| The WWII Homefront (1941-1945) |
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Sections:- On Inflation & Food Prices (September 7, 1942)
- “Victory Gardeners” Kansas City, Missouri (1943)
- Small Town Mobilization
- FDR's Stabilization of the Economy (October 3, 1942)
- Universal Studios Newsreel: “FDR Starts $9 Billion ‘Victory’ Loan Drive” (November 30, 1942)
- Factory Workers
- Conquer By The Clock
- Number of Aircraft Produced During World War Two
- Gross Tonnage of Merchant Ships Built in World War Two
- Rationing
- Letter Home Urges Frugality
- Where Scrap Paper Goes
- Universal Studios Newsreel: “Scrap Rubber Needed” (June 15, 1942)
- Home Front Propaganda
- Demonizing the Enemy
- Women & The Homefront
- Kathy O'Grady: What Did You Do in the War Grandma?
- Women in the Workforce
- Nurses' Aides
- Discrimination at Home & Abroad
- Carrying A Sign In Front of Milk Company
- Double V Campaign
- Executive Order 8802 – Prohibiting Discrimination in the Defense Industry (June 25, 1941)
- The Detroit Race Riot of 1943
- Letter from Youth Committee for the Defense of Mexican American Youth to Vice President Henry A. Wallace
- Zoot Suit Riots
- FBI Searching Home of Japanese-American Family: Terminal Island (1942)
- Executive Order 9066: Roosevelt Orders the Relocation of Japanese-Americans
- Internment of Japanese Americans
- Louise Ogawa: Daily Life in A Japanese Interment Camp: Letter to Clara Breed, Poston, Arizona (January 6, 1943)
- The Legality of Japanese Relocation
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| Historical Context
World War II resulted in shortages and the danger of inflation. Facing rapidly increasing food prices and wage rates, Roosevelt submitted a bill to Congress on September 7, 1942 to stabilize food prices, giving the body less than one month to pass the bill before taking executive action. Roosevelt spoke to the American people that evening and clarified the bill's objectives for the American people. In one of President Roosevelt’s radio addresses to the nation (better known as his fireside chats), he warns that farm prices may succumb to drastic inflation unless the government establishes further price controls. Later in his address, he explains to the nation the need for the government to increase the federal income tax rates. In both instances, Congress passes legislation meeting both of FDR’s requests. The federal government, under the Office of Price Administration, established price controls to control inflation. Congress passed a stabilization bill on October 2.
Attached Documents
The first document below is a transcript of Roosevelt's address concerning inflation and food prices. The second is a recording of a radio address given by Roosevelt on inflation. The final resource is a recording of a radio address given by Roosevelt on taxes.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the economic problem facing the United States?
2. What actions does Roosevelt propose in order to deal with this problem?
3. What does Roosevelt intend by “parity” in regards to agriculture? How did Congress respond?
4. What effect could the economic problem have on the nation as a whole? How would this effect the war effort?
5. What is Roosevelt taxation plan?
6. What groups may be critical of FDR’s price and wage control proposals?
7. How was consumer spending affected by FDR’s income tax proposal? |
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| Historical Context
The federal government, through the Office of War Mobilization, encouraged citizens to participate in the war effort. One popular idea was the creation of victory gardens. Some historians estimate that 30-40% of all the produce grown during the war years were grown in such ‘gardens.’
Questions to Consider
1.What two purposes did victory gardens serve?
2.What effect did these gardens have on produce prices?
3.How might victory gardens have reduced the negative impacts of the government’s rationing programs?
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Attached Document
In this clip (1:12), a small southern town is used as an example of wartime mobilization in the U.S.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the original size of the town? Since the outbreak of war, how many workers have arrived?
2. What types of work are being done in the town?
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As the war began, FDR attempted to stabilize the national economy by creating an Office of Economic Stabilization led by an Economic Director. In the process, the president assumes an unprecedented executive control over the American economy.
Attached Document
The document included below is an Executive Order issued by Roosevelt designed to stabilize the economy
Questions to Consider
1. What is the role of the Economic Director? What powers is he given?
2. What control does the National War Labor Board have over wages?
3. Why is it important for wages, agricultural prices and profits to be stabilized?
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To finance the war, the federal government encouraged citizens to purchase war bonds. By borrowing money, the federal government financed approximately 40% of the cost of the war. However, the high levels of deficit spending also boosted the national debt five-fold from 1940 – 1945.
