I once had a library research project for a course in zoology that required me to look through the old copies of the Norman Transcript from about 1915 to about 1960. They actually kept old copies of the newspaper in the basement, and you could look at every newspaper that they had ever published. My project required that I look at the garden page to search for information on insect infestation of plants.
For the most part, this was a rather routine activity. There were infestations, and they tended to be cyclical. But, what I found most fascinating was the change in the newspaper during World War II.
Every day, the headline had something to do with the war. You could watch the lines of where American troops were in the European and Pacific Theaters. You could watch the snail's pace with which we began slowly to push Germany and Japan back. You could watch Russia coming through from the East. From day to day, there was hardly any movement.
Then, there was the rest of the newspaper. On others pages, there were announcements of which club was having which quilting bee to make blankets and quilts to send to the soldiers. You could see the steel and aluminum drives and where you were to take the various metals for redistribution. Every activity of every civic group seemed to have something to do with the war, getting supplies to the troops.
There were daily reminders of what was being rationed and why. There were pleas to conserve on other items because the troops needed them. The sports page wasn't quite as active as it had been, and the focus was on the war, not on sports. The comic strips all ended with one picture that had Sad Sack or Mickey Mouse or whoever was the focus of the strip saying "Buy War Bonds." Everything was about the war.
It seemed like it took forever. Things began to move faster after D-Day because we were now established in Northern Europe. We had been in south France and Italy before. But, the Alps pretty much meant that you needed to land on the beach to enter Germany/France.
It was probably about a year after the war before things began to get back to normal. During the war, everyone had forgotten what to do when they weren't working together to help in the war effort.
It hasn't been that way since for other wars.
