Download CHAPTER 34: The Origins of World War II

CHAPTER 34
VISUAL
SUMMARY
CHAPTER 35: The Impact
of World War II on
Americans
What kinds of opportunities
and hardships did the war
create for Americans at
home and abroad?
Organizing the American Economy for War
• The War Production Board
– The goal: make America the “arsenal of democracy”
with conversions of industry
• Automakers would now make airplanes and tanks
• Other workers would retrain workers for wartime tasks
• G.D.P. (gross domestic product) rises rapidly
• The National War Labor Board mediates
disputes between union leaders and business
owners
• Government spending rises to new levels
– Taxes account for 45% (“withholding” is introduced)
– War bonds help in financing the war
• Price controls are needed (Office of Price
Administration)
– People were back to work earning money
– Goods were scarce because of the war effort
– Too much money chasing too few goods = inflation
• Rationing was necessary
– Gasoline, tires, sugar, food
– Americans received coupon books to limit
consumption
University of North Carolina website
• War funding comes from taxes and borrowing
(bonds) just like WWI
American G.I.’s (government issue) Go To War
• 1,500,000 troops by Pearl Harbor
– Eager volunteers joined the draftees to fight
– Immigrants wanted to show they were truly Americans
• 8 weeks of intense training then combat
– Fear, loneliness, homesickness, boredom once
deployed
– Physical, emotional and mental wounds surface during
and after
– An appreciation for American ideals after viewing the
abuses of the European dictators, pride and loyalty,
too
The Internment of Japanese-Americans
• Were they loyal? Sabotage? Did their spies cause Pearl
Harbor?
• “Enemy Aliens” (Germans, Italians, Japanese immigrants)
had to register with the
government and carry
identification
• The Japanese-Americans did
not have political power and
were potentially
more easily recognized
• Executive Order 9066
(February 1942) goes into
effect and even native
born Japanese-Americans
are sent to internment
camps inland
• Korematsu v. U.S.
– Fred Korematsu as a
native born citizen who
disobeyed the law and
appealed it all the way
to the Supreme Court
– The Court upheld the decision on the
grounds that a group’s civil rights can
be set aside in time of war
• 100,000 were forced to relocate
into guarded “barracks”
• 442nd Regimental Combat team
was an all-Japanese unit
Women and World War II
(“Rosie the Riveter”)
• New opportunities because of
the demand for workers
• Still faced hostility in maledominated businesses
• Were expected to complete
their “domestic” duties
• WAC (Women’s Army Corps)
• WAVES (Women Accepted
for Volunteer Emergency
Service – Navy)
African-Americans and WWII
• The Double V Campaign: Victory for
democracy at home and abroad
• Black G.I.’s were segregated and were
not permitted in combat (at first)
• Tuskegee Airmen
• there were many people who thought
that black men lacked intelligence, skill,
courage and patriotism.
• Bomber escorts and direct combat
• The only fighter group to never
lose a bomber to enemy planes
African-Americans and WWII
• At the same time Executive Order 9066 inters
Japanese-Americans, Executive Order 8802
outlaws discrimination against African-Americans
in the defense industry
• A.Philip Randolph had threatened a march on
Washington if black civil rights were not protected
• The Great Migration continued to northern
industrial cities
– Blacks may have escaped the South but not racism
– The National Urban League fought for equal
opportunities in housing and employment
– The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) confronted
discrimination with nonviolent resistance
Jewish Americans and WWII
• Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany began in
1933 as soon as Hitler rose to power
– Kristallnacht (“night of broken glass”) occurred in 1938
when mobs burned Jewish synagogues and businesses
• 90 Jews were killed and 30,000 were sent to concentration
camps
• The 1924 National Origins Act restricted
immigration into the U.S. (remember the nativism
and lack of tolerance during the 1920’s?)
• Anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish sentiment) led to a lack
of support for European Jews
• The War Refugee Board was created in 1944 to
finally help Jewish refugees
Mexican Americans and WWII
• Discrimination had barred many Mexicans from better
jobs in the United States
• During the war, laborers were needed
– The bracero program allowed short term work contracts to
be filled by Mexicans in the farms and on the railroads
• June 1943: Zoot suit riots
– Zoot suits were associated with
Mexican teenagers (pachucos)
and gangs who roamed barrios
(neighborhoods) in Los Angeles
– Mobs of sailors and marines
sought out Mexicans and others
wearing a zoot suit and beat them
– Another example of racial prejudice and intolerance