses boosting lower-level science enrollment. Other likely causes of this bottom-heaviness include open defense jobs which may have drawn students from completing their studies and moving on to the upper division. The February 23, 1943 edition of the Oregon State Barometer includes a call to students with at least two years of electrical engineering or physics to work as radio interception operators without completing their degrees.^[xiv] Jobs like this may have been quite a draw for students wanting to contribute to the war effort. The Lower Division also contained classes aimed at war time training. The proposed course changes for the 1944-45 academic year include a dropped Z215, “Practical Physiology for the Wartime Needs,” initially introduced to meet early war needs.^[xv] Such wartime classes likely created larger draws for students to enroll, even those not majoring in science. A lack of professors may also have affected upper division teaching. At least ten School of Science professors are listed as in war service, with several noted as needing replacements or departmental adjustments.^[xvi] This sentiment is echoed in the 1941-1942 Biennial Report where Gilfillan plainly states that as of 1942, thirteen School of Science staff had joined the war, and that “Their replacement presents a serious problem.”^[xvii] While a lack of staff could affect both lower and upper level courses, the upper levels would have been more technical and required more qualified staff. It is natural then to assume that this lack of faculty impacted upper-level enrollment disproportionately. Additionally, OSC may have shifted existing staff more towards the Lower Division where the higher enrollment meant higher demand, further contributing to the bottom-heaviness.

            Throughout the war, most of the different Schools at OSC experienced only moderate increases or decreases in enrollment until the 1943-44 academic year, where enrollment dropped drastically, followed by a sharp rise after the war. OSC was not unique in these aspects. V.R. Cardozier discusses enrollment of state universities in the book Colleges and Universities in World War II, and specifically describes how Indiana University saw modest declines until 1943, when enrollment boomed due to army and navy programs.^[xviii] Indiana University’s enrollment trend matches much of what was seen at OSC, though OSC saw its enrollment in Science and Engineering rise before 1943 and drop sharply afterward. In a national sense, state universities appear to have hemorrhaged students the least during WWII due to, as Cardozier puts it, “the variety of training programs they could offer.”^[xix] That said, state universities often still saw large declines, with Berkeley’s and UCLA’s pre-war enrollment being reduced by more than half by the 1944-45 academic year. OSC wasn’t entirely immune either, and although there was growth especially in the School of Engineering early in the war, OSC’s enrollment decreased drastically in 1943-44 and 1944-45. This early growth very well could have been influenced by the Army Specialized Training Unit (ASTP), with ASTP making up 381 of 3078 total male enrolled students in 1942-43 and 1614 of 2159 total enrolled male students in 1943-44.[xx]  While discussing the impact of WWII on California community colleges, Edward Gallagher describes the concerted effort for national defense, particularly how in California junior colleges “Courses were structured to meet war needs and their content emphasized military use.”^[xxi] The 1944 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act (henceforth G.I. bill) provided returning veterans free access to higher education, among other benefits. After the war, students at California community college largely enrolled in lower-level courses mirroring courses at universities, and most of the veteran students “planned to transfer to four-year institutions.”^[xxii] Lower-level classes once again emphasized preparation for upper-level coursework; in the case of the California community colleges this meant a transfer to universities and at OSC this meant moving on to specific School of Science majors or transferring to the University of Oregon for the humanities. Enrollment at OSC ballooned in the post WWII era, and this was mirrored nationally, with an increase from 1.5 million students pre-war to 2.3 million by 1947.^[xxiii] Ryan Skinnell argues that lower-level courses, particularly first-year composition, were instrumental. Writing skills allowed students, many of whom were returning G.I.s, to complete either two or four years and remain employable and acted as a selling point “come to college, learn to read and write so you can rejoin the workforce with state of the art, practical skills for the modern economy.”^[xxiv] This mirrors OSC’s Lower Division marketing that students could learn broad technical skills, with a 1944 advertisement stating “liberal education is combined with practical education in every professional school at Oregon State.”^[xxv] Altogether, the enrollment trends and course structure at OSC during and after WWII diverge little from institutions across the country.

