“Uncle Sam Wants You to Be Fit”: Fitness, Civilian Defense, and War Work on the American Homefront, 1941–45

This paper explores the relationship between physical fitness, health, and civilian defense during World War II. Building on the work of U.S. physical educators in the 1920s and 1930s who argued physical fitness was a key component of good citizenship, government officials in the late 1930s began exploring avenues for establishing a national fitness program similar to those in European countries. In September 1941 the federal government established a physical fitness and training initiative within the Office of Civilian Defense. The program was sprawling and established fitness councils in every US state with the goal of helping Americans “develop an increased interest...in their health and physical condition.” While the fitness and health of male bodies who might be called upon in the draft was certainly a concern, so was the fitness of female bodies.

Scholarly conversations about the connection between civil defense, citizenship, and physical fitness are most often discussed in relation to the Cold War era’s Presidential Fitness Council. However, this council was not the government’s first foray into encouraging the development of a fit citizenry and this paper will explore the origins of the Presidential Council on Physical Fitness and its ties to civilian defense and national security. Using archival sources from the wartime program both at the federal level and in New York as well as records from Eleanor Roosevelt and Fiorello La Guardia’s archives, this paper will discuss how officials framed the fitness of female bodies as essential to civilian defense, especially in relation to war work where women’s bodies were viewed as deficient and in need of support.