World War II: Life on the Homefront

APUSH – Lecture 8B(covers Chapter 28)

Ms. Kray

Mobilizing for a Total War

Industrial Production“War is no longer

simply a battle between armed forces in the field.”

Another total war The nation must be

mobilized Mobilization is not voluntary

like WWI

The Great Depression is over!

Office of War Mobilization (OWM)

Set production priorities and controlled raw materials

War Production Board (WPB)

Established in early 1942 to manage war industries

More WPB Posters

War Production Skyrockets!

U.S. industries exceeded their production and profits of the 1920s! By 1944 unemployment had

practically disappeared

By 1944 our war-related industrial output was twice that of all the Axis powers combined

Henry Kaiser’s giant shipyard could turn out a ship in 14 days!

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

Regulated almost every aspect of civilians’ lives

Froze prices, wages, and rents

The OPA and Rationing

Rationing Book and stamps

Commodities like meat, sugar, gasoline, and

tires were rationed

Labor and the WarLabor unions and

corporations agreed to NO STRIKES!

Workers unhappy when wages were frozen but corporations continued to make large profits John L. Lewis called for a few

strikes of coal unions

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act of 1943 Passed over FDR’s veto

Financing the WarGovernment paid for

huge increase in spending by: Increasing income tax

1944 – practice of automatically deducting a withholding tax from paychecks begun

Selling war bonds Sold $135 billion

The War's Impact on

Society

Power of the

President and

Federal Governme

nt increased

even more

Election of 1940:Roosevelt Breaks the Two-Term Tradition

F.D. Roosevelt (D) vs. Wendell Wilkie (R)

Issues: Global crisis Third-Term

Election Results:

FDR’s Closest Election

African-Americans and the War

More Job Opportunities 1.5 mil left the South for defense jobs in

the North and West Still faced discrimination

A. Philip Randolph threatens a march on Washington

FDR issued executive order banning discrimination in defense industries Fair Employment Practices Commission

monitored

1 mil joined the armed forces Served in segregated units Buffalo Soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen End of war President Truman

desegregates the army

Faced continued discrimination 1943 - Race riots in New York and Detroit

African Americans and the "Double V"

The Double V Victory over fascism abroad and

victory for equality at home

NAACP membership increased

CORE formed, 1942 Congress on Racial Equality Worked more militantly for

black interests

Smith v. Allwright (1944) Unconstitutional to deny

membership in political parties to blacks as a way of excluding them from voting in primaries

Mexican-Americans and the War

Many worked in defense industries

Over 300,000 served in the military

Bracero Program, 1942 Agreement w/Mexican gov Allowed Mexican farm

workers to enter the U.S. in harvest season w/o going through formal immigration process

Thousands enter as temporary workers but stay

Mexican-Americans Face Discrimination:

Zoot-Suit Riots, 1943

Sudden influx of Mexican immigrants stirred white resentment

Native American Do Their Part

Approximately 25,000 served in the military Some served as Code Talkers

Having left the reservations, more than half never returned

Women and the WarForever changed the lives of

women Caused a significant movement of

married women into the workforce

200,000 served in the military in noncombat roles

Shortage of workers led 5 million to enter the workforce The pay they received was well

below that of male factory workers

“Rosie the Riveter”

Women's Jobs

Advertised as Temporary

Women Do Their Part

Immigrants and the War:Patriotism Speeds

AssimilationCompared to WWI,

displayed little hostility to German Americans

Ethnicity seemed less a source of menacing difference than evidence of healthy diversity Exception: Japanese-

Americans

Mobilizing America: Propaganda in

WWII

Office of War InformationGovernment’s wartime

propaganda could found everywhere Posters, songs, news

bulletins, movies, radio, etc.

Purpose: Maintain public morale Encourage people to sacrifice

& conserve resources Increase war production Reflect a cheerful, patriotic

view of the war

Why We Fight!

"Loose Lips Sink Ships"

Conserve Valuable Resources!

Even Dr. Seuss Does His Part!

Issues of Civil Liberties and Civil Rights:

The Japanese Internment

After Pearl Harbor Anti-Japanese Feeling Sweeps the

U.S.

Japanese portrayed as devious, malign, and cruel people

More Examples of Anti-Japanese Sentiments

More Examples of Anti-Japanese Sentiments

Despite the anti-Japanese hysteria, more than 20,000 Japanese Americans served in WWII 442nd Regiment, composed mostly of Japanese-American

soldiers, was the most decorated of WWII

Executive Order #9066,March, 1942

Only about 127,000 Japanese Americans in the U.S. Most concentrated in Hawaii & CA Two-thirds were Nisei

Naturalized or native born citizens

FDR ordered that all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast be removed to “relocation centers” for the duration of the war

Why? Irrational fears of potential spies and

saboteurs Racism - only Japanese Am. on West

Coast interned not Hawaii

Japanese InternmentWar Relocation

Authority created to oversee project

More than 100,000 people rounded up including Nisei Told to dispose of their

property however they could

Usually meant abandoning it

Japanese Internment:

Life at the CampsThe camps were

essentially prisons

Conditions were not brutal but they were harsh and uncomfortable

Many were located in western mountains and the desert

Japanese Internment:

Life in the CampsInternment never

produced significant popular opposition Once they were in the camps

they were largely forgotten

Beginning in 1943 conditions slowly improved Some left the camps to attend

colleges on the East Coast Some moved to cities to work in

factories Some Nisei joined the army

Manzanar

Relocation Camp:Manzanar, CA

Korematsu v. United States, 1944

Japanese American Citizens League protested the U.S. governments “relocation” policy

Supreme Court upheld Executive Order #9066 and the internment policy It wasn’t until 1988 that the U.S.

government acknowledged that an injustice had been done Interned Japanese Americans

received reparations for the property they lost

MR. JUSTICE MURPHY, dissenting. Korematsu .v US (1944)

This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power" and falls into the ugly abyss of racism. . .

I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.