            The OSC School of Science show freshman and sophomore dominated enrollment over a period from before to after WWII spanning eleven years. This bottom-heaviness is most prevalent at the height of the war, likely due to changes in curriculum for the war effort, a loss of faculty, and the structure of the Lower Division. Most of the other OSC schools demonstrated similar bottom-heaviness during the war, albeit typically to a less degree. Discussions from the OSC president, faculty war leave reports, and administrative council meeting minutes have all expanded these enrollment trends in science beyond just the numbers. OSC is broadly like the enrollment trends at other state institutions, but using specific enrollment data has revealed additional trends in enrollment lost when looking at just overall institution numbers. Not every School at OSC demonstrated the same behavior, and each was affected by the war in unique ways.

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^[i] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1943-44,” August 1943, Oregon Digital, Special Collections and Archives Research Center (Hereafter SCARC), Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, 3, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v93w.

^[ii] “College Catalog, 1943-44,” 378.

^[iii] Francois A. Gilfillan, “Biennial Report of Oregon State College, 1941-42,” 1942, 32,37, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon Digital,  https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71d395d.

^[iv] Francois A. Gilfillan, “Biennial Report,” 32.

^[v] “This is Oregon State, 1944,” 1944, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71cs65n, 14.

[vi] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1943-44,” 175.

[vii] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1943-44,” 264-268.

[viii] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1943-44,” 67-68, 339.

^[ix] “Oregon State College Students Enrolled, 1943-1944,” May 1944, Oregon Digital, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/qf85nc515, 45.

^[x] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1937-38,” April 1937, 457, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https:/oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v350; “Oregon State College Catalog”, 1938-39,” April 1938, 477, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v86g; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1939-40,” August 1939, 490, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v899; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1940-41,” July 1940, 497, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v902; “Oregon State College Degrees Conferred and Students Enrolled 1940-41,” July 1941, 70, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/1g05fc83z.

^[xi] “Oregon State College Degrees Conferred and Students Enrolled 1941-42,” October 1942, 69, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/0z708x48s; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1943-44,” August 1943, 378, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v93w; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1945-46,” June 1945, 409, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v87r; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1946-47,” April 1946, 405, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v856.

^[xii] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1945-46,” 407.

^[xiii] “Oregon State College Catalog, 1947-48,” March 1947, 414, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v84x; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1948-49,” March 1948, 424, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v82c; “Oregon State College Catalog, 1949-50,” 1949, 453, SCARC, Historical Publications of Oregon State University, Oregon State University General Catalogs, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v813.

^[xiv] Pat Glenn, “Scouting the Campuses,” February 23, 1943, Oregon State Barometer, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nj53x.

^[xv] “Proposed Course Changes for 1944-45,” December 15, 1943, SCARC, Admin Council Records, Meeting minutes, Box-folder 2.4, 114.

^[xvi] “Full Time Staff in War Service,” October 8, 1942, SCARC, Oregon State College History of World War II Project Records, 1940-1947, List of Staff Granted Leaves, 1940-46, 4.

^[xvii] Francois A. Gilfillan, “Biennial Report,” 37.

^[xviii] V. R. Cardozier, Colleges and Universities in World War II (Praeger, 1993), 116.

^[xix] Cardozier, Colleges, 115-116.

[xx] “Oregon State Catalog, 1943-44,” 378;“Oregon State Catalog 1945-46,” 409.

^[xxi] Edward A. Gallagher, “Short-term military needs or long-term curricular reform? The impact of World War II on California Community Colleges,” Michigan Academician 36, no. 3 (2004): 302.

^[xxii] Gallagher, “Short-term military,” 306.

^[xxiii] Ryan Skinnell, “Enlisting Composition: How First-Year Composition Helped Reorient Higher Education in the GI Bill Era,” Journal of Veterans Studies 2, no. 1 (2017), 79.

^[xxiv] Skinnell, “Enlisting Composition,” 81.

^[xxv] “This is Oregon State, 1944,” 14.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Emma Romeo

Oregon State College (OSC) played an active role in supporting the American Red Cross (ARC) during World War II, contributing significantly to the nation’s wartime relief efforts as the campus became a hub for Red Cross activities. Under the umbrella of the ARC, students organized fundraising events, participated in offered training programs, and volunteered for various service projects to aid the national effort and support American soldiers fighting overseas. Archival documents and wartime articles in the campus’s student newspaper, the Oregon State Barometer, reveal how much OSC students supported the American Red Cross’s wartime efforts, and how the student efforts helped to shape the home front during World War II.

