World War II: The Domestic

Front

How the Federal government mobilized economy and society in

order to create an “arsenal of democracy,” which won the war and

changed America

Is your Cell Phone Turned On?

• Rosie the Riveter says

Turn

off your

Cell phones

Boys!

Themes and Topics

• Role of Government Total War: Military Keynesianism during World War II and

After

Government's Wartime Impact on Society: New Attitudes toward Gender and Race in the Workplace

Wizard’s War: the Birth of Military Technocracy*

Managing Wartime Diplomacy: Roosevelt as a Wartime Leader

• Multiculturalism Gender, Racial and Ethnic Minority Participation in War

Mobilization

Double Victory Against Fascism Abroad and Racism at Home

Racial Tension During World War Two

*New Topic

Themes and Topics

• Private Enterprise The Arsenal of Democracy: Role of Big Business in War

Mobilization During World War Two

War Mobilization: World War II and Federal Price Controls,

Rationing, Full Employment, High Wages, and Unionization

• Cultural Change

Immigrant Assimilation During World War Two

Rosie the Riveter: Transformation of Women's Work

Expectations During World War Two

Declining Racial Order and Racism as a consequence of

World War Two

Domestic Front Mood during the war*

*New Topic

Central Analytical questions

• What was the role of the Federal government in achieving “total war” mobilization during World War II?

• What were the lessons political-military managers drew from the successful war effort?

• Why was American business called the “Arsenal of Democracy?”

• What was the impact of war on American society?

War Songs Set the Mood

Song Singers Mood

Der Fuhrer’s Face Spike Jones, Orchestra Farcical

Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor Eddy Howard, Orchestra Patriotic

Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning Irving Berlin Farcical

Isn’t This Worth Fighting For Ink Spots Patriotic

Rosie the Riveter Four Vagabonds Patriotic

Buy A Paper Doll Mill Brothers Anxious

White Cliffs of Dover Dick Todd Hopeful

There Either to Young or to Old Jimmy Dorsey, Orchestra Don’t be Anxious

You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to Dinah Shore Longing

Mobilizing the Economy I

FDR Unleashed War Powers Act creates War Production Board, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of Strategic Services Contracts were handled by the War Production Board, while the Office of Price Administration fought inflation

A Nation in Arms

The War Manpower Commission (WMC) grew The US military from 1.5 Million to 15 million men 350,000 women joined the Army (WAAC) and Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard (WAVES and SPARS) The National War Labor Board (NWLB) recruited men and women for US defense industry

Military Keynesianism

• $320 billion spent on war

• 50% of war financed by taxes; 50% by bonds

• By 1945, defense spending equaled 46% of Gross National Product

• 100 corporations received 66% of war contracts, producing even bigger concentrations of industry

Federal Price Controls

• Office of Price Administration • Created Aug 1941, independent agency Jan 1942

• Authorized to place ceilings on all prices (except agricultural commodities)

• Authorized to ration scarce supplies of other items, including tires, automobiles, shoes, nylon, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats and processed foods

Ration Book and Price list

Arsenal of Democracy

• Great Britain was the largest beneficiary of American largesse during the war, followed by the USSR

• Over $50 Billion given in aid to America’s allies during the war

Arsenal of Democracy

• Industry achieved a truly staggering output

300k aircraft

86k tanks

372k machine guns

6m tons of aircraft bombs

5k cargo ships

86k warships

The Wizard War

• “Technocracy”* Arrives National Defense Research Committee and the Office

of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) spend $1 billion

New generation of weaponry • Radar and Sonar, Rocket weapons, Flame throwers,

Amphibious tanks, proximity fuses for mines and artillery shells, jet aircraft, pressurized cabins for pilots, high altitude bomb sights, DDT, penicillin-the miracle drug, ENIAC (a computer for artillery trajectory calculations, the Atomic bomb

• The Space and missile age is just around the corner given German V1 and V2 missiles

• USA and USSR rush into Germany to procure German scientists at the end of the war

*Technocracy: Rule of the Technocrats

The Propaganda War

• FDR ordered the creation of the Office of Censorship in December 1941

Eventually employed 14,000 staff

Open mails

Criticism in press and publishing suppressed

• Congress created the Office of War Information (OWI) in June 1942

To explain war goals using schools, Hollywood, and popular music

To condemn Nazis as barbarians

Impact of War On Society

• Men

• Women

• Minorities

African Americans

Mexican Americans

Native Americans

Japanese Americans

• American Working Class Gains

• Americans and Geographical Mobility

Men at War I

• 14.8 million men in uniform transformed the GIs Heightened sense of

national identity

German Americans and the war

Persistent Prejudice

Heightened opportunities after the war

Women at War and Work

• 6.5 million women entered the workforce between 1942 and 1945 1 in 3 husbands object as did

unions

Employers like women workers

Women liked to work

• Federal Government subsidized childcare

• Divorce rate nearly doubled

• War emergency justification limits gains

Vassar University Nurses and WAACs

African Americans and War

• NAACP makes war about fighting racial injustice Membership increased to

500k by 1945

Target southern disenfranchisement

• Labor leaders force FDR to stop discrimination in employment

• 1 million serve in military

• Racial violence continued in military and in society

• Still optimistic about future

A. Phillip Randolph

Mexicans and Mexican Americans

and War

• 350k Mexican Americans in the armed services Most decorated minority

having earned the Medal of Honor 40 times

• Mexican American women worked in factories

• Mexican “quest worker” or “Braceros” program put Mexicans as farmhands in the fields

• Discrimination and the GI Forum

Native Americans and War

• 25k Native Americans joined the war effort

• 29 Navajos in the Pacific Theater created a secret code using their native language, Hopis were also used; More than 400 Navajos served as code talkers

• In the European Theater Comanche's created a code from their language

• Their code was never cracked by the Japanese, and remained a secret to until 1968

Japanese and Japanese Americans

and War

• On Feb. 19, 1942, FDR issued Exec. Order 9066

• In effect, the government imprisoned >30k Japanese resident aliens and 80k Japanese Americans who had committed no crime, had been given no trial, and took their property away from them without due process of law

• The greatest violation of civil rights in US history

Japanese Internment

• Some 110,000 Japanese aliens and citizens were taken to 10 “relocation” camps around the West

• Efforts to use the court system to challenge military exclusion and internment failed Manzanar War Relocation Camp

Owens Valley, California

Japanese Internment

• Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity and internment was not driven by an analysis of military conditions

• Racism, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership caused the decision

American Working Class and War

• Gains in unionization and income Threats from Workers

to strike plants led to direct Federal intervention

Workers benefited

• Subject to payroll taxes for first time

• Forging a national identity

Western Migration and Long Beach

• East Bay gained 514k during war

• LA County gained more than 500K

• Long Beach growth during WW II Between 1940 and

1944, the city population increased by more than 80,000 (164,271 to >245,000

Critical Thinking Exercise

Why did the USA prevail over the Axis powers? What does this chart tell us?

Comparative Total War: USA, Germany, and Japan

Conclusions

• A successful Federal mobilization

• A massive disruption of society

Relocations Camps, WW II