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CHAPTER 25
Americans and
a World in
Crisis
1933-1945
INTRODUCTION
1.) How did President Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy
affect U.S.-Latin American relations?
2.) How did the American people and their govt. respond to
the international crises of the 1930 ’s?
3.) How did President Roosevelt and Congress mobilize the
country for war?
4.) What impact did the war have on the U.S. economy?
5.) How did the war change American society and affect
minorities and women?
6.) What were the different goals of the U.S.A., G.B. and the
U.S.S.R. and how did these goals affect their combat
strategies?
7.) Why did President Truman decide to drop atomic bombs
on Japan, and was he justified in doing so?
THE UNITED STATES IN A MENACING WORLD,
1933-1939
Introduction
 During FDR’s fist 2 terms, he improved relations with
Latin America
 Meanwhile, aggressive, militaristic fascist regimes came
to power in Italy, Germany, and Japan
 The U.S.A. reacted to these developments abroad
ambivalently
 Torn between dislike of fascism and even stronger desire for
peace
NATIONALISM AND THE GOOD NEIGHBOR
The Good Neighbor policy
 Agreed that no state has the right to intervene in the
affairs of another
Applied in Latin America
 Withdrew forces from Haiti and Dominican Republic
 Ended the Platt Amendment
 Refrained from using force against left-wing govts. in
Cuba and Mexico
 FDR did apply economic pressure to influence events
FDR’s restraint in using military force improved
U.S.-Latin American relations
THE RISE OF AGGRESSIVE STATES IN
EUROPE AND ASIA
Italy
Benito Mussolini
Took control in 1922
1938--invaded
Ethiopia
THE RISE OF AGGRESSIVE STATES IN
EUROPE AND ASIA
 Germany
 1933
 Adolf Hitler
 Became chancellor of
Germany
 Absolute dictatorship
 Preached racism,
aggressive nationalism,
and anti-Semitism
THE RISE OF AGGRESSIVE STATES IN
EUROPE AND ASIA
Hitler
 Persecuted the Jews
 Military buildup
 Conquest of other countries
 1936--Rhineland
 1938--Austria
 1938--Sudetenland
 Munich Conference--appeasement by France and Great Britain
 1931--Japanese imperialists seized Manchuria from
China
 1937--began a war of conquest to take over all of China
THE AMERICAN MOOD: NO MORE WAR
Americans disliked these actions in Europe and
Asia but were determined not to be pulled into
another war
U.S.A. participation in WWI as a mistake
Nye Committee
 Reveled the roles played by bankers and weapons
suppliers in WWI
In the 1930’s, novelists and playwrights
condemned war
THE AMERICAN MOOD: NO MORE WAR
Neutrality Acts
 1935
 Prohibited the U.S. from making loans or selling arms to
“belligerent nations”
 Banned Americans from traveling on the ships of
nations at war
 U.S. Dept. of State link
THE GATHERING STORM, 1938-1939
Hitler seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia
Threatened to attack Poland
Signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression pact
 Ensured Russian neutrality during the planned German
invasion of Poland
Mussolini took over Albania
THE GATHERING STORM, 1938-1939
Many Americans grew alarmed and started to
feel that the U.S.A. should take a more active
role
FDR sent messages to Hitler and Mussolini
asking them to pledge not to invade any other
nation
They were responded with ridicule
Roosevelt asked Congress to appropriate much
more $$$$ to build up U.S. defenses
AMERICA AND THE JEWISH REFUGEES
Throughout the 30’s, German persecution of the
Jews intensified
1935--Nuremberg Laws
 Stripped German Jews of citizenship and rights
1938--Kristallnacht
 A wave of Nazi violence against Jews
 Attacked their homes, synagogues, and businesses
AMERICA AND THE JEWISH REFUGEES
Tens of thousands of European Jews fled and
seek countries that would admit them
Among the refugees were:
 Distinguished musicians
 Architects
 Writers
 Scholars
Many would enriched the cultural life of their
adopted nation
 Physicists Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi would play key
roles in developing the atomic bomb for the U.S.
