Download Americans and the World in Crisis 1933-1945

Americans and the World in Crisis
1933-1945
Chapter 25
• Latin America
– Hoover
– Actively pursued friendly relations with Latin
America, toured region before inauguration
– Ended troop occupation in Nicaragua and Haiti
– Good Neighbor Policy
• Pan American Conference 1933
– Formal convention signed
– Withdrew American troops
– U.S. pledged to never interfere in internal affairs
of L.A. again
– Renounced Platt Amendment
– Economic interference instead of military
– 2nd Pan Am Conference 1936- Roosevelt attended
• Tested
– Cuba
» Economic crisis 1933
» No direct intervention
» Roosevelt and Congress nullified Platt
Amendment, except Gitmo Bay
– Mexico
» Reform government in power 1936
» Seized US and British oil companies
» Compensation agreements reached
» Roosevelt refused to intervene
Foreign Policy
1933-1939
Rise of Aggressive states in Europe and Asia
• Soviet Union
– Formally recognized in 1933 by US
– To increase trade and boost economy
– Joseph Stalin leader
– Communist
• Japan
– Hideki Tojo
– Wanted natural resources
– Invasion of China 1931
– Defied open door policy and League of
Nations
– Took over Manchuria
– U.S. refused to recognize
– Stimson Doctrine 1932
– Rape of Nanking 1937
– Full scale war
• Italy
– Benito Mussolini
– Fascist leader
– Idea that people should glorify
nation/race through aggressive show of
force
– Wanted new Roman Empire
– Starts with Ethiopia 1935
• Germany
– Totalitarian government
– Equivalent of Fascists
– Adolf Hitler
– Starts rearmament of Germany
– Starts in Rhineland 1936
– Sudetenland 1938
– “allowed” to take Czechoslovakia
– German speaking
– Munich Conference 1938
America stays NEUTRAL
• Keeping with the Trend
– Isolationist since 1920s
• America First Committee
– Charles Lindbergh, Coughlin
– Gerald Nye
• WWI investigations
• “merchants of death”
• Gathering Storm
– Neutrality Acts 1935-1937
– FDR’s “quarantine aggressors”
– Axis Actions
• Japan violates naval treaties 1936
• Germany violates Munich Pact
– FDR’s response
• Actions “short of war”
• $300 million war appropriations
• 1.3 billion defense budget
• “preparedness”
War in Europe
• Germany invades Poland 9/1/1939
– Breaks Treaty of Versailles
– Secretly agrees to share with Soviet
Union
• Britain and France declare war
• German invades Baltic
• spring 1940
• Use of Blitzkrieg (lighting war)
• Denmark/Norway surrendered in a
few days
• US response
– Stay neutral but amend acts
– “cash and carry” policy
– Amended Neutrality Acts
– US economy benefitted
• France surrenders 6/22/1940
• Only took one week
• Hitler turns to Britain
– Air raids and u-boats
• Reelection
– FDR limited in order for reelection
– Unprecedented 3rd term
– Reasons:
– Economic recovery
– Fear of war, people wanted an
experienced leader
– Defeats (R) Wendell Willkie
• Action
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Selective Service Act 1940
“Lend-lease” program
Cash provision scrapped
Atlantic Charter 1941
Pearl Harbor 12/07/1941
• Lead up
– US threat to Japan’s global policy
– 1940 US ended treaty with Japan
• Japan signs Tripartite Act with Germany and Italy 1940
– Invades French Indochina
• FDR freezes Japanese assets in US
• Imposes oil embargo
• Coming War
– Japan increasingly threatening to US
– Oil sanctions the issue
– Codes broken, attack imminent
• Attack
– Pearl Harbor attack technically victory for Japan
– 350 aircraft destroyed, 2,400 killed, 1,200 wounded
– In less than two hours
– Japan continues attack on Philippines, Malaya, and
Hong Kong
• Response
– US Declaration of War 12/08/1941
– 12/11/1941- Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
Mobilizing for War
• Selective Service Act 1940
– Four Freedoms Speech
• 1941
– 1.6 million in Armed Forces
– 15% industrial output
• War Powers Act
– Unprecedented presidential authority
– Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Army, Navy, and Air Force
– Office of Strategic Services
• Forerunner to CIA
• Combated espionage
Wartime Industry
• War Production Board (WPB) • National War Labor Board
(NWLB)
– Managed war industries
– Allocated materials
– Directed conversion of
peacetime industries to war
industries
– $100 million in contracts in 1st
½ of 1942
• War Manpower Commission
(WMC)
– Supervised mobilization
– Mediated disputes between
labor and management
– Unions asked not to strike
– Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act
1943
– Government could take over if
strike threatened production
– Roosevelt used on the railroads
• Office of Price Administration
(OPA)
– Rationed scare products
– Imposed price controls on meat,
sugar, gasoline, auto tires, etc.