Founded in 1881 by Clara Barton, the United States Government historically has tasked the American Red Cross with aiding in relief for victims of disaster or accidents, improving public health, developing nurses and other healthcare volunteers, and instructing the public in hygiene and first aid issues.^[i] Congress recognized the Red Cross in a 1900 charter that granted the independent, non-profit institution certain responsibilities in exchange for tax-exemptions, including the obligation to uphold the provisions of the Geneva conventions of 1864 and 1929  and to provide disaster relief domestically and abroad.^[ii] Furthermore, due to the connection between the organization and the federal government, beginning with Woodrow Wilson in 1913, the sitting President of the United States has served as the honorary Chairman of the Red Cross and is allowed de facto leadership of the organization’s functions.^[iii]

During WWII, the Red Cross and its numerous volunteers worked to provide aid to those affected with wartime suffering by providing hospital staff and trained nurses, producing emergency supplies such as bandages and surgical dressings, collecting donations of money,  scrap metal, and clothing, and operating training programs for nutrition, medical care, and water safety. The Red Cross expanded its wartime services by creating the Blood Donor Service Program in 1940, which collected blood from millions of donors for medical personnel to treat traumatic injuries on the war front.^[iv] During WWII, the Red Cross was the United States’ sole organizer in charge of collecting, testing, storing, and transporting whole blood, plasma, and serum to help soldiers overseas, often sent as dried plasma that could be rehydrated with water to be given to soldiers and did not require refrigeration.^[v] At the end of the war, the total amount of blood from 6.7 million volunteers was tallied at over 13 million pints.^[vi]

Along with aid through medical services, the ARC collected donations and raised funds on the home front starting in 1939 and continuing through the war. Similarly to what was done during WWI,  the ARC created War Funds and drives to gather donations sent to overseas military services as well as domestic communities, such as providing financial aid and volunteer services to families who had lost their main breadwinners to the war.^[vii] Volunteers and donations for the Red Cross soared during WWII, with the height of membership being in 1945 when the organization boasted 7.5 million volunteers and 39,000 paid staff, and the total donations collected by September 1945 amounting to more than $784 million. Nearly every family in the United States had a connection to the ARC services in some capacity, either by donating to the organization or being a recipient of its aid.^[viii]

Due to the rise of war-based activism and charity across the country, the ARC began to extend its chapters to university campuses starting in 1942. Before the establishment of an official chapter on a college campus, often high numbers of student volunteers were already hosting Red Cross-related activities to donate to the organization without being officially recognized as a member of the ARC. The national organization eventually included 187 universities in war-related or regular chapter activities through which students contributed to war fund campaigns, participated in volunteer services such as blood donation, and enrolled in training courses for first aid, nutrition, and water safety.^[ix]

On the Oregon State College (OSC) campus specifically, newspaper articles and yearbooks document student support for the American Red Cross during the war. Even before the establishment of OSC’s ARC chapter in October 1945, the War Council of Oregon State, a women-run group in charge of on-campus charity projects for the war effort, organized donations to the Red Cross, along with orchestrated service projects, raising funds for war bonds, and other charitable contributions.^[x] In collaboration with student government and the Associated Women’s Legislative Council (AWLC), the War Council encouraged students and faculty on-campus to donate funds to the war effort through Red Cross Week at OSC.^[xi] Red Cross Week started on Friday, February 20th, 1942, with the Associated Student Body of Oregon State College’s (ASOSC) Red Cross Committee overseeing the event. Over the course of this week, the OSC campus hosted festivities, including military speakers such as Col. William R. Scott, professor of military science and tactics, performers such as the OSC Glee Club and the college orchestra, as well as vesper services to raise money and awareness for the activities of the Red Cross both overseas and domestically.^[xii] Multiple articles and advertisements in the Oregon State Barometer strongly urged studentsto do their part by donating at least a dollar, and the newspaper highlighted student organizations who raised or donated the most money with written recognition on the cover page of the issue.^[xiii] The week concluded with the Nickel Hops, which was a donation-based dance held in the Memorial Union of OSC and generated the largest collected donation made by any organization.^[xiv] The final tally of money collected by OSC was $1300, adjusted for inflation to be roughly $25,000 raised by student organizations on campus.^[xv]

Because the Special Collections & Archives Research Center, OSU’s official archive, does not have extensive documentation about the Red Cross during the war, the Oregon State Barometer,  the daily newspaper, is the best source of information about the ARC during WWII. This student-published newspaper, written and edited by students to document important events and issues on campus and off, provides first-hand insight into the issues of the day, especially regarding WW2. Multiple articles document the role of the Red Cross on campus, which suggests the importance that newspaper editors placed on students’ participation in the organization’s war-related services, as it was viewed as paramount to supporting the Americans overseas. This is especially relevant in the numerous advertisements that newspaper published to encourage donations of funds, blood, especially apparent throughout Red Cross Week editions.

