William B. Richard World War II letters

Overview

During February 12 and November 2, 1945, Corporal (later Sergeant) William B. Richard wrote a collection of 15 letters to his mother, Mrs. Sarah Richard in Akron, Ohio. This object was made when he was stationed in Tezgaon, Dhaka in then-British India, in the China-Burma-India theatre of World War II. World War II was a global conflict that occurred during 1939 till 1945. The main countries involved were Germany, France, England, Russia and later on, the US. The US involvement was crucial to the victory of the allies. As seen from the one soldier, the US army was deployed worldwide even to India.

Ownership

The letters made by William B. Richard were purchased from Kurt Kitasaki, 2010. It was purchased from Kurt Kitasaki by the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, making the publisher now the University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. There is no evidence of the object being copyrighted or licensed.

Physical Analysis

Substrate

The letter are composed of combination of different material however the most prominent is wood pulp based paper. This is due to the paper having a light tan color and a very thin and fragile feel. This is most likely all that was available at the time. There were consistently only 3 sheets of paper. This limit can be explained with the wood pump shortage that occurred beginning in 1943 because of labor shortages in the US and Canada. Wood pulp supply fell from 12 million tons in 1942 to 11 million tons in 1943. Rationing controls on wood pulp began in late 1943 and lasted until 1945. https://albionalumni.org/chevrons/ww2/oth/w2pap.html https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/SCB/pages/1940-1944/3409_1940-1944.pdf