Wartime Industry
• 1942 Justice James Brynes
– “Assistant President”
– In charge of Domestic war effort
• 1944 Economic Bill of Rights
– Not enacted by Congress
• Consequences
• Assembly Line
– 1942 ½ economy geared for war
– Equaled Germany, Italy, and Japan’s
output combined
– Created synthetic rubber
• Greatest Weapons manufacturer
– Henry Ford
– Henry Kaiser “liberty ships”
– 14 days per ship with assembly line
– Powers of government swelled
– Defense spending increased
– Federal budget soared
– Fed. Civilian employees increased
– ** By 1944 unemployment virtually
gone!!! **
War Economy
• $320 billion cost
– $100 billion spent in 1945 alone
– Paid by:
– Increasing income tax
– 1st time all Americans had to
pay
– War bonds
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Ended depression
Unemployment vanished
Stimulated industrial booms
Doubled output and GNP
Real wages increased
• Investment in America
– West
• $40 billion investment
• LA 2nd largest manufacturing center
– South
• Textile, oil, natural gas
• Shipyards, aircraft plants
• A New America
– Per capita income tripled
– Only shift EVER towards greater
equality
– Middle class created
– Large scale farmers profited
• Higher prices
• Increased productivity
• Farm consolidation
– 1st income tax
– Labor Unions
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From 9 to 14.8 million
“maintenance of membership”
Limited wildcat strikes
Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes
1943
– Limited union power
– Inflation
• Congress gave FDR control
• Combated with rationing
• Raised taxes
Propaganda
• Office of Censorship
– Suppression of information
– Banned photos of American dead
until 1943
• Office of War Information
– Employed 4,000 artists, writers,
advertisers
• Norman Rockwell
– Countered enemy propaganda
– Moral struggle between good
and evil
– Hollywood helped
• Reinforced through movies, on
radio
• News programs
• Cartoons, Superheroes
Men and Women in Uniform
• WWII mobilized 16.4 million
Americans into the armed forces
• Before the war
• Majority of 200,000 men employed
in the Armed Services served as
military police
• At beginning of war only U.S.
Marine Corps ready to fight
• Mobilization
• After U.S. entered war, minimum
age was lowered to 18
• Rejected soldiers for
• Physical issues
• Mental issues
• Profound illiteracy
• Officer corps created
• New officer training schools developed
• Soldiers became known as Gi’s
• Meant government issue
• Mainly only draftees
• Women
• Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
(WAAC) created in May 1942 by the
Army
• Non-combat missions
• Nurses
• Flew planes
• Administration
• African-Americans
• No longer excluded from Marine
Corps and Coast Guard
• Still faced discrimination
The Battlefront 1942-1944
• Europe
• Asia
– Operation Torch Nov. 1942
• North Africa
• Led by Gen. Eisenhower
• Surrender of Rommel
– Battle of Stalingrad
• Huge Russian victory
– Italy 1943
• Allied invasion
• Occupied Sicily summer 1943
• Spread to Peninsula
• Difficult campaign
– D-Day June 6, 1944
• Allied invasion of France
• Paris liberated by August
• Largest sea-land operation
• Operation Overlord
• Led by Eisenhower
– Battle of the Bulge Dec. 1944
• Month-long battle
• Desperate German counterattack
• Decisive Allied victory
– Philippines 1942
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MacArthur leaves troops
Hides in Australia
78,000 surrender
Bataan Death March
– Battle at Coral Sea May 1942
• 1st all-plane battle
• Stop Jap invasion of Australia
– Midway 1942
• Crucial US outpost
• Broke Jap signal
• Destroyed large portion of Japanese
army
• VERY important victory
– Guadalcanal Aug.1942
• Had to deal with Malaria
• 6 bitter months of battle
• Two-pronged advanced
– Island-Hopping
•
new strategy
• By-passed Jap strongholds and
isolated them with naval and air
power
Politics Abroad And At Home
• Casablanca 1943
– 1st conference of “big three”
– Meet to define goals
• Teheran
–
2nd
meeting
• Goals:
– FDR
• Total defeat of Axis powers
• Establishment of world order strong
enough to preserve peace and
open-trade
– Churchill
• Balance of power in Europe
• Retain imperial possessions
– Soviet Union
• Permanently weakened Germany
• Sphere of influence in Eastern
Europe
• 1944 Election
– Wallace dropped as VP
• Truman more conservative
– Republican challenger Thomas
Dewey
– Strong reputation for prosecuting
corruption in NY
– Couldn’t really offer an alternative
to F.D.R.’s leadership
– Smallest margin of victory for FDR