Attached Document
Included in this section is a video where Roosevelt initiates the "V" Loan Drive.
Question to consider
1.What incentives did Americans have to purchase “victory bonds?”
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Attached Document
This video (1:30) presents a brief overview of a wartime factory.
Question to Consider
1. What civilian skills became easily transferable to wartime industry?
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Attached Document
The importance of time management for the war effort is demonstrated in these clips. Video #1(3:04) and Video #2 (2:24)
Questions to Consider
1. What could happen if Jane takes a break to have a cigarette?
2. In video #2, how do those not in uniform contribute to the war?
3. What can happen if a general manager takes time off to watch a baseball game?
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Perhaps no statistic better illustrates the enoromous industrial output of the United States during World War Two than the number of aircraft produced each year. Ranking behind the USSR, Britain & Germany in 1939, the U.S. became the top aircraft producer in the world by 1941. By war's end, the U.S. had produced 86,500 more aircraft than Germany, Italy & Japan combined & tripled the combined output of Germany & Japan. Indeed, American industrial might was so complete that by 1944 the United States produced 40% of all weapons made in the world.
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| | | Citations: | R.A.C. Parker, The Second World War: A Short History (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 133.
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Another insightful statistic illustrating the United States' enormous industrial output is the gross tonnage of merchant ships built during the war. When compared with England and Japn, the second and third largest fleets respectively, the U.S. output is staggering.
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| | | Citations: | R.A.C. Parker, The Second World War: A Short History, (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 135.
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| Historical Context
The productive capacity of the United States during World War II surpassed all expectations. To boost that production and maintain supply levels for troops abroad, Americans at home were asked to conserve materials and to accept ration coupons or stamps that limited the purchase of certain products. Gasoline, rubber, sugar, butter, and some kinds of cloth were among the many items rationed. American responses to rationing varied from cheerful compliance to resigned grumbling to instances of black market subversion and profiteering. Government-sponsored posters, ads, radio shows, and pamphlet campaigns urged Americans to contribute to scrap drives and accept rationing without complaint.
In these propaganda posters, the importance of frugality and conservation is emphasized.
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Attached Document
In this clip (2:27), a G.I. writes home to his family and urges them to be frugal.
Questions to Consider
1. What does the clip say about hoarding food? What is the importance of kitchen fats?
2. According to the clip, why should Americans do without refrigerators?
3. Why is the conservation of razor blades important? Why is rubber?
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Attached Document
This clip (:47) illustrates the recycling of waste paper for the war effort.
Question to Consider
1. What was the purpose of the recycling effort?
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During the War, the national government encouraged citizens to recycle other materials such as: scrap metal, nylon, and paper. Scrap drives sprung up across the nation and provided an opportunity for America’s youth to be involved in the war effort.
Attached Document
In this partial Universal Newsreel, President Franklin Roosevelt appeals to the American people to conserve rubber.
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When it was suggested that World War II was approaching, Americans did not want to go to war. Having sustained losses in World War I and only now coming out of an economic crisis, most Americans thought that energies should be spent here at home, improving America, instead of becoming involved in war overseas. Even as the war started in Europe with the invasion of France, many Americans thought that the U.S. should avoid becoming involved. However, the government recognized that American participation was necessary, and quickly stepped up pro-war propaganda.
This was not extremely successful until after Pearl Harbor, when the war no longer seemed comfortably distant but very close to home. At this point, it was necessary for the American propagandists to continue to convince the public that war was close at hand. It was also necessary to begin stepping up production and conservation of materials for the war effort, because the Allies only tremendous advantage was their great production power. As the war began in earnest, America increased the flood of propaganda, utilizing especially the radio and visual media, most specifically posters.These posters illustrate some of the government's motivational themes for the war.
Question to Consider
1. What themes are evident in these posters? Why would they be important to the war effort?
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During the war, both sides attempted to demonize thier adversary. In these American posters, the Germans and Japanese are depicted in less than flattering light.
