dream was impossible under those circumstances she did everything that she could to eventually get to college and she ended up succeeding in that. i think a lot of men saw this example and as they face the war and as they face possible death than they felt they were facing tremendous odds against them they saw the example of his young girl in this book and they were inspired. betty smith ended up receiving over 10,000 letters just from members of the services and she was good enough to write back to most of those men. the book was compared to reading a good letter from home or even taking a leave home because the men felt they were transported back to their childhoods. but what's really amazing about this book is that many men wrote to betty smith and they told her how the book actually help them survive the war mentally and emotionally. there is one group of letters that really stand out for me and

they are from one man. his first letter he wrote to her how it seemed like his unit kept facing missions that were just suicide missions. seemed like none of them should survive and he would be in the middle of a battle and he would just feel like this is it. this is going to be the end of may. and then there is something about this book that popped into his head and he would think about this young girl in the odds that faced and somehow he would find courage and he would fight and he would survive. the first letter that he wrote to betty smith was admiration just wanted to thank her. he said you helped inspire me during some of our most trying battles and battle fatigue and depression. then he went into battle again and he again thought about his three girls in brooklyn are brought to betty smith to say once again you have saved me. a few months later his final letter arrived.

he told betty smith that he had gone to battle again. this time he had gotten wounded and the wound was so bad he was going to be discharged by the wanted to tell her one more time what that book meant to her, what that book meant to him. and he said he and his wife are planning to start a family when he got home. they were going to name their child betty smith who was a girl girl. in honor of the woman who caused them to live in so between 1943 in 1947 over 123 million of these armed services editions were distributed. when the war ended and the program ended it's a fact did not end. there are two main things that you can still feel today that were repercussions from the productions of these books. first of all the american paperback industry exploded. publisher saw that there was this whole segment of the

population who would never buy a hardcover book but they realize they would buy paperbacks. hardcover books were too expensive for most people to afford at a 25-cent paperback would reach a whole different part of the population who wanted to read. so in 1939 only 200,000 paperbacks are printed. by 194795000000 were printed and in 1952, 250 million were printed and in 1959 for the first time ever in america more paperbacks were printed in hard covers. so i think they can found they got the message that they could make it profit off of paperbacks. and the second thing that impacted people on a more individual level with the g.i. bill. the average soldier in world war ii did not read books before they joined the war. in fact there was one man who went to west point who insisted that the only reason he would ever go to libraries because he

had a direct order to do so. but college was too expensive for most people. you had to be very wealthy if you were going to go to college but with the g.i. bill suddenly everyone was honorably discharged had an opportunity to go to college for free on the government's dime. so college was all of a sudden a possibility but simultaneously these men had started reading books while they were at war and they realize they actually enjoy doing something as scholarly as reading. and so when this opportunity opened up for them to go back to school and earn a college education they decided to take advantage of that. under the g.i. bill over 2 million people got an education. many of them were the first member of their family to get a college education and succeeding generations continued continue this tradition of going to college. and so i think these books really change the way we are his readers in the united states and

also change the way we were educated. for many people they learned that they could read shakespeare and dickens and in a foxhole they could read classics and nonfiction swinging from a hammock at the bottom of a ship. they could succeed at college and succeed at life. so that is my presentation. i would be -- happy to take any questions if anybody would like to ask one. [applause] >> are these books available anyplace like e-bay or are they in gorod sales? >> just to make sure everyone heard are the book still available today? the answer is yes.

what happened is the idea was they were supposed to all stay overseas by what happens most people brought it took her to home with them because the ship ride home was going to take at least two weeks and was going to be the warning. they weren't going to be doing any kind of military maneuvers or anything once the war was over and so they brought out some of them and then they kept them as mementos. some people loved the book so much they were desperate to make sure they had access to armed services editions after the war that they took a whole group of hooks and mail them home so the books would be waiting for them when they got home. you can find them on line. you can find them sometimes on e-bay and other web sites. i personally have looked for them at flea markets and i have had luck sometimes. my experience is that some of the titles that are a little less popular can be as cheap as a dollar and then once like a

tree grows in brooklyn where "the great gatsby" tend to go for much higher prices. any other questions? >> were there any titles that it been proposed but then were decided were not appropriate? >> there was a bit of a censorship debacle with congress actually. senator taft of ohio who was republican in 1944 was worried that fdr might win a fourth term and he was also worried that the democratic led government would send political propaganda to the 60 million people in the services in that were surely enough to swing the election. so legislation ended up being

passed that said any type of reading material that had some kind of political viewpoint was prohibited. you could not be sent if it was purchased by the government so of course all of the armed services editions are reading material purchased by the government for distribution to the troops. all of a sudden all of these books that were wonderful histories and other types of books could not be printed as armed services editions because if he violated the law you could be fined a thousand dollars or imprisoned for a year or both. .. department that knew how to get press releases out there and had major newspapers and radio stations talk about how it was