Mobilization for War men into Armed Forces factories
Mobilization for War
men into Armed Forces + factories to war production = full employment & end of Depression
Average family income 1938 1942 DC $2227 $5316 NYC $2760 $4044
Union membership increases by over 20% Government gets some concessions: Limit on wartime wage increases No strike pledge – not followed by everyone
1941 – 1945 US spent $321 billion More than the budgets for the last 150 years combined
Raised $100 billion in bonds New tax system: Tax Revenue Act of 1942 Starts withholding
National debt: $49 billion in 1941 $259 billion in 1945
Fear of inflation causes government to create the Office of Price Administration or OPA • Able to keep inflation under control • Not wildly popular due to role in rationing
War Production Board Supervises conversion to war production Auto makers Shirt makers Refrigerator trucks, planes, tanks uniforms, parachutes ammunition
Lansing Oldsmobile Plant
Henry Kaiser uses pre-fab to cut time to make ‘Liberty Ships’ 240 days to 40
Willow Run
1941 6, 000 industrial workers 1944 18, 000 industrial workers
Where to get workers? Native Americans Hispanic ~ 300, 000 Women
African Americans –height of the Great Migration, the shift to Northern cities 7 million from 1910 -1970
6, 000 women work in industry Get 60% the pay of men
More than 310, 000 women worked in the U. S. aircraft industry in 1943, representing 65 percent of the industry’s total workforce only 1 percent in the pre-war years
Rosie the Riveter
Armed Forces 15 million serve 10 million drafted
Includes: 900, 000 African Americans 500, 000 Hispanics 25, 000 Native Americans 300, 000 women
Zoot Suit Riots June 1943
Blacks mostly menial labor Tuskegge Airmen Experiment to show Blacks “racially deficient” and can not fly
Graduate 926 fighter pilots Over 200 missions 66 killed 33 captured Escorted Bombers lost: 0
Had to fly 100 missions to be rotated out instead of 50 missions for white pilots
Relocation of Japanese-Americans Concerns on West Coast about Japanese-Americans Attorney General Earl Warren & Governor pass law to dismiss J-A Olsen from gov. jobs & right to practice Medicine and law
February 1942 War Relocation Authority Executive Order 9066 110, 000 rounded up, given 48 hours to sell homes and businesses 2/3 of those taken are born in the US
Korematsu v. US 1944 6 to 3 Relocation is constitutional
nd 442 Regiment Most decorated unit in ETO >9000 Purple Hearts 7 Presidential unit Citations 53 Distinguished Service Crosses 19 CMH
RATIONING
Waiting in line for rationed goods
Rationing A stamp for gas – 3 gallons per week 2 pair of shoes per year
Victory Gardens Over 20 million around the country 1/3 of fresh vegetables come from Victory Gardens
Who goes to war?
Yogi Berra
PT Boat
Joseph Kennedy Jr.
James Elliot John Franklin Jr.
Josephine Baker
J. D Salinger
War and the Movies
Fighting Seabees
They Were Expendable
Guadalcanal Diary
Veronica Lake
Sahara
Mrs. Miniver
Destination Tokyo
Other Entertainment
Election of 1944 Dew ey Roos evelt
Thomas Dewey FDR
Fala
Election issue: Economy not war Unspoken issue: FDR’s health
FDR forced by party to dump VP Henry Wallace and pick Harry S. Truman
FDR 432 53. 5% Dewey 99 46%
April 12, 1945 FDR has a stroke in Warm Springs, Georgia while sitting for a portrait. Lucy Mercer Rutherford is with him
- Slides: 120