Questions to Consider
1. What commonalities do you notice between the four propaganda posters?
2. How do these posters depict the Germans & Japanese with less than human characteristics?
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Not all women were asked to join the workforce. In fact, Paul McNutt, the Chairman of the War Manpower Commission, issued a 1942 directive which stated, "no women responsible for the care of young children should be encouraged or compelled to seek employment which deprives their children of essential care until all other sources of supply are exhausted." This directive paired with the fact that there was much public resistance to the idea of working mothers, contributed to the low rate of women aged 25 to 34 that participated in the labor force. These women who elected not to go to work contributed to the war effort in a different way.
An obstacle that the 1940's housewife ran into was the shortage of steel. In 1943 civilians were only allotted 15% of the nation's steel production. This caused the rationing of such items as bottled, canned, dried, and frozen vegetables, as well as canned fruits, juices, and soups. Women who lived in big cities felt this squeeze more than ever, while women who lived on farms and in small towns were able to garden and preserve their own supply of fresh produce. So in an effort to help the war effort, the government promoted "Victory Gardens."
Attached Documents
The first four documents below are interviews with various women from the war years that present interesting and contrasting feminine perspectives of the period. The posters are intended to inspire women to participate in the war effort.
Questions to Consider
1. What does Nancy Potter mean by "manipulation" during the war?
2. What are Potter & Higgins' feelings about the Atomic Bombing of Japan?
3. What wartime sacrifices were mentioned in the interviews?
4. How did Rachel Higgins become a Pacifist? What actions did she take in order to maintain her pacifist beliefs during the war? Were her moral qualms justifiable in a war against Nazism and Japanese militarism?
5. What effects did the war have on women according to Higgins?
6. According to Josephine Carson, what forms of discrimination did women experience during the war?
7. What experiences did Carson have with sexual harassment during the war? How did she and her female colleagues avoid being sexually harassed on the job?
8. Why, according to Carson, were women "disappointed" after the war?
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The outbreak of World War II meant an all-out mobilization of the nation for the war effort. With men shipped overseas to fight, women were called to leave the home and fill the jobs left behind. For many women this was their first taste of work outside the home, and they became instilled with a new sense of self-worth and independence.
Attached Document
The following attached document is an oral history depicting one woman’s role during WWII, and the effect the experience had on her and other women like her.
Questions to consider
1. During the war, where did Katherine O’Grady work and how did it help the war effort? How did the government encourage the women to keep working?
2. What did she do with her son while she was at work?
3. How did the war change her and women in general?
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Before the United States entered World War II, several companies already had contracts with the government to produce war equipment for the Allies. Almost overnight the United States entered the war and war production had to increase dramatically in a short amount of time. Auto factories were converted to build airplanes, shipyards were expanded, and new factories were built, and all these facilities needed workers. At first companies did not think that there would be a labor shortage so they did not take the idea of hiring women seriously. Eventually, women were needed because companies were signing large, lucrative contracts with the government just as all the men were leaving for the service.
The start of World War II tested American cultural division of labor. Everyone agreed that workers were greatly needed. They also agreed that having women work in the war industries would only be temporary.
The government decided to launch a propaganda campaign to sell the importance of the war effort and to lure women into working. They promoted the fictional character of “Rosie the Riveter” as the ideal woman worker: loyal, efficient, patriotic, and pretty. Women responded to the call to work differently depending on age, race, class, marital status, and number of children. Half of the women who took war jobs were minority and lower-class women who were already in the workforce. They switched from lower-paying traditionally female jobs to higher-paying factory jobs. But even more women were needed, so companies recruited women just graduating from high school. The posters provided below display the sentiment of the time concerning women in the workforce.
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Attached Document
In this clip (:53), the government, in order to fill the shortages caused by the war, makes an appeal to women to become nurses aids.
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Attached Document
In this interview, a Jewish woman recalls the racism she encountered during the war and why she felt this to be profoundly hypocritical on the part of Americans. The Dr. Suess cartoons illustrate the need for more interracial harmony.
Questions to Consider
1. Why was it difficult for Judith Weiss Cohen's father to save family from Hitler?
2. What forms of anti-Semitism did Weiss experience in the South? How does she relate this to the actions of Nazi Germany?
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| “Carrying A Sign In Front of Milk Company”
By John Vachon
Chicago, Illinois
July 1941
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The Pittsburg Courier designed this ad campaign to symbolize the efforts of African-Americans who were fighting for victory against fascism abroad and fighting racism at home. This slogan will be adopted on a national scale to criticize the discrimination that African-Americans were facing in defense-related industries.