AMERICA AND THE JEWISH REFUGEES
 Congress would not amend discriminatory laws to
offer a haven to hundreds of thousands of
additional Jews needing a safe home
 FDR did not exert pressure on Congress to do so
either
 The majority of Americans opposed letting in more
Jews
 Isolationist
 Anti-immigrant
 Anti-Semitic attitudes
 1939--the U.S. stopped a ship carrying Jewish
refugees and forced it to return to Europe
 There the country-less refugees were soon
murdered by the Nazis
INTO THE STORM, 1939-1941
The European War
Sept. 1, 1939
 WWII began
Hitler attacked Poland
GB and France declared war on Germany
 They were committed by a treaty to defend Poland
THE EUROPEAN WAR
The U.S.A. revised the Neutrality Acts
Now permitted was the sale of weapons to
“belligerents” on a cash-and-carry basis
Many saw this as a way to help Britain and
France without having to fight
April 1940--German armies turned on Denmark
and Norway
May 1940--they conquered Netherlands and
Belgium
mid-June 1940--they captured France
THE EUROPEAN WAR
The Battle of Britain
July 10 to Oct. 31, 1940
German bombing raids over cities in England
Prime Minister Winston Churchill appealed to
FDR for help
 The majority of Americans favored a stepped-up
weapons shipments to GB
 An articulate minority feared that such aid would
weaken U.S. defenses and needlessly pull the U.S.A. into
war
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
In 1940, FDR decided to run for a 3rd term
because of the situation in Europe
Republican opponent was Wendell Willkie
During the campaign, Roosevelt continued his
interventionist position
 Signed an executive agreement with Churchill
 Gave Britain 50 overage U.S. destroyers in exchange for leases
on air and naval bases in British possession in the Western
Hemisphere
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
America First Committee
 Organized by isolationists
 Preached that we must not give any aid to
“belligerents” or become involved in the struggle
against Hitler
Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented 3rd
term
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
Lend-Lease Act
 Passed Congress in March 1941
 Permitted the president to lend or lease military
equipment to any country whose defense he thought
vital to American security
June 1941--Hitler attacked U.S.S.R.
Roosevelt gave lend-lease aid to the Soviets and
British
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
Constant sinking by German U-boats sent most
of the supplies to the bottom of the Atlantic
To prevent such losses, the U.S.A.:
 Began to convoy British ships as far as Iceland
 tracked German submarines
 Notifying the British of the location of Germany
submarines
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
By the fall of 1941, the U.S. and Germany were
engaged in an undeclared naval war
Atlantic Charter
 Summer of 1941
 Meet off the coast of Newfoundland
 Moved Roosevelt and Churchill closer to an alliance
 A joint proclamation declaring that they were fighting
the Axis powers to “ensure life, liberty, independence
and religious freedom and to preserve the rights of man
and justice."
PEARL HARBOR AND THE COMING OF WAR
Japan expanded its aggression from China
to the resource-rich British, Dutch, and
French colonies in Southeast Asia
Japan wanted to dominate all of Asia
This clashed with the Open Door policy
Roosevelt applied economic pressure on
Japan
PEARL HARBOR AND THE COMING OF WAR
By 1940, Washington prohibited the sale of
aviation gasoline to Japan
Tokyo occupied northern Indochina and signed
the Tripartite Pact with Germany and
Italy=Roosevelt placed an embargo on all items
Japan needed
July 1941--Japan seized the rest of
Indochina=U.S. froze Japanese assets in the
U.S.=ended all trade
PEARL HARBOR AND THE COMING OF WAR
Japan made a last-ditch effort to persuade
Washington to reopen trade and recognize
Japan’s conquests
If that failed, Japan would attempt to destroy
the U.S. Pacific fleet with a surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor
Washington knew its refusal would provoke an
attack somewhere in the Pacific
Roosevelt would not yield
He sent warnings to all base commanders
PEARL HARBOR AND THE COMING OF WAR
Dec. 7, 1941
 Japan struck Pearl Harbor
 History Channel video
Dec. 8
 Congress recognized that a state of war existed with
Japan
 Roosevelt speech
Dec. 11
 Japan’s 2 allies (Germany and Italy) declared war on U.S.
