Mobilizing an “Arsenal of Democracy”

1. Mobilizing an “Arsenal of Democracy”

2. The Home Front • WW2 impacted all aspects of US life: • FDR hoped US would be the great “arsenal of democracy” • Boost of wartime industry ended the Great Depression • War altered lives of women, Af-Ams, Jap-Ams, & Mex-Ams

3. Mobilization The power to create new gov’t agencies to censor the press to limit civil liberties & seize personal property • US gov grew to largest size ever • To win 2 wars • To meet civilian demands US gov spent $250 million/day 1941 - 1945 2x as much as all previous gov spending combined

4. Mobilization Office of War Information directed press, print, radio, & film propaganda Office of War Mobilization coordinated the draft, consumer prices, & the labor force • War Powers Act gave POTUS unprecedented power • Bureaucracies formed to: • Direct the economy • Create propaganda • Sell war bonds • Prevent enemy subversion Office of Strategic Services gathered enemy intelligence & conducted espionage

5. Mobilization: The Demand for War Equipment & Soldiers

6. War bonds helped raise $187B to support the war effort

7. War Rations

8. Gas ration coupons

10. Victory Gardens: Grow Your Own

11. Propaganda: Fighting the Enemy on the Battlefield & on the Home Front

12. Fear Propaganda

13. Hollywood Pitches In Jimmy Stewart goes off to war

14. The Wartime Economy • Most decisive factor for Allied victory: US industrial production • Heavy industry converted to war & directed by War Production Board • 15m US soldiers fought but 60m workers & farmers supplied them U.S. made 2x more goods than Germany & 5x more than Japan

15. Ford made one B-24 bomber every hour Ford’s Willow Run Factory

16. Henry Kaiser’s West Coast Shipyards The Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic, in part, because US produced ships faster than German U-boats could sink them Kaiser standardized battleship building & reduced the time it took to make a battleship from 355 days to 14 days

17. Regional Changes • War transformed Western US: • CA became major industrial center to support war effort in the Pacific • And Southern US: • 60 of 100 new military bases were built in the South • Textile factories & industrial jobs helped end sharecropping & tenant farming 9m workers moved to new factories & shipyards in South & West

18. Women • War presented new economic opportunities for women: • Dramatic rise in employment • Most new female workers were married, many middle-aged • Previously exclusively male fields • Temporarily redefined “woman’s sphere” from “just at home” “To hell with the life I have had. This war is too [serious], and it is too [important] to win it.”

19. Rosie the Riveter

20. Rosie the Riveter

21. Rosie the Riveter

22. Rosie the Riveter

24. Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) Women’s Army Air Corps Pilots Join the Women’s Army Corps (WACs)

25. Families • Uncertainties of war & economic affluence of 40s led to a dramatic rise in marriage • Influx of women into workforce led to demand for daycare centers & to increase in child delinquency • Public health improved – more families had access to doctors, dentists, & prescription drugs …and high divorce rates

26. African-Americans • 1m Af-Ams served in military but few saw combat • Workplace discrimination led A. Philip Randolph to pressure FDR to create Fair Employment Practices Comm • Great Migration continued to the North & West – made race relations a national issue Banned discrimination in defense industries & gov

27. Segregated units…again Tuskegee Airmen

28. Double V: Victory at Home & Abroad A. Philip Randolph threatened a “March on Washington” to protest war time discrimination Other groups, like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), staged sit-ins in restaurants in major cities to protest discrimination

30. Mexican-Americans • Served in quasi-segregated military units, often in the most hazardous branches • Mexican-American workers found jobs in SW agriculture & west coast industry • Faced discrimination, especially during the Zoot Suit Riots

31. Zoot Suit Riots – LA • Fashion popular with 1940s LA Mex-Ams • Used lots of fabric • Strictly rationed

32. Zoot Suit Riots – LA • Zoot Suits effectively illegal • Underground tailors violating war effort • Seen as unpatriotic

33. Zoot Suit Riots – LA • GIs stationed in LA beat up men wearing zoot suits • Police arrested “zoot suiters” after being beaten

34. Japanese-Americans • After Pearl Harbor, many in US feared J-Ams were helping prepare for Japanese invasion in the West • Civil liberties restricted: • Issei had assets frozen • Used racial stereotypes (“Japs”) • 1942: FDR ordered 112,000 J-Ams moved to internment camps

35. Japanese- American Internment Camps Families were given one week to close their businesses & homes The all Japanese-American 442nd Division fought in Europe & received over 1,000 citations for bravery

36. Win-the-War Politics • 1944: FDR used war to strengthen leadership: • “Mr. New Deal” became “Mr. Win the War” • Opponent Thomas Dewey made communism & FDR’s health focus of the election • FDR switched VPs from liberal Henry Wallace to moderate Harry Truman to gain appeal