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As wartime mobilization was underway in the United States, American businesses and the federal government continued to practice racial discrimination in the workforce. Pressure by civil rights leaders and their threat to organize a march on Washington D.C. caused President Roosevelt to issue an executive order. In return, the organizers postponed the march which curbed a potential political mess for FDR during a period in which he was emphasizing American democratic ideals in his foreign policy.
Attached Documents
A transcript of Executive Order 8802 follows below.
Questions to Consider
1.What did the executive order do?
2.In what ways was this executive order a change in the federal government’s policy?
3.What problems does this executive order ignore?
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In the most important American industrial city during the Second World War, the city of Detroit was plagued by underlying racial tensions. As the city mobilized for war, employers turned to a ready pool of African American labor from the South. Yet Detroit was in no way equipped to accommodate these new laborers. The shift in the city's demographics caused volatile racial tensions which would erupt into one of the bloodiest riots in the nation's history. During the muggy summer evening of June 20, 1943, the Detroit riot was sparked by teenage fighting at a popular and integrated amusement park known as Belle Isle. Exacerbating the conflict, rumors circulated among the black population that that "whites" had thrown a black woman and her baby over the Belle Isle bridge. Enraged, many African-Americans stormed white districts where they looted and destroyed stores and indiscriminately attacked anyone with white skin. Similarly, white mobs had been stirred up by a rumor that a black man had raped and murdered a white woman on the bridge. Eventually, 6,000 federal troops had to be called in to quell the violence. The riots had led to the deaths of twenty-five black residents and nine white residents. Of the twenty-five African Americans, seventeen had been killed by white policemen. The number injured, including police, approached seven hundred while the property damage, including looted merchandise, destroyed stores, and burned automobiles, amounted to $2 million. The Axis Powers exploited the event as evidence of American hypocrisy. The German-controlled Vichy radio broadcasted that the riot revealed "the internal disorganization of a country torn by social injustice, race hatreds, regional disputes, the violence of an irritated proletariat, and the gangsterism of a capitalistic police."
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Mexican Americans were also targets of discrimination during the war years. The most famous example of this discrimination occurred during the “zoot suit riots.”
Attached Document
The attached document, a letter written to the Vice President, explains the circumstances facing Mexican American youth in Los Angeles, California.
Question to Consider
1.What forms of discrimination do Mexican Americans experience?
2.How is patriotism expressed within this letter?
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The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that erupted in Los Angeles during World War II between sailors and soldiers stationed in the city and Mexican American youth gangs headed by pachucos, recognized because of the zoot suits they favored.
The riots began in the racially charged atmosphere of Los Angeles, where the sailors, soldiers and marines returning from the war had already come into conflict with the local Mexican zoot suiters. On June 3, 1943, a group of servicemen on leave complained that they had been assaulted by a gang of pachucos. In response, they gathered and headed out to downtown and East Los Angeles, which was the center of the Mexican community. Once there, they attacked all the men they found wearing zoot suits, often ripping off the suits and burning them in the streets. In many instances, the police intervened by arresting beaten-up Mexican-American youth for disturbing the peace. African Americans and Filipino Americans suffered the same fate as Mexican Americans. Several hundred pachucos and nine sailors were arrested as a result of the fighting that occurred over the next few days. Of the nine sailors that were arrested, eight were released with no charges, and one had to pay a small fine. The Mexican-Americans were not as fortunate. Many died in jail from their injuries because they were in dire need of medical attention. Many more were convicted of crimes that they did not commit.
The government finally intervened on June 7, by declaring that Los Angeles would henceforth be off-limits to all military personnel. In response to the riots Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in her weekly column about the problems faced by the Mexican American community as a result of racism in the United States.
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Japanese Americans suffered official discrimination during World War II. Following Pearl Harbor and fearing further attacks, the federal government began a removal policy of all Japanese Americans (two-thirds of them citizens) from the West Coast. They were placed in internment camps throughout the war. Due process was ignored under the argument of national security.
Question to Consider
1.For what evidence might the FBI agent be looking?
2.What constitutional rights may be denied of this family?