– Many still concerned with change of
leadership during a war
American Society
• Home Front
– Mass internal migration
– New job opportunities
– Urbanization
• Housing shortages
– Prosperity after depression
– Conservation
• Victory garden
• Consumer goods shortage
– Psychological effects
• High divorce rates
• Family violence
• Juvenile delinquency
– Traditional conventions
strengthened
Women on the Home Front
• More opportunities
– Thousands of jobs opened
– 5 million women in the workforce
– Pay still unequal
– Not just “white collar”
– More married women hired
– 200,000 served non-combat
military roles
• “Rosie the Riveter”
– “making history while working for
victory”
• Education
– Teachers, students leave schools
– Colleges forced to admit more
women
African American Life
• Status
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• Victories
• Smith v. Allwright 1944
9/10 lived below poverty line
Earned only 39% of white income
Unemployment will drop 80% during WWII
1.5 million left South for jobs in North and
West
• Unconstitutional to deny membership in
political parties as a way of excluding
African-Americans from voting in primaries
• Executive Order 8802
– 1st presidential directive on race
– Prohibited discriminatory employment
practices by federal agencies
• “Double- V” campaign 1942
– Victory over Axis powers AND discrimination
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– NAACP membership at 500,000
• CORE 1942
– Congress of Racial Equality
– Non-violent methods
– Against Jim Crow laws in north
• A. Philip Randolph
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Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
“thundering march” 1941
End discrimination in Armed Services
FDR compromised
Beginning of Civil Rights movement
1 million served in Armed Forces
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Restricted jobs
Few units
7,000 officers
761st tank battalion
Segregated units
• Home Front Violence
– Race Riots
• Harlem 1943 (Mobile, Beaumont)
• Detroit
– 32 hours
– 34 dead, 700 injured
– $2 million in damage
Other Ethnicities
• American- Indians
– 25,000 served in Armed Forces
– More than half never returned to
reservations
– Navajo “code-talkers”
• Iwo Jima
– Worked in defense industries on west
coast
– Incomes tripled
– Discrimination
• National Congress of American Indians
1944
• Mexicans
– Braceros, temporary workers
– 1942 agreement
– Didn’t have to have go through formal
immigration for harvest seasons
– Hostility against “zoot suits”
– Riots 1943
– 350,000 served
• Not segregated
• Very decorated
• Gays/Lesbians
– New opportunities
– Freedom
– Veteran’s Benevolent Association
1945
– 20,000 served in military
• Japanese
– Suffered most
– Over 100,000 interned or placed in
relocation camps
– Reflected 40 years of anti-Japanese
sentiment
– Supreme Court upheld with
Korematsu case 1944
– “justified” during war time
– $2 billion in property loss
• Later compensated
The Holocaust
• When did America
know?
– Leaked early 1942
• No photographs
• Not believed
– Nov. 1942 State
Department admits
knowledge
• How much could
have been done?
Finishing the War
• Europe
– March 1945
• Crossed into heartland
– V-E Day
• Berlin surrounded
• Hitler's suicide April 30th, 1945
• Surrender May 8th, 1945
– FDR dies April 12, 1945
• Yalta Conference
– End of War in sight
– US
• Wants to pressure GB about India
• Wants free elections in Eastern
Europe
• Dollar replaces pound
– Soviet Union
• Has advantage
• Wants Manchuria
• Wants Eastern Europe
• Japan/ Asia
– Kamikazes 1st used Oct. 1944
– 1945 Iwo Jima
• “meat grinder”
– June 1945 Okinawa
• Brutal war, mass casualties
• 50,000 Americans
• 100,000 Japanese
– Japan holds to “bitter end”
• How many Americans would die?
– Potsdam Conference
• Truman announces Atomic Bomb
• Japan warned
– Enola Gay 8/6/1945
• Destroys Hiroshima
• Nagasaki 8/8/1945
• 90,000 + dead
• 130,000+ injured
– Japan’s surrender
• Unconditional August 14, 1945
• Officially September 2, 1945 to
McArthur on the U.S.S. Missouri
Was it Justified?
Costs of the A-Bomb
Conclusion
• Deadliest war in history
• 20 million dead, 25 million civilians
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7.5 million Russians
3.5 million Germans
1.2 million Japanese
2.2 million Chinese
6 million Jews
300,000 Americans
– 800,000 wounded
• Asia/Europe in rubble
• United Nations created in 1945
• America
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Middle class created
“can-do” attitude
World superpower
$250 billion debt