See You Next Year! High School Yearbooks from WWII
“To those who have left us, to those who will leave us, to the students of today, and the soldiers of tomorrow.”
The totality of WWII is evident in the 1943 Pathfinder & Blackhawk yearbook from Burlington High School in Burlington, IA. On almost every page there are martial and patriotic images. Even further, administration, faculty and student officers are reclassified using military terminology such as ‘The General Staff’ and ‘The OPA.’ In the yearbook’s pages too you find that even the familiar Senior, Junior, Sophomore and Freshman designations have been replaced with military ranks (Seniors reign as ‘The Commanding Officers’ while Freshman rank as the lowly ‘Privates.’). If you were to organize your school’s yearbook using a major event or a single theme, what would it be and why?
From the Collection of The National WWII Museum