The Barometer writers frequently published persuasive arguments to attempt to draw student volunteers to the organization, an example being the October 3, 1944 edition of the paper, where numerous first page articles describe the functions of the Red Cross during the week, including surgical bandage rolling, weekly meetings, and availability of blood donation for interested students.^[xvi] These newspaper articles illustrate the deeply intertwined nature of the functions of Oregon State College and the war effort, and how home front charity and volunteering opportunities were viewed by the public as an important mission to help the war effort. Furthermore, it showed the attempt at balancing traditional college life with the stress of an active war.

Numerous volunteer opportunities existed on Oregon State College’s (OSC) campus during World War II, with one of the largest contributors to the home front war effort being the Red Cross. Although the Red Cross did not establish an official chapter at OSC until after the war, the university and organization did work closely together during the war to offer several key training programs on campus, as seen in OSC’s offering instructional programs for students, including water safety courses and surgical dressing folding.^[xvii] The Red Cross also worked with OSC to expand the first aid courses students could take through the university to acquire Red Cross certification and learn first aid on real patients within a controlled environment. Beginning in the 1940-41 school year, students from any major or school at OSC could take PE 358 or PE 359 through the university to earn training in emergency medicine, which could be used for future work and volunteer opportunities through the Red Cross after graduation from OSC.^[xviii]

The presence of the Red Cross on OSC’s campus did not go unnoticed by the National Red Cross Organization, and due to ample student service to the charity throughout the war effort, the Red Cross granted Oregon State an official charter on October 4, 1945, thereby making OSC a recognized member of the National Red Cross community.^[xix] Continuing service to the organization, the newly created chapter continued to host services including blood donations, with thirty students a month donating blood to help soldiers in 1945.^[xx] Members also organized participation in more artistic ventures, including collecting donations of knitted afghan squares to make blankets for hospital wards, creating scrapbook collections, and giving overseas servicemen donations to remind them of home and maintain morale.^[xxi]

The American Red Cross played an integral role in the World War II home front effort by providing essential medical training and aid, administering disaster relief services, and organizing and promoting widespread volunteer and donation campaigns in communities throughout the United States. Oregon State College’s connection to the war effort demonstrates how universities were a key contributor to this effort, with students actively participating in Red Cross activities, raising funds, donating blood, and participating in training programs. Furthermore, the creation of official Red Cross chapters on college campuses during the war marked a formalization of student contributions to the larger national cause. The legacy of these efforts can be seen in the continued influence of the American Red Cross and its lasting relationship with academic institutions like Oregon State, which, to this day, hosts one of the largest blood drives in the Pacific Northwest, proving how local contributions have a documented impact on home front efforts during periods of national emergency.^[xxii]

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^[i] Foster Rhea Dulles, The American Red Cross: A History (Harper and Brothers, 1950): 15-16; Laszlo Ledermann, “The International Organization of the Red Cross and the League of Red Cross Societies,” The American Journal of International Law 42, no. 3 (1948): 637, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2193966.

^[ii] United States Fifty-Eighth Congress, “An Act to Incorporate the American Red Cross,” Office of the Law Revision Council, https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=33&page=599.

^[iii] “World War II and the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, 2025, https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-wwii.pdf.

^[iv] Thomas A. Guglielmo, “‘Red Cross, Double Cross’: Race and America’s World War II-Era Blood Donor Service,” The Journal of American History 97, no. 1 (2010): 63,  http://www.jstor.org/stable/40662818.

^[v] Rebecca L. Trecek, “War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross,” Graduate Review 3, no. 1 (2022): 25. https://openspaces.unk.edu/grad-review/vol3/iss1/2.

