"We All Pitched In: There Was a War On!"
Click to enter the exhibit.
On March 1, the Sumter County Museum opened their newest exhibit: "We All Pitched In: There Was a War On." This exhibit, which runs from March 1, 2002 until March 1, 2004, tells the story of the American people during World War II - people who knew that they had to do "something" or face certain defeat.

Focusing on how the war affected both the United States and the Sumter area, artifacts on display include uniforms from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps; photographs of Shaw Field, items used for Civil Defense, home front propaganda posters, and materials from Sumter's Carolina Industries. "We All Pitched In" also includes period music and oral interviews with local residents about their experiences during the war.
The people whose stories form "We All Pitched In" never considered themselves "heroes." They believed that they did the only thing they could do - for to do nothing was impossible. Their country needed them to fight at home through increased industrial production, through financing the war effort by purchasing war bonds, and through strict rationing of all materials that troops needed at the front. Their country needed them to fight overseas in the Pacific, in North Africa, in Europe, and in the North Atlantic. Their country called on them to put their lives on hold until the Allied Forces freed the world from the spectre of German and Italian Fascism and Japanese Imperialism.