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Project funding

This project was funded in part by a grant from Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Our thanks

The Fine Arts Center would like to thank the following local business sponsors for their generous support: Robert J. Young Co., Fuji Color Processing, Inc.; The Tullahoma News, Stan McNabb Chevrolet-Olds-Cadillac, Inc.; Mickey Miller – Middle Tennessee Cleaning Specialists, Weaver’s Art and Frame Shop of Winchester, Snowhite Dry Cleaning and Laundry, Charter Communications, Kroger Co.

Special thanks also to: Penelope Lane, Melissa Davis, Robert Cheatham, Randy Houser, J.J. Johnson, Dudley Cockrum, Warren Broemel, Ginger Delius, Patricia Thompson, Jack Jennings, the Historic Preservation Society of Tullahoma, Tommy Allen, Randall Brooksbank, Steve Bennett, Ashley Bennett, Amy Bennett, Barbara Miller, Val Jean Wagner, and Ted and Janis Helms.

The Tullahoma Fine Arts Center would like to express special gratitude to Mrs. Mary Searcy Couch Hopkins and Mrs. Peggy Burton for their tireless assistance and enthusiasm for this project.

Sacrifice and Prosperity:

The Tullahoma Experience During World War II

Lucy Hollis: Executive Director
Tammy Miller: Project Director
Russel Mobley: Graphic Consultant
Dr. Michael Bradley: Academic Advisor

A generation goes to war

World War II began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. By June 1940, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and France had surrendered to Germany and its dictator, Adolf Hitler. Only England and the United Kingdom stood against Hitler’s Germany and Italy. Italy and Japan had joined the war on the side of Germany in 1940 forming the Axis powers. Time Table

Through the fall and winter of 1940, England suffered nightly air raids known as the Blitz, forcing many British citizens, especially its children, away from British cities. In the ensuing months, the war spread to Greece and Northern Africa. In 1941, Hitler reneged on a non-aggression pact signed with Joseph Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. All of Europe was now at war. In March 1941, the United States Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act permitting Roosevelt to lend or lease raw materials, equipment and weapons to any nation fighting the Axis. Roosevelt urged America to become the “arsenal of democracy.”

Image: Moving Hurricane Hall on Atlantic Street in Tullahoma.

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