^[vi] Guglielmo, “‘Red Cross, Double Cross’: Race and America’s World War II-Era Blood Donor Service,” 63.

^[vii] Trecek, “War Relief in World War II: Women and the American Red Cross,” 27.

^[viii] “World War II and the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-wwii.pdf.

^[ix] “World War II and the American Red Cross.”

^[x] William Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University (Oregon State University Press, 2017), 280, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/osu/detail.action?docID=5106032,; “War Council,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon State University Yearbooks Collection, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 202.

^[xi] Robbins, The People’s School: A History of Oregon State University, 279; “Red Cross Unit Here? That is the Question.” Oregon State Barometer, April 21, 1944, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk49j?locale=en, 3.

^[xii] “Vesper Service Will Be Given in Men’s Gym,” Oregon State Barometer, February 21, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p705k;  “Curtain Rises on AWS Carnival Tonight,” Oregon State Barometer, February 20, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7049.

^[xiii] “Curtain Rises on AWS Carnival Tonight,” Oregon State Barometer, February 20, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p7049, 1.

^[xiv] The Beaver 1942, Oregon State University Yearbooks Collection, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/f7623d013, 110-113.

^[xv] “Red Cross Passes Goal,” Oregon State Barometer, February 28, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p710f, 1. 

^[xvi] ‘Bandage Work Starts Today,” Oregon State Barometer, October 3, 1944,Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk65x.

^[xvii] Annual meeting of Benton County chapter American Red Cross, 08 October 1945, 1987-061.0006, Myrl Haygood Collection, Benton County Historical Society Collection, Philomath, Oregon, https://bentoncountymuseum.catalogaccess.com/archives/125130, 8; “Red Cross Charter,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 205.

^[xviii] “General Catalog, 1945-1946,” 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx719v87r, 373.

^[xix] “Red Cross Mgr. Says College Unit Valuable,” Oregon State Barometer, October 6, 1944, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71nk666.

^[xx] “Red Cross Council,” The Beaver 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/12579s71x, 206-7.

^[xxi] “It’s Your Tomorrow at Oregon State,” 1945, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/fx71cs277, 13.

^[xxii] Oregon State University, “Blood Drive Association,” Clubs & Organizations, https://clubs.oregonstate.edu/bda.

During winter term 2025 Dr. Kara Ritzheimer’s History 310 (Historian’s Craft) students researched and wrote blog posts about OSU during WWII. The sources they consulted are listed at the end of each post. Students wrote on a variety of topics and we hope you appreciate their contributions as much as the staff at SCARC does!

Blog post written by Dylan Brady

Picture yourself and your family living your lives when, out of nowhere, you’re forced to leave that life behind. You and your family are moved into a camp with others families and people like you. The conditions are poor and constantly surveilled by armed soldiers and guards within and outside the camp. You don’t have to keep picturing that scenario any longer because all of that was real and experienced by thousands of Japanese Americans who were forcibly relocated by the U.S. government and military into internment camps in reaction to Imperial Japan’s attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. These orders impacted over 100,000 Japanese homeowners, businesses, athletes, and families, but plenty of college students living in these designated west coast military zones dealt with them as well, meaning they also had to leave behind their friends and their studies due to the forced evacuations. A true symbolization of Japanese treatment within these facilities is poem by Janet Matsuda who described her people’s journey as an “Upward Trail.”^[i] Within this environment of anti-Japanese sentiment, it is worthwhile to examine how Oregon State College administrators resisted the orders to the best of their ability, which helped give their students the best opportunity to continue their lives outside of internment camps compared to how the rest of the American public reacted. The OSC administration during this time was able to show resistance and determination to clarify questions asked by their students and help them escape being sent to the internment camps.

On April 2, 1942, acting president of Oregon State College, F.A. Gilfillan, sent a letter to all students of Japanese descent who were currently enrolled on campus. The letter itself contains questions that were sent from the office of the president to Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, commanding lieutenant general of the U.S. Army within the Western Defense Command, on March 27 concerning various proclamations that involved curfews and prohibited areas for those affected by EO9066; the letter also contains DeWitt’s answer to these questions.^[ii] This letter was also printed in the Oregon State Barometer, the daily student newspaper,on April 4, 1942, for the whole student body to see.^[iii]

The letter asked and answered questions that were an obvious reaction to President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and in reaction to that and rising tensions within the U.S., Roosevelt signed the EO on Feb 19, 1942, for reasons that included, “protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities.”^[iv] This order forcibly removed many Japanese Americans and forced them into so-called “relocation camps.” Many Japanese Americans were incarcerated until they were released or most of the camps themselves shut down in 1945. Over 100,000 people were affected and this included plenty of Japanese nationals and those of Japanese descent born in America; plenty of non-Japanese Asian Americans suffered as well.

