Judy Barrett Litoff (1944-2022), Bryant University Emeritus Professor and world renowned expert on letter writing during World War II, authored the book, Bryant College Goes to War published by the Douglas and Judith Krupp Library. The updated 2018 edition of this title can be viewed online here.

This fascinating, extensively-illustrated book tells the remarkable story of the leadership role assumed by Bryant students during World War II as they ingeniously embraced many of the salient issues facing colleges and universities across the nation.

On March 27, 1942, the Bryant Service Club was founded as “an organization of Bryant men and women for Bryant men and women in the service.” Its purpose was to send morale-boosting “packages of cigarettes, candy, cookies, letters, [and] knitted articles” to Bryant alumni in the military. Drawing upon excellent organizational and business skills as well as ingenuity and enterprise, the Club united the student body as never before.

By the end of the war more than 500 Bryant women and men in uniform had received letters and packages from the Club. In response, about 450 of these alumni, along with their families, wrote more than 1300 letters of thanks to the Club.

These letters, many of which are reproduced in this book, tell the captivating story of Bryant women and men in the service. We learn of the new opportunities and challenges experienced by Bryant alumni who were stationed stateside as well as those who served at “far-flung fronts” in every major theater of the war. The letters carefully detail combat and noncombat experiences, casualties and the atrocities of war, planning for the postwar world, and the record number of veterans who enrolled at Bryant at the conclusion of hostilities.