World War Two Homefront

What must be done to win the war?

Increase production of war goods

War Production Board

Convince Americans to fight for democracy

Office of War Information Posters, movies (no movies critical of America, like in 30’s!)

Subdue subversives

Japanese-American Internment

Ensure enough soldiers

Selective Service- 16 million served

Economics

Decrease domestic production

Few cars Limited wash

machines Limited fridges

Increase War Materials

Airplanes 300,000 Tanks 88,000 Jeeps 3 million Ships 7,000 Bullets BILLIONS!

Conservation at home

Rationing Scrap drives Victory Gardens Saving instead of

spending!

1942 only 1% unemployment

30% increase cost of living, but 70% increase in wages!

$185 billion raised in bonds to fund the war-BORROWING!

HOW??

War Production Board

National War Labor Board (Union membership up 50%!)

Smith-Connolly Act 1943

Society

Working Women “Rosie the Riveter”

3/4th were married

1/4th had children

Daycare idea expands

18 million women worked

$31-32 wages a week ($50+ for men)

Marriage age decreased to 20.5 years old

Divorce increased

Increase juvenile delinquency

350,000 women in Nurse’s Corp and military branches

Women’s role blurring…

Japanese Executive order 9066

February 19, 1942

Relocation centers mostly out west (Co, WY, AZ, ND, MT, TX, GA) 16 states total

424,000 held in camps at peak

26 main camps, 511 branches

Korematsu v. US 1944

(military necessity allowed)

EO 9066 rescinded 1944

33,000 served in armed forces (Hawaii)

Society Continued

Japanese continued

1946 last camp closed

Future…

1968 reparations paid for lost property

1983 camps were ruled unjustified, formal apology

1988 $20,000 paid to surviving internee (60,000)

Society Italian and German Americans

Finger-printed, photographed, carry registration card at all times

In some places, travel restrictions, curfew

Why not as harsh as against Japanese Americans?

Society Mexican Americans

Bracero Program- 300,000 to fill defense jobs in SW

500,000 served in war

LA Riots 1943- anti-Mexican fervor

Native Americans

25,000 served (1/3 of able bodied men)

“Wouldn’t need selective service if everyone volunteered like the Indians”

Navajo Code Talkers

Chinese

Ended exclusion in 1943 because allies against Japan

Society – African-American

Double “V” by NAACP = Victory at home & abroad

Support by NAACP CORE = Congress of racial equality

sit ins begin against Jim Crow Limited success, but…

Military units still segregated (1 million AA men served)

1941: Executive Order 8802 = fair employment practice for blacks, a civil rights movement by presidential intervention

A Phillip Randolph threats! Committee on Fair Employment Practices

Still segregated units

5.5 million move to cities (majority of blacks living in city)

Racial tension

CPUSA (not for exam) Led by Joseph Peters to recruit employees in D.C.

as FDR government expands to spy for Stalin

Work in state department, forged passports

Work in Lend-Lease, Manhattan Project (Theodore Hall)

Steal information from US airforce – make Mig 15

Why would Americans commit treason?

VERONA project to decode S.U. spies

Whittacker Chambers – Sr. Editor of Time magazine

Stalin purges 17-22 million - paranoid