A notice of civilian exclusion order no. 96 issued John L. Dewitt concerning all “alien” and “non-alien” people of Japanese ancestry and their relocation into military zone 1. Also concerns curfews and the consequences involved if reporting and curfews are not followed.^[v]

Despite the U.S. Government and DeWitt not mentioning any specific group, curfews were announced only for Japanese Americans which Gilfillan inquired within his letter to Japanese American students.^[vi] The west coast was split by the U.S. government into military zones and at first, DeWitt asked for voluntary evacuations until the president and Congress forced thousands into complying under the threat of imprisonment and fines in March 1942.^[vii] The May 26, 1942 issue of the Oregon State Barometer talked about how the U.S. Government issued civilian exclusion orders within 11 counties of Oregon and Washington, including Benton County (OSC’s county), and how students affected would be able to finish the term if they worked fast enough before the orders would kick in on June 1.^[viii]

            The reactions to this order were mixed; different groups offered plenty of diverse takes on the topic. Many different organizations and groups took to speaking their opinion whether it be to express their support or their disagreements with this act. For example, The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a group appointed by the U.S. Congress in 1980 that conducted a study into the internment of Japanese Americans, and Professor of American Ethnic Studies Tetsuden Kashima, state that West Coast groups like the California Farm Bureau Association and the Western Growers Protection Association demanded stern measures against the Japanese as they felt that this would lead to less economic competition between white and Japanese residents within the agricultural industry; this highlights the animosity that many held towards the those of Japanese descent living in America.^[ix]  Historian Roger Daniels says that Roger N. Baldwin (1884-1981), the head of the American Civil Liberties Union, responded in a letter stating that protestors had “a strong moral case” but “no legal case at all,” speaking about an upstart movement in Heart Mountain, Wyoming that resisted the orders made by the government.^[x] Protestant and Quaker groups provided some resistance, but nothing substantial enough.^[xi] Columnists in newspapers as well raised issues involving this forced evacuation like Ernest L. Lindsey of the Richmond Times-Dispatch of Richmond Virginia who argued that third-generation Japanese Americans were devoted to supporting the United States despite himself agreeing with the evacuations for military reasons.^[xii] This sentiment was commonplace even after the bombing of Pearl Harbor as some members of the public supported Japanese Americans who were native-born citizens and supported this country. It was unfair to lump them in with the actions of the Imperial Japanese and this belief was further highlighted within the lines of the Oregon State Barometer on December 9, 1941, in a column called “The Unfortunate.”^[xiii]

List of students of Japanese ancestry enrolled during the winter term 1942 which would’ve been when EO 9066 would be ordered.^[xiv]

            Gilfillan and the administration in comparison to the rest of the public offered some resistance. In his aforementioned letter to Japanese American students, he questioned the restrictions that the U.S. government had placed on the Japanese American population, which can be read as a form of pushback. Instead of blindly following such orders, the President asked clarifying questions of DeWitt and even pushed back and asked if students could continue until the current quarter in May or go to summer school.^[xv] The OSC administration seemed to have looked for any way to help those affected by the evacuation orders. The archives of the President’s Office of OSC in 1942 contained a proposal for the continued collegiate training of citizens of Japanese ancestry for their purpose involving the leadership of future generations of Japanese Americans. There would be an administration established for an educational program for these students being placed in the hands of a committee of a college/university representing them all.^[xvi]

A letter concerning a Hawaiian-born Japanese student enrolled on campus written by T.P. Cramer, Acting Executive Secretary, asking if he can return to his birthplace. He says he would be more equipped to work if he went back home instead of staying on the mainland where he knows little or nothing.^[xvii]