and the U.S reciprocated
PEARL HARBOR AND THE COMING OF WAR
In the months after Pearl Harbor, the United
States faced a bleak situation
 Nazi submarines prowled off the east coast and took a
heavy toll on Allied ships
 Hitler’s armies had pushed to the outskirts of Leningrad
and Moscow
 Germany was launching new offensives in the Crimea,
Caucasus, and North Africa
AMERICA MOBILIZES FOR WAR
Organizing for Victory
 To plan the military effort FDR created:
 the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of Strategic Services
(would later become the CIA)
 To mobilize the economy Roosevelt:
 Established hundreds of special wartime agencies
 War Production Board
 Allocated scarce materials, limited manufacture of civilian goods,
and awarded military production contracts
 Japan took over:
 Philippines, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, Guam, Wake, Singapore,
Dutch East Indies, and most of the island chains in the Western Pacific
ORGANIZING FOR VICTORY
The U.S. produced more armaments than
Germany, Italy, and Japan combined
Govt. contracts guaranteed handsome profits to
the giant corporations that received most of the
defense contracts
Federal authority and the federal budget grew
rapidly
The influence of the military and big corporation
on American life grew also
THE WAR ECONOMY
Between 1941 and 1945, the U.S. govt. spent
nearly twice as much as it did from 1789 to 1940
Fueled by this expenditure, the economy
boomed
During the war:
 Purchasing power of industrial workers went up 50%
 Corporate profits climbed by 70%
 Unemployment vanished as 17 million new jobs were
created
THE WAR ECONOMY
Many of the poor moved into the middle class
Most labor leaders gave no-strike pledges
 John L. Lewis led his miners on repeated work stoppages
 An increasingly conservative Congress retaliated with
the antilabor Smith-Connally Act
Office of Price Administration imposed price
controls and rationing
 Done to curb inflation
 As a result, the cost of living only rose by 8% during the
last 2 years of the war
THE WAR ECONOMY
The govt. raised the huge sums needed to
fight the war with:
the sale of bonds
 Provided half the money
Steeply increased federal taxes
 Provided the rest of the $$$
“A Wizard War”
The govt. also employed thousands of scientists
Manhattan Project
 A secret project
 Designed to beat the Germans in the race to develop
nuclear weapons
 Led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer
 Spent about $2 billion
 July 16, 1945--tested the first nuclear bomb
PROPAGANDA AND POLITICS
 Office of War Information and the Office of
Censorship
 Jobs were to unify Americans and prevent
dangerous security leaks
PROPAGANDA AND POLITICS
 Full employment and prosperity led to a politically
conservative trend
 In 1942--more Republicans and conservative
Democrats were elected to Congress
 Cut welfare programs
 Abolished New Deal agencies
 Halted any further reforms
 The role of the federal govt. in people ’s lives grew
larger
 Supervised the economy
 Funded research
 Molded public opinion
CHOOSING SIDES
Allies
 France
 Britain
 US
 USSR
Axis
 Germany
 Italy
 Japan
STRATEGIES
Allies
 Followed a “Defeat Hitler
First” strategy. Most
American military resources
were targeted for Europe.
 In the Pacific, American
military strategy called for
an “island hopping ”
campaign, seizing islands
closer and closer to Japan
and using them as bases for
air attacks on Japan, and for
cutting off Japanese
supplies through submarine
warfare against Japanese
shipping.
Axis
 Germany hoped to defeat the
Soviet Union, gain control of their
oil fields, and force Britain out of
the war with a bombing campaign
and submarine warfare before
America’s could join the war.
 Following Pearl Harbor, Japan
invaded the Philippines and
Indonesia and planned to invade
both Australia and Hawaii. They
hoped America would accept
Japanese dominance in the Pacific,
rather than conduct a bloody and
costly war to stop Japan
MAJOR BATTLES
North Africa
El Alamein: German forces threatened to
seize Egypt and the Suez Canal.
