Bolton High School

“This is our record of the school we love and classes we enjoyed and friends we made and fun we had. Yes, this is our Bruin of 1944.”

While the mission statements of many extra-curricular groups and high school clubs from 70 years ago appear as immediately evident and relatively unchanged from their incarnations in the present-day, some groups such as the Grease Club and the Scrap Paper Club have no modern-day equivalents and require understanding of WWII’s deep effects on the Home Front to fully grasp their purposes. Both the Grease Club and Scrap Paper Club featured in the 1944 Bolton High School Bruin yearbook from Alexandria, Louisiana show young people doing ‘everything it takes…for Bolton to do her part in the war.’ Though most likely not the first two items that come to mind when one thinks of vital war materials, the collection of both scrap paper and waste fats from grease were given high priority throughout the war: massive amounts of paper being consumed by the logistics of the war while waste fats could be rendered to retrieve their hidden explosive potential and used to make ammunition, shells and bombs. In what other organizations or clubs in this yearbook can you perceive the War’s influence?