Wrapping up the 2023 #AtoZChallenge
Here’s my 2023 winner badge!
This is the first year that I prescheduled every single post before April 1. Getting that done required starting this project in February, so I’m putting that into my plans for 2024.
Naturally, that led to this being the year the I left the most comments on the largest number of blogs that participated in the A-to-Z Challenge. Congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge!
In the midst of all that, I skipped a couple of Sunday Salon posts. I’m remedying that today with a full annotated list of my A-to-Z posts so that you can hop into any that seem particularly interesting.
My theme for the A to Z Challenge was 1943 Washington D.C., the setting of the novel that I’m writing.
A is for Marian Anderson, about the time that she finally did sing in Constitution Hall.
B is for Irving Berlin, about his WWII show, This is the Army.
C is for Christmas, featuring some of the activities around town for government workers and service personnel celebrating the holiday far from home.
D is for Defense Parade, including photos of spectators and marchers taken by Esther Bubley at the beginning of her career.
E is for Easter, a solemn holiday marked by food shortages.
A flower stand for Easter photographed by John Collier, Jr. in Washington DC in April 1943. From the Library of Congress.
F is for Father’s Day, about a contest for “Ideal Father” run by the Washington Post.
G is for G.I. Bill, drafted in a hotel room in late 1943.
H is for Halloween, when we learned how to have your Jack-o-Lantern and eat it, too (that is, if you could get a pumpkin, at all).
I is for Independence Day, a Fourth of July without fireworks, but with other patriotic entertainment possibilities.
J is for Jefferson Memorial, dedicated on Thomas Jefferson’s 200th birthday, April 13, 1943.
K is for Sister Mary Aquinas Kinskey, the real Flying Nun.
Sister Mary Aquinas Kinskey at the Washington National Airport. June, 1943.
L is for Libraries, about activities at Central Public Library and various branch libraries in 1943, including air raid tests.
M is for Pauli Murray, who led restaurant sit-ins to demand racial integration two decades before the ones we learned about in history class.
N is for New Year’s Eve, with the conundrum of how to celebrate when you were expected to report to work the next day, even though it was both Saturday and New Year’s Day.
O is for Opening Day, when the Washington Nationals won against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics.
P is for the Pentagon, the world’s largest low-rise office building, dedicated on January 15, 1943.
Pentagon across the Potomac. From the Library of Congress.
Q is for Quiz Show, about a radio program that pitted government workers from different departments against each other.
R is for Eleanor Roosevelt at Arlington Farms, about the First Lady’s two 1943 visits to the dormitory housing for women government workers.
S is for Signal, about the history of the Army Signal Corps and the subdivision that handled codebreaking in 1943.
T is for Thursday night shopping, to accommodate government workers needs.
U is for U.S. Congress, about one of the most dramatic events at the Capitol in 1943 — a speech by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
V is for V-Mail, a method for conveying messages to and from service members that was cheaper and more efficient than traditional mail.
W is for “We Will Never Die”, a pageant that illuminated the Holocaust for dignitaries in Washington D.C.
X is for Xylophone, which was a word used precisely three times in the Washington Post in 1943.
Y is for Yard, the nickname for the Washington Navy Yard where hundreds of women, including black women, worked in industrial jobs.
Z is for Zoo Keeper, about the retirement of 87-year-old William H. Blackburne after serving as head zoo keeper at the Washington Zoo for over 50 years.
“William H. Blackburne, the first head keeper at the National Zoological Park, is bottle feeding a young dromedary (Bactrian) camel on the grounds of the National Zoo.” From the Smithsonian Institution.