Defeated by the British.
Prevented Hitler from gaining access to
Middle Eastern oil supplies and attacking
the Soviet Union from the south.
THE BATTLEFRONT, 1942-1944
Liberating Europe- “Beat Hitler First”
 The British and Americans concentrated on beating
Hitler first, then Japan
 Stalin pressed his 2 allies to launch an invasion of
Europe as quickly as possible
 Churchill convinced Roosevelt that they should land in
North Africa first
 By May 1943--they had defeated German and Italian armies
 Soviets turned the tide of the war in the east
 Won at Stalingrad
 Held out at Leningrad
 Attacked the German invaders along a thousand-mile front
MAJOR BATTLES
 Europe
 Stalingrad: Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers
were killed or captured in a months-long siege of
Stalingrad.
 defeat prevented Germany from seizing the Soviet oil
fields and turned the tide against Germany in the east.
 Normandy landings (D-Day): American and Allied
troops under Eisenhower landed in German -occupied
France on June 6, 1944.
 Lots of casualties.
 The landings succeeded, and the liberation of western
Europe from Hitler began.
LIBERATING EUROPE
The British and Americans then captured Sicily
and started a slow march up the Italian
peninsula
Mussolini was deposed in July 1943
 The new Italian govt. surrendered
Allies encountered stiff opposition from
Germany troops
LIBERATING EUROPE
1944-1945--the Soviets cleared the Germans out
of the U.S.S.R.
The Soviets continued to pursue them across
eastern Europe
June 1944--British and Americans landed on the
beaches of Normandy
Battle of the Bulge
 Dec. 1944-Jan. 1945
 Nazis temporarily stopped the Allied drive
By early 1945, the Americans and British
reached the Rhine
WAR IN THE PACIFIC
 The Japanese advances in the Pacific were first
halted in the spring and summer of 1942
 Battle of Coral Sea and Battle of Midway
 U.S.A. Navy and Army assaulted Japanese
strongholds in:
 Solomon Islands
 Gilbert Islands
 Marshall Island
 Mariana Island
The U.S. Navy largely destroyed what was left of the
Japanese fleet at the Battles of the Philippine Sea
and Leyte Gulf
MAJOR BATTLES
Pacific
Midway: American naval forces defeated a much
larger Japanese force as it prepared to take
Midway Island
A Japanese victory at Midway would have
enabled Japan to invade Hawaii.
The American victory ended the Japanese threat
to Hawaii and began a series of American
victories in the “island hopping” campaign,
carrying the war closer and closer to Japan.
MAJOR BATTLES
Pacific
 Iwo Jima and Okinawa:
Brought American forces closer than ever to
Japan, but cost thousands of American lives
and even more Japanese lives
Japanese soldiers and civilians committed
suicide rather than surrender.
THE GRAND ALLIANCE
Great Britain, Soviet Union, and the U.S.A.
Created out of military necessity
All 3 had different goals for the postwar
period
Roosevelt wanted to:
 defeat fascism
 Establish a new world order strong enough to keep
the peace
 Open trade
 Protect national self-determination
THE GRAND ALLIANCE
Churchill hoped to:
 Keep the British colonial empire
 Maintain a balance of power in Europe against the
Soviets
Stalin hoped to:
 Weaken Germany permanently
 To protect his country against any future attack from
the west
 Impose Soviet domination over eastern Europe
THE GRAND ALLIANCE
FDR attempted to reconcile these
differences with personal diplomacy
He held top-level wartime conferences
with the Allied leaders at:
Casablanca
Cairo
Tehran
 The first meeting between the Allied leaders
concerned the details of the Normandy invasion and
other military and political problems were discussed
THE GRAND ALLIANCE
Roosevelt was reelected to a 4th term in
1944
 Harry S Truman was his VP
Republicans nominated Thomas E. Dewey
FDR won by the smallest margin of his
career
WAR AND AMERICAN SOCIETY
Introduction
About 15 million Americans served in the armed
forces
Another 15 million moved from one place to
another
More women than ever before entered the paid
labor force
The GI’s War
 GIs saw death and brutality all around them
 Some troops in all of the armies committed
atrocities
 Some suffered lasting psychological damage
 Others became hardened and cynical
 For many their war service opened new vistas
 They experienced foreign cities and countries
 Learned to be more tolerant of other Americans
 Different religions, classes, ethnicity, regions, etc.
