1. American Society during WWII

2. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million men drafted

3. The Womens Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is established in May 1945 [just WAC in July 1943] 350,000 women served in the auxiliaries There are innumerable duties now being performed by soldiers that can be done better by women -General George Marshall Nurses, drivers, electricians, pilots…; non-combat

4. Just carve on my tombstone, Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man. –African-American draftee Why die for democracy in another country when we dont even have it here? –African-American newspaper editorial Minorities treated unequally in the United States at this point: segregation, racism, discrimination Japanese-American were put in concentration camps during WWII

5. Tuskegee Airmen Navajo Code Talkers Japanese- Americans American Latinos

6. American factories were converted to produce the tools and supplies for war ~instead of making consumer goods, factories were making supplies for the armed forces rationing World War II ended the Great Depression

8. 1930s 1940s

9. Los Angeles, 1943: For 5 days, Sailors and Marines attacked young men who wore the zoot suit -more than 150 injured -500 arrested for rioting or vagrancy "Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find […] Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy. -C. McWilliams

10. "The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should." – First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt The L.A. Times responded by accusing Mrs. Roosevelt of having communist leanings and stirring "race discord".