Ryan Chartrand
While many young Americans were sent overseas to fight in World War II, Cal Poly did its best to help in the wartime effort.
From 1940 to 1943, the university began emergency training programs in industrial arts for special war-related jobs for both men and women.
Meanwhile, the Polytechnic Californian published updates of the war very frequently. Even advertisements were geared toward war efforts, such as the Chesterfield ads seen here.
Chesterfield was the Polytechnic Californian’s biggest advertiser at the time and the accompanying ads took up a quarter of a page in most issues.
The campus paper actually stopped publishing between 1941 and 1944 so that more money could be put toward wartime expenses.