Ordinary Yet Emblematic: The Transnational Correspondence Between an American GI and His Sweetheart during the Korean War

Abstract

Operating on the core premise of microhistory, that the lives of ordinary people are endowed with explanatory power for a specific period or event in history, this article is an analysis of the wartime letters from the 1950s, written by an American serviceman and his girlfriend, later wife, during the Korean War. The author addresses methodological implications regarding the unique characteristics that personal letters have on their utilization as primary source material in historical and biographical writing. Also included are reflections on the author’s close familial relationship to the historical subjects and how this impacts the overall objectivity of the article. An analysis of the letters demonstrates how the couple developed various techniques to mitigate the effects of distance, and how they coped with the pervasive sense of uncertainty and fear that consumed Cold War America. This study broadly contributes to the existing life writing literature by demonstrating how a life writing approach, when applied to a particular moment in history, can be utilized in historical study to tell a previously untold part of that particular moment.