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TITLE War Gum: "Chinese Schoolgirls Enlist for War Service" DESCRIPTION War Gum: "Chinese Schoolgirls Enlist for War Service" (No. 86) Text on reverse of card: "By the middle part of February, 1938, over 20,000 schoolgirls of 15 or over had enlisted for voluntary service in the Chinese army. The girls are treated with the same strictness as if they were boys, wear the regulation uniform, and are trained to use small and heavy arms. The picture shows them during exercises at their concentration camp in Honan Province. Under the watchful eyes of stern army officers they are taught the correct way of bringing the wounded to a field station, how to pick up a fallen soldier from the field of battle. The students in the background are receiving instruction in the manual of arms. After the girls complete their period of training their main work is to help refugees during evacuations, first aid, and similar special duties. New contingents of these well-trained young women are being graduated and placed in active service each ensuing month, given trench helmets, gas masks. To know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE. This is one of a series of 240 True Stories of Modern Warfare. Save to get them all. Copyright 1938, Gum, Inc., Phila., Pa." CONTEXT "Bubble-gum cards emerged from their wrappers, smelling of powdered sugar, in comic-book colors with armies and soldiers, tanks and planes, blood and gore...There was a message on each to justify their acquisition to the parents who provided the pennies: "To know the HORRORS OF WAR is to want PEACE." We kids hardly noticed.... A curious, comic-book war survives on the cards, the dream visions of gum-company copywriters. Whether the scenes were gruesome or glorious, the colors were always as bright as the outlook for victory. The enemy was always vicious and often cowardly, while our side was always brave and fought like heroes." Stanley Weintraub, "The Bubble Gum Wars," in MHQ CREDIT Gum, Inc. Courtesy of Carl Sheeley DATE 1938 |
