In 1943, "Oklahoma" was the first major musical for Broadway from the songwriting and musical writing duo of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (and it certainly would not be their last). The songs from "Oklahoma!" coming during the middle of World War II probably expressed well why the American servicemen and women were fighting and working to secure democracy during the war (and perhaps in some small way "Oklahoma!" might have contributed to the eventual Allies win two years later in 1945). "Oklahoma!" was released in 1947 as a motion picture (the first of many musicals of it's kind from a Broadway musical that set it's tone as a story). And in 1947, the motion picture "Oklahoma!" expressed the seemingly endless and boundless optimism many Americans seemed to feel post World War II (although in a bit of irony, the plot of "Oklahoma!" partly centers on the late nineteenth century "war" between farmers and ranchers).