NH Humanities Lecture at Portsmouth Public Library

Description

Portsmouth Submarine Memorial Association (PSMA) and Albacore Park Museum, 600 Market Street, a National Historic Landmark Site in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is pleased to present a lecture at the Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrot Avenue, Portsmouth, NH.

Saturday, May 18: Sponsored by New Hampshire Humanities to Go program, Calvin Knickerbocker will present, “Motivating the WWII Home Front via Magazine and Radio Advertising.”   Magazine ads and radio commercials aimed at the home front were used extensively during WWII to explain shortages, encourage support of wartime restrictions, increase bond sales, request recycling of strategic materials, boost morale, and suggest ways to support our troops. Calvin Knickerbocker uses over 50 period magazine ads and radio commercials to illustrate the concerted effort by which the U.S. government fostered these aims. Never before or since has the United States used the media so effectively to support a wartime effort. Executive Director Patricia Violette said, “We have grown tremendously since this time period in our efforts to increase technological communications.  Imagine if we had had Facebook and Twitter during that time period!”

Calvin Knickerbocker is an independent scholar with a degree in electrical engineering from Union College and thirty years’ experience in marketing and education at IBM. He developed and delivered a dozen courses on American musical history for Rivier Institute for Senior Education (RISE) and has presented in retirement communities, senior centers and other venues in New Hampshire and New York. He has taught over 20 different courses to senior citizens at Rivier University since 1999 and given Humanities To Go presentations since 2004.

This lecture is free for all and will take place at 2:00 PM at the Portsmouth Public Library.  Light refreshments will be served following each lecture.