 About 1 million of them married women they met
overseas
THE HOME FRONT
15 million Americans moved from one location
to another for family and economic reasons
People left rural areas to seek jobs in warproduction centers
 Terrible shortages of housing and other facilities
developed
 Urban blight and many social problems
The West grew in population
THE HOME FRONT
High school enrollment dropped
 More teenagers took full-time jobs
The armed forces sent nearly a million people to
college campuses for special training
Americans went to the movies to watch films
that entertained them
The public received war news from periodicals
and the radio
THE HOME FRONT
Millions of women
went to work in
defense plants
 High wages
 Patriotism
 Govt. encouragement
THE HOME FRONT
By 1945--women constituted over 1/3 of the
labor force
Took on formerly male-dominated work:
 Welding
 Riveting
 Operating cranes
 Running lathes
They only earned about 65% of what men
received for the the jobs
THE HOME FRONT
 More than 1/3 of the women had children under 14
 There were few day-care centers
 Children were often left on their own
 Juvenile delinquency increased alarmingly
 Marriage, birth, and divorce rates soared
 About 300,000 women joined the armed forces
 After 1945, most women left their wartime
occupations
 Women gained a new sense of their own
capabilities
RACISM AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
During WWII, African-Americans demanded that
the nation fight racism at home as well as
abroad
NAACP and CORE led the struggle for civil rights
1941--A. Philip Randolph planned a massive
march on Washington
 FDR signed an executive order prohibiting racial
discrimination in hiring and promotion by govt. agencies
and defense contractors
RACISM AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
The Fair Employment Practices Commission
 Created by FDR
 Actually had very little power
Wartime labor shortages opened many new jobs
for African-Americans
About 1 million African-Americans served in the
armed forces
 Generally in segregated units commanded by white
officers
RACISM AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
In civilian life, tensions developed between
African-Americans demanding equality and
resistant whites
 Race riots erupted in dozens of cities
More than 700,000 African-Americans left the
South to settle in cities of the North and West
 The move opened up greater opportunities and
potential political power
WAR AND DIVERSITY
25,000 Native Americans served in the armed
forces
Another 50,000 left reservations to work in
defense industries
 Many returned to the reservations after the war
Conditions on reservations had deteriorated
badly because Congress had slashed
appropriations for Indian programs
CONTRIBUTIONS OF MINORITIES
 African Americans served in segregated units and
were assigned to noncombat roles
 demanded the right to serve in combat
 Tuskegee Airmen (African American) served in Europe
with distinction.
 Communication codes of the Navajo were used
 (oral, not written language; impossible for the Japanese to
break).
 Mexican Americans also fought, but in nonsegregated units.
 Suffered high casualties and won numerous unit and
individual medals for bravery in action.
