A. Military Mobilization

Enlistment in the Military

• Draft Reinstated• This time they were

screened• Became known as

“GIs”• 13 million men served

Women in the Service

• WAC & WAVES formed as auxiliary units

• Jobs:– Medical Aid– Pilots– Cryptography– Administrative Duties

Minorities in the ServiceAfrican Americans

• 1 million served in segregated non-combat units

• Faced Discrimination

• Tuskegee Airmen– 332nd Fighter

Group

Minorities in the ServiceNative Americans

• Over 25,000 served

• Served as “Code Talkers”

• Most famous were the Navajo

Navajo Code Talkers

B. Economic Mobilization

Office for War Mobilization (OWM)

• In charge of coordinating all of the new war agencies

War Production Board

• Regulated the production and allocation of materials and fuel

• It rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics

Office of War Information

• “Informed” people about the war

• Used the press, radio, and film industry

Financing the War

• $250 million per day to fight

• Beginning of National Debt

• 1941 - $49 billion → 1945 - $259 billion

2/5 was pay as we go, 3/5 was borrowed

• Ways that the war was financed:– Taxes:

1941 – 4 million tax returns filed1945 – 50 million tax returns

filed

– War Bonds: Over $185.7 billion sold

because of effective propaganda campaign

Effect on the Economy• Factories operated around the clock

for 7 days a week, but are producing less consumer goods than are demanded

• Shift to defense spending which would continue until the end of the Cold War

• Created a shift in the population to the “Sunbelt” region (CA & some areas of the South)

Women & Rosie the Riveter

• Over 5 million women went to work

• Rosie propaganda encouraged women to work

• Industrial jobs were just a variation of domestic tasks

• Still earned less than men• Forced back into homes

after war

Other New Workers

• Bracero Program (1942): brought 200,000 Mexicans into the U.S for short-term employment

Bracero Workers

War Labor Board• Sought to maintain

relations between workers and management

• Union membership increased to 30% of industrial workers

• 1943 United Mine Workers Strike prompted more government action

John L. Lewis

Smith-Connolly Antistrike Act (1943)

• Gave the President the authority to end strikes

• Gov’t could take control of mines or penalize the strikers

C. Controlling Inflation

The Inflation Problem

↑ employment = ↑$ ↑$ + ↓Consumer

goods =

INFLATION

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

• Created to deal with inflation

• Froze prices and rent

• Rationed scarce supplies

Types of Rationing• Certificate: Apply for

permission to buy a product

• If approved you got a certificate

• Coupon: Families were issued coupon books to buy more common items

• No coupon, no buying

Volunteerism & Recycling• Americans voluntarily gave up some goods to help the war effort

• Recycling began to conserve resources

• Anti-Inflation measures were successful– WWI inflation was

170%– WWII inflation was

29%

D. Discrimination in America

African-Americans:Double V Campaign

• Allied victory abroad & civil rights victory at home

• Led by A. Phillip Randolph

• March on Washington Movement 1941

Executive Order 8802

• Established the Fair Employment Practices Committee

• Ended discrimination in the defense industry

• 1st federal law to promote equal opportunities

Race Riots• Tensions in cities• Violence plagued

47 cities• Detroit 1942: worst

race riot

Mexican-Americans and the Zoot Suit

Riots (1943)• Young Mexican-Americans wore clothing called “Zoot Suits”

• June 1943 violence erupted between the sailors and Zoot Suiters

E. Japanese Internment

American View of Japanese-Americans 1942

Executive Order 9066• Japanese on the West

Coast seen as potential spies

• February 19, 1942 FDR orders all Japanese-Americans (Issei & Niesi) to “relocation camps”

• Over 110,000 Japanese-Americans rounded up

Santa Anita Assembly Center

The Camps• 10 Locations in 7 states

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/Japanese_internment.jpg

Korematsu v. the United States (1944)

• Supreme Court decision that upheld the internment of the Japanese as constitutional

Greatest Civil Rights Violation

• $105 million of farmland lost

• $500 million in yearly income lost

• Unknown amounts of personal property

• No act of sabotage ever proven against the internees

Reparations and Apology

• 1988 – Reagan finally apologizes

• 1990 – Congress authorizes $20,000 to each surviving internee