1940: The World According to 17 Eighth-Graders

In 1940 the 17 eighth-grade pupils of the Malaga Cove Intermediate School, Palos Verdes Estates, wrote a letter about their times to be read by the eighth-grade class of 1965.

The Class of 1965 in turn wrote a letter for the Class of 1990, and that class is now preparing one to be read by the Class of 2015.

On Tuesday, several members of the classes of 1940 and 1965 will meet at the school with the current class to talk about past, present and future.

Meanwhile, Carl L. Lane, the principal, has sent me the letters written in 1940 and 1965, and I will attempt, first, to summarize the world of 1940 as it was seen by the members of that class.

Life on the peninsula in 1940 was uncrowded, comfortable, slow-paced--on the surface, idyllic. “We all have very beautiful homes which are mostly Mediterranean or ranch-type architecture, and are furnished accordingly. . . . But in many of the homes in the Point Vicente area, where there is still no electricity, the Japanese farmers used old-fashioned stoves, kerosene lamps, and battery-run radios.” Five of the signatures were Japanese names. (They evidently were destined to spend the war years in internment camps.)

The school was on nine acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, only a block from the ocean. It was near the pretty town plaza with its Italian fountain at the center. There were only 270 houses in the year-old city, and 1,000 people.

The closest movie theater was in Redondo Beach. There was only one television set in town, at La Venta Inn. Each home had one or two radio sets. “On the other hand,” the letter said, “we read more books.”

Among their favorite books: “Tom Sawyer,” “Treasure Island,” “Huckleberry Finn,” “Pinocchio,” “Bambi,” “Two Years Before the Mast,” “The Mysterious Island” and “Northwest Passage.”

Riding and swimming were favorite sports. None of the pupils owned horses, but they could rent them. “The boys belong to the Boy Scouts and the girls to the Campfire Girls.”

The pupils were grateful for their freedom and conscious of the tyranny in Europe and Asia. “Here, we feel safe, and, though we do not know the horrors of war, we can imagine enough to make us want our country to keep away and out of the conflict as long as possible. . . . Our sympathies are with England and France, but we haven’t entered the war, and nothing has happened yet that makes it necessary for us to make that move.” (Pearl Harbor was 18 months away.)

They were concerned by unemployment (10 million), the school dropout rate, poverty (President Roosevelt had said one-third of the nation was “ill-housed, ill-fed, and ill-clothed”), and crime, on which the nation spent more than on education. “We feel that criminals are made, not born, and that if children could have the right homes, and education, and a fair chance in life, many of this nation’s problems could be solved.”

They were concerned about the waste of resources and destruction of the environment. They were excited by the dawning of the technological revolution, which had already brought such promising synthetics as nylon, Bakelite and cellophane; “streamlined” railroad trains that could travel 100 m.p.h; and airplanes that could carry 30 passengers at 200 m.p.h. Air travel was becoming fast, convenient and safe.

President Roosevelt was about to run for an unprecedented third term, and many of the class were for him: “With the war as menacing as it is, (he) should remain in office.”

Though the letter seems rather too well-informed and sophisticated, and the writing too error-free to be entirely the work of eighth-graders, keep in mind that the class had “spent much time this year upon the study of English grammar,” and in social studies had read not only text books but also “newspapers, magazines and reference books, and listened to radio broadcasts.”

In closing, they said to the Class of 1965: “When you read this most of us will be about 38 years old. . . . We, a class of eighth-graders, have tried as well as we could to make the acquaintance of a class of boys and girls who have not yet been born. To you we make a promise--that we will try to leave this a happier world for our having lived.”

Thursday: The Class of 1965’s letter to the class of 1990.