Defense Savings Staff
American, founded 1941
BiographyChild agency of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In 1941, the Defense Savings Staff (DSA) performed those Federal debt-management functions which were not exercised by the Bureau of the Public Debt. In this capacity, DSA planned the nation's systematic and comprehensive World War II financing program, which was to focus on war loan drives and the public sale of savings bonds. Following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the War Savings Staff (WSS) replaced DSA and began to implement the war loan drives and savings bonds campaigns.