1. Essential Question:
How did the U.S. mobilize civilians at home to help win World War 2 & what impact did this have on American society?
Warm-Up Question:
What other major American war is most similar in its resemblance to the U.S. entrance into WW2?
Lesson Plan for Monday, February 23, 2009: Warm-up Q, Homefront Notes

2. Mobilizing an “Arsenal of Democracy”

3. The Home Front WW2 impacted all aspects of American life:
FDR hoped the U.S. would be the great “arsenal of democracy”
The boost of wartime industry ended the Great Depression
The war altered the lives of women, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, & Mexican-Americans

4. The Office of War Information directed press, print, radio, & film propaganda
Mobilization
The power to create new gov’t agencies
to censor the press
The Office of War Mobilization coordinated the draft, consumer prices, & the labor force
to limit civil liberties & seize personal property
To win wars in Asia & Europe & meet civilian demands, the U.S. gov’t grew to its largest size ever:
The War Powers Act gave the president unprecedented power
New bureaucracies were formed to direct the economy, create propaganda, sell war bonds, & prevent enemy subversion
The Office of Strategic Services gathered enemy intelligence & conducted espionage
The U.S. gov’t spent $250 million per day from 1941 to 1945
This is 2x as much as all previous gov’t spending combined

5. Mobilization: The Demand for War Equipment & Soldiers

6. Buy, Buy, Buy, Buy a Bond: It Will Lead to VICTORY!
War bonds helped raise $187 billion to support the war effort

7. War Rations

8. Victory Gardens: Grow Your Own

9. Propaganda: Fighting the Enemy on the Battlefield & on the Home Front

10. Fear Propaganda

11. Jimmy Stewart goes off to war
Hollywood Pitches In
James stewart goes to war
Jimmy Stewart goes off to war

12. U.S. made 2x more goods than Germany & 5x more than Japan
The Wartime Economy
U.S. made 2x more goods than Germany & 5x more than Japan
The most decisive factor for Allied victory was America’s ability to outproduce both Germany & Japan
Heavy industry was converted to war & was directed by the War Production Board (WPB)
15 million U.S. soldiers fought but 60 million workers & farmers supplied them with supplies

13. Ford’s Willow Run Factory
Ford made one B-24 bomber every hour

14. Henry Kaiser’s West Coast Shipyards
The Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic, in part, because the USA produced ships faster than German u-boats could sink them
Kaiser standardized battleship building & reduced the time it took to make a battleship from 355 days to 14 days

15. Essential Question:
How did the U.S. mobilize civilians at home to help win World War 2 & what impact did this have on American society?
Lesson Plan for Monday, February 25, 2008: RQ 25 B, Finish Homefront Notes

16. WW2 Changed American Society
FDR Video time min

17. Regional Changes
The war effort transformed the Western & Southern U.S.:
California became the major center for industry to support the war effort in the Pacific
60 of the 100 new military based were built in the South
Southern textile factories & industrial jobs helped end sharecropping & tenant farming
9 million defense workers moved to new factories & shipyards in South & West

18. Women
The war presented new economic opportunities for women:
Dramatic rise in employment (14 million to 19 million by 1945)
Most new female workers were married, many middle-aged
Entered “exclusively male” fields
Temporarily redefined “woman’s sphere” from “just at home”
“To hell with the life I have had. This war is too [serious], and it is too [important] to win it.”

19. “Rosie, the Riveter”

20. S..t..r..e..t..c..h That Food!

21. Join the Women’s Army Corps (WACs)
Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES)
Women’s Army Air Corps Pilots

22. …and high divorce rates
Families
…and high divorce rates
The uncertainties of war & economic affluence of the 1940s led to a dramatic rise in marriage
The influx of women into the workforce led to a new demand for daycare centers & to an increase in child delinquency
Public health improved as more families had access to doctors, dentists, & prescription drugs

23. Banned discrimination in defense industries & gov’t
African-Americans
Banned discrimination in defense industries & gov’t
1 million blacks served in U.S. military but few saw combat
Discrimination in the workforce led A. Philip Randolph to pressure FDR to create a Fair Employment Practices Committee
Continued black migration into the North & West made race relations a national issue

24. Segregated units…again
Tuskegee Airmen

25. Double V: Victory at Home & Abroad
A. Philip Randolph threatened a “March on Washington” to protest war time discrimination
Other groups, like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), staged sit-ins in restaurants in major cities to protest discrimination

26. Artist: Jacob Lawrence

27. Mexican-Americans Mexican-Americans:
Served in quasi-segregated military units, often in the most hazardous branches
Mexican-American workers found jobs in SW agriculture & west coast industry
Faced discrimination, especially during the Zoot Suit Riots

28. “Zoot Suit” Riot in Los Angeles

29. Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.
Japanese-Americans
Due to Pearl Harbor, many in the U.S. feared Japanese-Americans were helping prepare for a Japanese invasion in the West
Civil liberties were restricted:
Issei had their assets frozen
Used racial stereotypes (“Japs”)
In 1942, FDR ordered 112,000 Japanese-Americans moved to internment camps
Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.

30. Japanese- American Internment Camps
Families were given one week to close their businesses & homes
The all Japanese-American 442nd Division fought in Europe & received over 1,000 citations for bravery
442 Combat—when your division is in trouble “Call in the Japs” (to save your butt)

31. Win-the-War Politics
In 1944, FDR used the war to strengthen his leadership:
“Mr. New Deal” had shifted to “Mr. Win the War”
Opponent Thomas Dewey made communism & FDR’s health the focus of the election
FDR switched VPs from liberal Henry Wallace to moderate Harry Truman to gain appeal