WORLD WAR II HOMEFRONT - Hammill's AP Class



WORLD WAR II HOMEFRONT

ECONOMY

-- War finally causes end to the Depression; military ordered $100 billion worth of stuff in 1942

40 billion bullets, 300,000 aircraft, 76,000 ships, 86,000 tanks, 3 million machine guns

-- War Production Board halted production of passenger cars… instituted gas rationing

-- Farms lost manpower to the war, but new machinery made up for the difference

-- Downside: rationing led to a black market… government imposed wage ceilings, pissing off organized labor (John Lewis and UMW went on strike a few times)… government authorized to seize any tied-up industry

PEOPLE BEHIND THE WAR EFFORT

Military had 15 million men, 216,000 women (all noncombat) – WAVES, WAAC

Replacing men in factories and on farms…

Mexican agricultural workers, Braceros, come over via agreement w/ Mexico in 1942

6 million women go to work (1/2 never had before). Government ran 3,000 daycares

** Role of women exaggerated; Britain and USSR had way more women go to work

2/3 of these women went back home after the war, usually voluntarily

MIGRATION

-- People moved into economic boomtowns like LA, Detroit, Seattle

-- FDR gave tons of defense contracts to southern states to try to stimulate economy there (seeds of the postwar “Sunbelt movement”) but 1.6 million blacks still moved to the north and west

-- Prompted by A. Philip Randolph, FDR outlawed discrimination in all defense industries in 1942, but blacks were still segregated in the military (drafted into service units instead of combat ones); blacks pushed for “Double V” (victory over oppression in Germany and at home), and CORE was founded in 1942

-- This migration continued after the war to the point that by 1970 “urban” became associated with black. Half of all blacks lived outside the south by then

-- Native Americans left the reservations during WWII (90% on reservations in 1940; half that by 2000)

-- Natives served in military as “code talkers” – mostly in Pacific Theatre

-- Migration leads to racial tension – Zoot Suit Riots in 1943 stopped only when it was suggested that it was fodder for Nazi propaganda; race riots erupt in Detroit at the same time

OVERALL

Compared to European nations, America suffered hardly at all.

GNP doubled between 1940 and 1945 to $200B

Wage ceilings were in place, but overtime pay helped people prosper – disposable income doubled for most people

Government intervention increased greatly; that comes more from the war than from the New Deal. Examples: rationing, government employment, employees’ needs helped by government (housing projects, daycare, health care plans)

War was expensive - $330 billion, 10x cost of WWI and twice as much as ALL FEDERAL SPENDING SINCE 1776

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