WAR AND DIVERSITY
Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans entered the
United States during WWII
 Some legally, some illegally
Worked on the big farms in the western states
Mexican-Americans left migratory farm labor to
seek better jobs in cities
WAR AND DIVERSITY
Zoot-suit riots
During WWII
In LA
Between sailors and
soldiers and
Hispanic youth
WAR AND DIVERSITY
About 350,000 Mexican-Americans served in the
armed forces
Emerged from the War with a heightened
consciousness and demands for equality
THE INTERMENT OF JAPANESE-AMERICANS
The govt.’s treatment of Japanese-Americans
during WWII was one of the worst violations of
civil liberties in U.S. history
The govt. uprooted 112,000 Japanese-Americans
living on the West Coast and placed them in
internment camps in remote interior regions
 Atmosphere of hysteria over Pearl Harbor
 Fear of Japanese invasion of the mainland
 Traditional prejudice against Asian-Americans
THE INTERMENT OF JAPANESE-AMERICANS
Korematsu v. United States
1944
Supreme Court case
Upheld the constitutionality of evacuation
Korematsu decision
THE INTERMENT OF JAPANESE-AMERICANS
In the 1980’s, the govt. finally admitted that its
actions had been unjustified
The govt. apologized to Japanese-Americans
The govt. agreed to pay compensation to them
for property losses they suffered when they
were detained
TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, 1945
The Yalta Conference
 Feb. 1945
 The Big Three all meet
 Roosevelt and Churchill had to make concessions to
Stalin
 Stalin promised to declare war on Japan shortly after
Germany’s surrender
 Western leaders agreed to the Soviets regaining the territory
Japan had taken from them in 1905
THE YALTA CONFERENCE
Roosevelt and Churchill settled for Stalin’s vague
promise to allow free election in Eastern Europe
 He never allowed them
Stalin agreed to the formation of the United
Nations in April 1945
History Channel video--Yalta Conference
VICTORY IN EUROPE
April 1945--American and Soviet troops met at
the Elbe River
 History Channel audio--Elbe River report
April 12--FDR died
 History Channel speech--Truman on FDR's death
April 30--Hitler committed suicide
May 2--Berlin fell to the Soviet
May 8--Germany unconditionally surrendered
 V-E Day
VICTORY IN EUROPE
Harry S Truman
became the new
president
Truman distrusted
the Soviets
He accused them of
breaking their Yalta
promise to allow
free elections in
Eastern Europe
VICTORY IN EUROPE
Stalin responded angrily and tightened his hold
on eastern Europe
April to June 1945--San Francisco conference
 Framed the United Nations Charter
 History Channel speech--United Nations formed
 High tensions between Big Three
July 1945--meeting at Potsdam
 The Big Three agreed on very little at the meeting
THE HOLOCAUST
Nazi genocide of Jews during WWII
Extermination camps
Mass murders and torture
Roosevelt administration was more concerned
with winning the War as quickly as possible
rather than destroying the camps
Very little attempts to rescue European Jews
Congress and the public did not want to admit
large #s of Jewish refugees to the U.S.A.
THE HOLOCAUST
By 1945--Nazis murdered:
 6 million Jews
 About 3 million gypsies, communists, homosexuals, etc.
Allies liberated the death camps in the last
months of the War
 Took pictures of the horror they saw
THE ATOMIC BOMB
The fighting in the Pacific continued in 1945
 U.S. captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa
 U.S. suffered heavy causalities at both battles
THE ATOMIC BOMB
July 1945--U.S. successfully tested an atomic
bomb
History Channel video--atomic bomb tested
Truman issued the Potsdam Declaration
 Called on Japan to surrender unconditionally or face
“prompt and utter destruction”
Japan rejected the warning
Truman ordered the use of nuclear bombs
THE ATOMIC BOMB
Aug. 6--Hiroshima
 History Channel video--Hiroshima
Aug. 9--Nagasaki
Japan then surrendered
Many historians have debated if the U.S.A.
needed to use the atomic bombs
Was it justified?
Motives?
THE ATOMIC BOMB
Fifty million people died in WWII
 More than 1/2 were civilians
Soviet Union lost 20 million
About 400,000 U.S. servicemen died
Much of Europe and Asia was ruined
U.S. was physically undamaged
There were profound changes had occurred in
American life
CONCLUSION
The U.S. used isolationism in the the 1930’s as a
response to the aggressions of Germany, Italy,
and Japan
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Congress
voted for war on Japan
Hitler and Mussolini then declared war on the
U.S.A.
CONCLUSION
Once in the War, the country engaged in total
war
The powers of the federal govt. (especially the
president) expanded mightily to mobilize the
American economy fully
U.S. became more productive and prosperous
than ever before
The Depression ended
Fully employment returned
The majority of people earned good $$$$
CONCLUSION
Allied armies defeated the enemy
Americans’ faith in “capitalism and democratic
institutions” rebounded
Confidence and optimism about our future and
national strength grew
America then locked horns with its former ally
the Soviet Union in a Cold War