Bloom High School and WWII

A 500-pound globe of the world ( made of cherry wood), one of five built in World War II by a now-defunct Chicago Heights firm. Weber-Costello, The Chicago Heights-based school supply company made globes commissioned by the Army made four globes in 1942, at a cost of $3,200 each, said Carmelita Curl, then school librarian and a member of the high school`s Save the Globe Committee.

One of the globes was given to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a Christmas present in 1942. Others went to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in London, the U.S. Office of War Information, and the United States Army Air Forces.

As a student of WWII history, I believe that as the war drew to a close and tensions became apparent between Russia and the other Allies, the gift designed for Stalin was rethought and not given. Bloom’s gain!

Today, only three of the five original globes can be found. The globe given to President Roosevelt sits in his presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y. The one given to Churchill is in the Chartwell Museum in England. And, of course, Bloom High School has one (Steckel Library) It has been suggested that Churchill and Roosevelt probably followed the progress of the war by looking at the globe.

The globes given to the Office of War Information and the U.S. Army Air Forces cannot be located. There are very few high schools in country that has such direct artifacts of WWII history as Bloom does. …”couldn’t be prouder”…

Bloom Alumni Association & Archives