Mrs. Miniver was a fictional English housewife created by Jan Struther in 1937 for a series of newspaper columns for the Times of London. The columns were short reflections on everyday life, based in part on Struther's own family and experiences. While the columns started out as lighthearted domestic scenes where the outside world barely intruded, the approach of World War II slowly brought darker global concerns into Mrs. Miniver's world. (One of the more memorable pieces appears near the middle of the series, where the Minivers get gas masks.)
The columns were first published as a book in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war. Struther stopped the regular newspaper columns that year, but wrote a series of letters from Mrs. Miniver, expanding on the character's wartime experiences, that were published in later editions.
The book became an enormous success, especially in the United States, where Struther went on a lecture tour shortly after the book's release. Although the US was still officially neutral, the tribulations of the Miniver family as war with Nazi Germany approached engaged the sympathy of the American public sufficiently that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt credited it for hastening America's involvement in the war, and Winston Churchill claimed that it had done more for the Allied cause that a flotilla of battleships.
The film adaptation of Mrs. Miniver, released in 1942, focused on Mrs. Miniver and her family coping with the early days of World War II. The movie sought to build patriotic sentiment in the light of the war.
The film won six Oscars:
- Academy Award for Best Picture - Sidney Franklin, producer
- Academy Award for Best Actress - Greer Garson
- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Teresa Wright
- Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Joseph Ruttenberg
- Academy Award for Directing - William Wyler
- Academy Award for Writing, Screenplay - George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, Arthur Wimperis
- Academy Award for Best Actor - Walter Pidgeon
- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Henry Travers
- Academy Award for Best Actress - Dame May Whitty
- Best Effects, Special Effects - A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic), Warren Newcombe (photographic), Douglas Shearer (sound)
- Best Film Editing - Harold F. Kress
- Best Sound, Recording - Douglas Shearer