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When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, many Americans feared a second attack. Asians on the West Coast were already eyed suspiciously and soon became the victims of racially motivated crimes and discrimination. Fearing sabotage, Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This allowed the United States military the authority to establish military zones from which they could then exclude any persons they deemed a threat to national security. Taken to an extreme, the military designated the entire West Coast of the United States a military zone and began the systematic, forced removal of over 110,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes and businesses. They were sent to relocation centers located in the deserts of the southwest and other parts of the United States.
Attached Document
Included in this section is the text of FDR's Executive Order 9066.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the goal of FDR's order?
2. Which branck of government is given the discretionary power to determine war zones?
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Executive Order 9066 was an evacuation order that commenced the round-up of 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 internment camps—officially called "relocation centers"—in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. Roosevelt's executive order was fueled by anti-Japanese sentiment among farmers who competed against Japanese labor, politicians who sided with anti-Japanese constituencies, and the general public, whose frenzy was heightened by the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. More than 2/3 of the Japanese who were interned in the spring of 1942 were citizens of the United States.
Similar Orders in Canada
The U.S. internment camps were overcrowded and provided poor living conditions. Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per internee, and served by fellow internees in a mess hall of 250-300 people.
Attached Document
The following three video clips produced by the government attempt to justify the need to relocate the Japanese-Americans living along the west coast and illustrates the many steps in the process. Video #1 (:59). Video #2 (1:50). Video #3 (2:20). The fourth item below is a poster announcing the forced internment. The fifth resource is a photograph of a family moving to a camp, while the sixth shows a women disembarking a bus upon her arrival at an internment camp. The seventh item shows conditions within a camp. The eighth document is a map of internment camps around the United States. The final document is a political cartoon concerning Japanese internment.
Questions to Consider
1. According to the speaker in video #1, how large was the Japanese population on the west coast? What percentage of this population was alien?
2. According to the speaker, why did the government deem it necessary to relocate the Japanese population? What was its fear?
3. According to video #2, next to what strategic areas was a sizable Japanese population located?
4. What was the first step in the government’s relocation plan? Why was this only a partial solution?
5. Who made the decision to move the Japanese population?
6. How did the Japanese assist in the migration plan? According to the video, what was the Japanese attitude towards the relocation?
7. Who sold the property the Japanese left behind? What did this entail?
8. According to video #3, how did the “loyal” Japanese-Americans view the relocation?
9. What happened to the Japanese businesses? What happened to their fishing fleets?
10. What were the “new pioneer communities?” Where were they located?
11. Is the political cartoon in favor or opposed to the internment?
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Attached Document
This letter from an interned Japanese American youth expresses the daily life in the Japanese internment camps. The recipient of the letter, Clara Breed, was a librarian at the San Diego Public Library who had befriended Louise Ogawa prior to the removal policy and became Louise’s ‘lifeline’ to the outside world during her time at the camp.
Question to Consider
1.How does this letter contradict the government-sponsored film "Japanese Relocation" above?
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The legality of interning thousands of American Japanese was thoroughly tested in the following cases:
Case #1
Hirbayashi, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was convicted in the district court of knowingly disregarding restrictions placed on him by the relocation order. The defendant cited his Fifth Amendment rights which guarantees that Americans will not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In trying the case, the Supreme Court upheld the position of the government as a wartime necessity.
Case #2: Based on the Hirbayashi Case, the Supreme Court once again upheld the legality of the relocation when presented with the case of Fred Korematsu, who was arrested and convicted for not reporting to an assembly center in May 1942 and for remaining in San Leandro, California, a 'Military Area.' In this case, the Supreme Court exhibited deference towards military opinion and made it clear that the relocation was based on military necessity and not on racial prejudice. Also, the term "concentration camp" is explicitly condemned as a reference to the relocation centers.
Civil Liberties Act of 1988
In this act, the United States awarded $20,000 in reparations to Japanese-Americans interned in relocation camps during the war.
Attached Document
Included are the texts of these cases.
Questions to Consider
1. What, according to the judges in the Hirabayashi case, has allegedly kept the Japanese from being fully assimilated into American culture?
2. What concern, according to the judges in the Hirabayashi case, overrides concerns about legislation directed against minority groups?
3. In the Korematsu case, what do the judges rule out as a unconstitutional motivation for the relocation program?
4. In the 1988 Civil Liberties case, what items will be considered for restitution?
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