Artifacts from the Home Front Activity Directions Stow

Artifacts from the Home Front Activity Directions

Stow your i. Pads

Categories of Materials • Propaganda (Anti-Nazi, Anti-Japanese, pro. American) • War bonds • Home front/Civil defense • Rationing • Changing role of women • Science and Industry

Think About • Common themes? • What do these materials tell you about the time period? • Historical empathy: What are Americans feeling and/or being encouraged to feel?

Propaganda • Censorship of fighting (letters/newspapers) - not of enemy atrocities • Office of War Information - propaganda in films (courage of allies, difference b/w good & bad Germans, subhuman portrayal of Japanese – “Yellow Peril”)

War Bonds • War bonds raised money for the war effort and fought inflation • Sold by celebrities and war heroes • Also, first payroll deduction for income taxes

Home Front / Civil Defense • Blackout drills • Scrap drives, backyard “victory gardens” • Rationing • Censorship of fighting • Western Union Telegrams • Blue/Gold Star

Rationing • Office of Price Administration (OPA) – fought inflation with rationing • Tires, sugar, coffee, meat, butter, gasoline, shoes • “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!”

Changing Role of Women • 19, 000 employed in economy (6 m before war) • Marine Corps Women’s Reserve (Release men for combat duty) - Serve in over 200 different jobs • WASPS (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots) – ferry military aircraft across U. S. – test planes • Army Nurse Corps - More than 59, 000 • WACS – Women’s Army Corps • WAVES - (Navy) 8000 Officers, 80, 000 enlisted (2. 5 % of Navy) • SPARS - (Coast Guard) • What themes do you see in these posters?

Science and Industry • Office of Scientific Research and Development – New drugs, blood transfusion procedures, weapons systems, radar, sonar, bombsights • War Production Board – invested $17 b for new factories, $181 b in war contracts – Bans production of nearly 300 items “nonessential” for war effort • The Atomic Bomb – TOP SECRET Manhattan Project – J. Robert Oppenheimer leads scientists in Los Alamos developing nuclear fission bomb – Entire town of Oak Ridge, TN built around facility to enrich common uranium 238 to rare isotope u-235