Gerald Schackman B-17 Fundraising Collection

Collection — Folder: 1

Identifier: 1985-07-08-C

Content Description

The Gerald Schackman B-17 Fundraising Collection consists of one black-and-white photo of B-17F "Spirit of Woodside/Sunnyside" and a copy of the newspaper Woodside Herald for Feb. 26, 1943 that has an article about the Woodside/Sunnyside Bomber Fundraising campaign. This photograph and article are examples of media produced for fundraising for planes that never actually existed. The photographed had been doctored to look like a plane was named for the town, but in fact no plane had actually been named for it.

Printed caption on the back of the photograph reads: "This is the Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress, latest model of this famous high-altitude daylight precision bomber which is operating in war theatres throughout the world. The Boeing Flying Fortress has four engines and a wing span of approximately 104 feet. It has a top speed well in excess of 300 miles an hour, carries a bomb load up to ten tons, has a service ceiling considerably above 35,000 feet, is heavily armed and is capable of operating over a long range. The Flying Fortress was designed and developed by the Boeing Aircraft Company, with plants located in Seattle and Renton, Wash., Wichita, Kans., and Vancouver, B.C."

Newspaper items include: Woodside Herald of Long Island City, New York, Feb. 26, 1943, Vol. XVII, No. 17, pages 1-8; newspaper clipping, presumably from Woodside Herald, of article "Bond Drive to Finance 30 Flying Fortresses."

Dates

Creation: 1943

Language of Materials

All materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research and is accessible in the Dahlberg Research Center by appointment. For more information contact us.

Conditions Governing Use

The Museum of Flight (TMOF) Archives is the owner of the physical materials in the archives and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from TMOF archives before any publication use. TMOF does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners. Consult repository for more details.

Historical Note: Buy-a-Bomber Campagin

The U.S. government needed to raise money to pay for all the planes the military needed to fight in World War II. They raised money with war bonds. One way that they drummed up enthusiasm for war bonds was with the “Buy-a-Bomber” campaign where if a group of people, whether from a town or a school or an organization, could raise $300,000 they could have a bomber named for them. For the first few successful fundraising campaigns, planes were actually named for the towns and there were naming ceremonies and fully publicity efforts, but this grew to be too time consuming, so later on towns and organizations would just be sent photographss of "their" planes. In reality, the photographs were doctored to look real but no planes were being named for the towns. Boeing Photo Group would produce photos of planes that never actually existed in the dark room using a set of pre-existing photos and changing the name on the pictured plane using a stencil. The photo was then sent to the fund raising group and more often than not the photo of "their" plane would then run in the local newspaper. Boeing archives has a stencil set from NAA in their collection.