World War II brought massive change to the University of Illinois. As thousands of male students were drafted, enrollment declined precipitously, and the men-women ratio on campus changed almost overnight from 3-1 to 1-4. In what was perhaps their biggest challenge, the administrators had to make room for thousands of Army and Navy men dispatched to the University for specialized training. When the veterans flocked back to the campus after the war, they found a University that had survived the crisis and that had begun to gear up for a new world offering higher education to more and more people.
Barbara Venton Gilbreath Montgomery (1925-2017) attended the University of Illinois in the later portion of World War II, starting in 1943. In this interview she describes her experience dating an army serviceman who was training in the Armory and her experience serving as a junior editor of the Daily Illini within her first few weeks as a Freshman, due to staffing shortages from the war.
Bette Jean Nance Terry (1922-2016) enrolled at U of I in 1940 and became a member of the Alpha Chi Omega fraternity. In the interview Terry recounts her work as a reporter for the Daily Illini and the changes that took place on campus when many of the young men left school for the war, including her recollections of the only woman to assume the role of Chief Illiniwek, Idelle Stith.
Daniel Perrino (1921-2012) began his studies at the U of I in 1940. He was active in ROTC and in a band. Daniel was at the Virginia Theater when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Along with a group of friends, Daniel talked with the President of the University about the event. He became more involved with ROTC, and eventually served the military in Japan.
Dena Julia Polacheck Epstein (1916-2013) was a graduate student in the library school during the late 1930s. Epstein remembers working in the library and doing research on the music publishing industry in mid-19th century Chicago. She also describes her marriage to a fellow student, Morton Epstein, which took place just before he left school to join the war effort.
George Reynolds (1918-2014) enlisted in U.S. Army in 1942 and in 1943 was sent to the University of Illinois for instruction in the Army Specialized Training Program in the French language to aid the post-war government of France. He discusses his experiences at the University and his separation from the general student body because of the demands of his intensive training.
Jean Hurt Maury (1924-2011) came to Illinois in 1942 and worked for the Daily Illini as an editor during the war when it briefly had an all-female managing staff. She witnessed the tremendous involvement of the military on campus, became involved in the women's ROTC and recalled the reaction FDR's death in 1945 near the end of the war.
Joe Kraus (1917-2010) came to the UI Library School in fall of 1938, but his education was suspended after Pearl Harbor in late 1941. After being drafted, he served as a teacher in the Officer Candidate School and as a director of technical libraries on Army bases during the war before eventually returning to get a PhD in Library Science during the 1950s.
Katie Harper Wright came to the University of Illinois at age 16 and enrolled in the school of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS). She experienced formal segregation at the university and was forced to live off-campus in Champaign. She also recounts her memories of Pearl Harbor and her friendship with the group of black air force pilots later known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
