Books on the Home Front

North Carolina Libraries as Democratic Infrastructure in Wartime

Abstract

“In our country’s first year of war, we have seen the growing power of books as weapons” (Roosevelt, 1942, as cited in North Carolina Libraries, 1943, p. 1). In the same message, Roosevelt frames wartime reading not as ornament or escape, but as a practical necessity in a “war of ideas.” North Carolina’s library record from the World War II years makes that claim tangible. Here, libraries were not merely symbols of morale, they were working systems that moved information, extended access, coordinated civic participation, and preserved evidence for the future.