1. The Home Front How did people cope with America at war.

2. Topics Minority participation Wartime production Rationing Paying for the war American propaganda Japanese Internment Manhattan Project

3. The Armed Services Recall: the New Deal did not end the Great Depression in the US; mobilizing for war ended the Great Depression. 1940: Roosevelt reinstated the draft & expanded it after the attack on Pearl Harbor. About 16 million Americans would serve in the armed forces during World War II. Troops would continue to be segregated & women were not allowed to enter active duty.

4. Since women were not allowed active participation many volunteered for a variety of vital roles in the military. WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (Navy); women did necessary clerical work that would have been performed by men. WASP: Women Air-force Service Pilots; tested & delivered aircraft; nearly 40 women died in official capacity. WAC: Women’s Army Corps; 150,000 volunteers; repaired equipment, worked as electricians & performed other vital jobs.

5. Most black Americans served in non-combat roles in the military The Tuskegee Airmen was an all-black unit of fighter pilots (mostly from Tuskegee Institute.) These young college men provided air support in both North Africa, Italy, & Germany. They completed 15,500 missions & were the only US escort group that had not lost a single bomber to enemy planes. As more men went off to war, women & other minorities would find good paying jobs in factories producing war supplies.

6. Wartime Production Factories that produced consumer goods were quickly converted to the production of war supplies. The federal government created several new agencies to help ensure that American industry would be able to meet the needs of the military. These agencies regulated what would be produced, prices charged & how raw materials would be used.

7. 2 examples: Office of Production Management & War Production Board. Production goals for war supplies were met & exceeded the expectations of government leaders. The US produced more war supplies than Germany, Italy & Japan combined. Production increases caused unemployment to drop to 1.9%. Wages for most workers went up & demand for the limited consumer goods increased. Farmers also benefited from increased demand.

8. With young men going off to war, women would become the main source of labor in the war production factories. Over 6.5 million women found jobs outside the home in positions never before open to them. Working women were represented by the iconic figure of “Rosie the Riveter.” They were not only contributing to economic recovery but they were also contributing to the war effort. Of course, there were incidents of discrimination, harassment, & racism

9. Black workers were often forced to take the lowest-paying jobs, regardless of their skills or experience. Union leader A. Philip Randolph called for black workers to strike to call attention to the working conditions of black Americans. The protest was called off after FDR issued an order outlawing discrimination in government or defense jobs (Executive Order 9066) This was the first time a president issued an executive order against discrimination in the workplace.

10. Rationing This program allowed for a fixed amount of a particular item to be produced & sold to the general public. This was done to manage the nation’s supply & demand of these products. Tires, gasoline, sugar, butter, coffee, meat. Military needs took top priority People were issued “ration books” which entitled each person in a family to a certain amount of certain foods.

11. There were penalties for breaking the rationing rules. People accepted the program as part of their patriotic duty. Many Americans also had “scrap drives” where people collected waste materials to help the war effort. Tin cans, glass, scrap rubber, even women’s silk & nylon stockings were recycled for the war effort. To decrease demand for food, the government encouraged Americans to plant “Victory gardens.”

12. In small towns & large cities, any piece of green-space was turned into a garden. This helped cut down on the fuel usage for harvesting & transporting these crops. The crops were shared among the people of an area or could be sold in the neighborhood. The victory gardens helped unite communities & were a popular expression of patriotism. During the war, all Americans were expected to sacrifice for the war effort. Defeating the Axis powers was the goal of all Americans.

13. Paying for the War The federal government sold “War Bonds” to help raise money for war equipment. People were encouraged to invest in these war bonds to pay for the vast quantities of shipping, air craft, & other weapons being produced. Magazines, newspapers, & celebrities got people to buy the bonds. By the end of the war, 85 million Americans had bought bonds (over ½ of the population.)

14. The total raised was $185 billion, twice the amount the federal government spent in 1945. Of course, many Americans paid the ultimate cost of the war by dying in combat or combat- related activities.

15. American Propaganda Designed to raise public support for the war effort. The government went to great lengths to shape public attitudes & beliefs about the war. FDR called the fight against the Axis powers a fight to protect the “four freedoms.” Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, & freedom from fear

16. The Office of War Information was responsible for spreading propaganda Propaganda = ideas or information designed to promote a cause. Poster, films, advertising Positive vision of the US: men join the fighting forces & women take jobs in war industries. Support for government programs: saving gasoline, conserving food & other products. OWI also issued warnings about a world controlled by the Axis powers. Drawings of Nazi or Japanese soldiers threatening small children were meant to inspire fear in people.

17. Posters also showed harmful outcomes of improper actions & attitudes, like talking about sensitive military information. “Loose lips sink ships.” Hollywood was also drafted to spread the anti- Axis message & promote right attitudes about the war. 90 million Americans went to the movies each week. Hollywood produced many patriotic films that featured soldiers & workers on the home front. Leading stars devoted time & energy to the war cause.

18. Japanese Internment After Pearl Harbor, government officials began to fear that people of German, Italian, & Japanese descent would help the enemy. Italian & German immigrants were forced to carry identification cards. Japanese Americans were treated most harshly. Japanese Americans on the West Coast were particularly targeted & investigated as spies.

19. Executive Order 9066 gave the armed forces the power to establish military zones. It also gave the military the power to force people or groups to leave these zones. The goal was to remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the US. Areas affected were in Washington, Oregon, California & parts of Arizona. 2/3s of the people were American citizens. No hearings or trials were held to determine if an individual was a real threat. They were forced to live in camps.

20. Many of the camps were located in the barren desert areas of the southwest. The people forced to these camps were allowed to bring only what they could carry; everything else had to be sold or left behind. Living conditions were horrible: cramp quarters, inadequate health care, very few schools. This situation affected 110,000 people of Japanese descent. Racial profiling at its worse.

21. Manhattan Project Code name for the building of atomic weapons German scientists had already split the atom, but that’s as far as they had gotten when Hitler came to power. Hitler’s anti-Semitic message caused many German scientists to leave the country & come to the US. Once here they were put to work on this top secret assignment: build a bomb before Hitler.

22. Laboratories in Los Alamos, New Mexico provided the most secure area to work on the project. In charge of the project was physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The first explosion took place in the desert at the Alamogordo Bombing Range in July, 1945. At the Potsdam Conference (July-August, 1945) Japan was given the ultimatum, “the alternative to surrender is prompt & utter destruction.” When the Japs did not respond, Truman ordered the bombs dropped.

23. 1st bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 2nd bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945. The war was finally over.