Several OSC administrators wanted to help their Japanese students to the best of their ability and that meant helping them travel to other colleges outside of the designated military zones despite the U.S. government’s travel restrictions and avoid the forced relocation onto camps. They asked clarifying questions. T.P. Cramer, Acting Executive Secretary of OSC, sent a telegram on May 20, 1942, to the Wartime Civil Control Administration. In it, he talked about two students of good standing and their possible transfer to the University of Utah; he questioned if they could receive travel permits.^[xviii] Another letter that highlighted this care for Japanese American students came in December 18, 1941, from Gilfillan to student Tom Arai where he emphasized with the experiences they’ve faced and will face due to the Pearl Harbor attacks; their loyalty to their college and to America was recognized and felt.^[xix]

            The responses among the upper faculty within the school highlights something empowering. The care and empathy shown towards their students serves in stark contrast to the responses shown towards Japanese Americans throughout the country and in reaction to the orders of forced evacuation by the government. The administration at OSC wanted to give these students a chance to escape life within these internment camps and somewhere safe at least towards the start of the forced evacuations. This display shows a unity within such a dark period of history showing that OSC treated these students not as enemies, but as fellow peers. Unfortunately, there isn’t much evidence showing that this will to help from OSC administration stayed consistent throughout the period of Japanese internment. It would be nice to think that it did, but there’s just their initial responses we can look at.

This response, unfortunately, wasn’t universal as the attack on Pearl Harbor unified the America against the Imperial Japanese and provided a rationale for denying civil rights to people that were never a danger to U.S. safety. The wave of American nationalism meant justifying the conditions and consequences thousands of Japanese Americans faced. So much was stacked against Japanese Americans at this time from the media, courts, public, and the government themselves. It serves to remind many that real people lived through these forced relocations with their lives forever changed afterward. This is something that still affects generations of Japanese Americans today and even though it may seem easy to think that these events are a thing of the past, the responses of the American public from the highest to lowest in power still ring true in our current world. It is an ugly stain on American history and displays the racism rooted in this country despite its national pride.

            Yet within that racism can lie a unity. While it is important to highlight moments of prejudice within our society, it is also important to recognize moments where people come together and stand up for their peers in the face of certain injustices. We need to see examples like that to exemplify and mimic that same behavior when we see others going through their own grievances.

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[i] Janet Matsuda, “The Upward Trail,” University of Arkansas Digital Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/Civilrights/id/1548

[ii] F.A. Gilfillan, “Official Letter to All Japanese Students,” April 2, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k98w.

[iii] “Japanese Students,” Oregon State Barometer, April 4, 1942, 2, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k71g

[iv] Franklin Roosevelt, “Executive Order 9066: Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas, February 19, 1942, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066.

[v] U.S. Army, “Civilian Exclusion Order No. 96, 1942,” 1942, Digital Public Library of America, http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1j49p9dz.

[vi] Gilfillan, “Official Letter to All Japanese Students.”

[vii] U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, “Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese Americans,” National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066.

[viii] “Japanese are Ordered From 11 Counties,” Oregon State Barometer, May 26, 1942, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k72r

[ix] Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians and Tetsuden Kashima, “Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians,” University of Washington Press, 1997, 69.

[x] Roger Daniels, “The Japanese American Cases, 1942-2004: A Social History,” Law and Contemporary Problems 68, no. 2 (Spring 2005), 163.

[xi] Ibid., 163.

[xii] Ernest L. Lindley, “On Capitol Hill,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 12, 1942, 11, https://www.newspapers.com/image/828036540

[xiii] “The Unfortunate,” Oregon State Barometer, December 9, 1941, 2, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/8k71p670p

[xiv] “List of Japanese Students – Winter Term 1942,” Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724m053.

[xv]Gilfillan, “Official Letter to All Japanese Students.”

[xvi] “Proposal for the Continued Collegiate Training of Citizens of Japanese Ancestry Forced by Evacuation Orders to Interrupt Studies,” Oregon Multicultural Archives, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k79p.

[xvii] T.P. Cramer, “Letter Regarding Student Travel to Hawaii,” April 14, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k89x.

[xviii] T.P. Cramer, “Telegram Regarding Student Transfer,” May 20, 1942, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724k81q.

[xix] F. A. Gilfillan, “Letter to the Japanese American Students,” December 18, 1941, sent in response to the December 11, 1941 loyalty letter, Oregon Digital, https://oregondigital.org/concern/documents/df724m08x#citations