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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
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
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