The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945

In 1940 almost no Massachusetts senior named the armed forces as the plan for next year. By 1943 about one in six did. The change is plain in the plan line of the yearbook entry, and it appears in all four schools we can follow year by year: at Brockton High the share went from 2.8% in 1940 to 31.0% in 1944.

1.7% → 19.2%seniors with a plan who named the service, 1940 and 1944
2.8% → 31.0%Brockton High, 1940 and 1944
847military plans read, 1940–45
367of them named the Navy, the most of any branch

One line up, then a plateau

Line chart of the share of seniors naming military service, 1939 to 1945 — Share of seniors who printed a plan and named military service, all yearbooks that print plans.

Pooled across the yearbooks that print plans, the share stood at 2.6% in 1939 and 1.7% in 1940, then 4.9% in 1941 (the year of Pearl Harbor), 8.1% in 1942, 17.6% in 1943, 19.2% in 1944 and 17.8% in 1945. Each year rests on 577 to 1,328 plans from 6 to 7 yearbooks.

The same schools, year by year

Line chart of the share naming military service at four schools, 1940 to 1945 — The same four schools, class by class.

Pooled numbers can mislead when the schools change from year to year, so we followed four schools that appear in at least three of the war years. All four rise, and they peak in 1943 or 1944: Brockton from 2.8% to 31.0%; New Bedford from 2.2% (1940) to 21.8% (1943); Boston Latin from 0.0% (1940) to 15.8% (1944); Springfield Central from 0.6% (1941) to 14.2% (1945). Boston Latin, a boys’ school, started at zero; the others are coeducational.

Which service

Bar chart of military branches named by seniors, 1940 to 1945 — Branch named in the plan line, 1940–45.

Of the 847 military plans, 367 named the Navy, 150 the Army air arm (Air Corps, aviation cadet or similar), 106 the Army, 94 the Marines and 30 the Coast Guard; 99 wrote only “armed forces” or “service”. In 1944 and 1945 the nursing column carries the war as well: 41 seniors in 1944 and 26 in 1945 named the Cadet Nurse Corps.

War work in the activity lists

Where a yearbook lists activities, the war shows up there too, but the Red Cross was already a school activity before the war and stays steady. Among the 1,772 seniors in 1944 whose books list activities (10 books), 32 list the Victory Corps, 24 war bonds or stamps and 30 scrap, salvage or rationing work; in 1945, 32 list the Victory Corps. In the 1941 books, apart from the Red Cross, none of these appears. The Victory Corps first appears in the 1943 books (7 seniors).

How we counted

Same cohort and plan filter as the plans story: yearbooks that print a plan for at least 30% of 40 or more seniors. The percentage is military plans divided by seniors who printed a plan, per school and year. A “military plan” names the Navy, Army, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Corps, armed forces or a service academy.

The school panels use schools with at least 80 sortable plans in each plotted year. Activity lines are matched by keyword (“Victory Corps”, “war bond”, “scrap”, “air raid” and similar) among seniors whose book lists activities. A plan is what the yearbook printed before graduation, not what the senior did afterwards.

The script is work/stories/s02_war.py.

The scans belong to the libraries that digitised them; each person page links back to its scan. Corrections and removal requests: hello@theclassalbum.com or /rights.

Class pages: Brockton High, New Bedford High, Boston Latin, Springfield Central.

Use these charts

Reporters, librarians, teachers and society newsletters are welcome to use the charts on this page with a link back. Copy the snippet under the chart you want; it carries the credit. Every number can be recomputed from the archive’s data (see “How we counted”), and a reporter who wants a different cut, such as one school or one class year, can ask at hello@theclassalbum.com.

military-plans-by-year.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/military-plans-by-year.png" alt="Share naming military service, 1939-1945" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/">The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945</a></p>

military-plans-by-school.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/military-plans-by-school.png" alt="The same four schools year by year" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/">The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945</a></p>

branches.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/branches.png" alt="Branches named" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/war-in-the-senior-class-1939-1945/">The war in the senior class: Massachusetts seniors who named the service, 1939-1945</a></p>