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?
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. Mobilization
The Office of War Information directed press, print, radio, & film propaganda
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 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
to limit civil liberties & seize personal property
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. The U.S. Government Financing increased government spending: Bonds
Higher taxes paid for 41% of war
Result: deficit spending and increase of national debt ($43 billion in 1940 to $259 billion in 1945)

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

9. Consumers War production stimulated the economy & created new jobs:
Business & farm profits doubled
Wages rose & people wanted to buy, but wartime production led to shortages of consumer goods
Office of Price Administration fixed prices & distributed ration books to save gas, meat, butter
Americans recycled & planted victory gardens for the war effort

10. Wartime Ration Books

12. Victory Gardens: Grow Your Own
Example of support for war effort. Everyone was involved in supporting war.

13. Wartime production led to shortages on consumer goods

14. WWII propaganda: was directed by the Office of War Information

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

16. Fear Propaganda

17. Hollywood Pitches In Jimmy Stewart goes off to war
60% of America went to the movies weekly
Hollywood Pitches In
James stewart goes to war
Jimmy Stewart goes off to war

18. The U.S. Government Production
1943: FDR created Office of War Mobilization led by James F. Byrnes to coordinate agencies regulating production
War Production Board (1942) directed factories to produce war supplies so that the Allies could out produce the Axis Powers
Govt told companies to stop producing consumer goods (converting heavy industry) and allocated scarce resources to war materials

19. 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
15 million U.S. soldiers fought but 60 million workers & farmers supplied them with supplies

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

21. 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

22. GIs
When the USA declared war, the military needed soldiers to fight a two-front war in Europe & Asia:
6 million men volunteered
10 million more were drafted
Everything soldiers were given was “government issue” so WWII soldiers became known as “GIs”
Homesickness among soldiers was common

23. Preparing for a jump into Nazi-occupied France

24. Marines at Iwo Jima

25. GIs missed the freedoms of “home”
GIs with movie star Marlene Dietrich

26. 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

27. WW2 Changed American Society
FDR Video time min

28. 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

29. Women 350,000 volunteered to serve in army
The war presented new economic opportunities for women:
350,000 volunteered to serve in army
Dramatic rise in employment (14 million to 19 million by 1945)
Most new female workers were married, many middle-aged
Clerical work but also 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.”

30. “Rosie, the Riveter”

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

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

33. Women served as military nurses & photographers

34. …and high divorce rates
Families
After the war, women were forced out of high-paying factory jobs
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
…and high divorce rates

35. African Americans
During WWII, African Americans fought in the military & at home:
1 million blacks served in U.S. military but not all saw combat  Discrimination in military and defense industry
The war led to factory jobs & increased the Great Migration of blacks in the North & west coast
The led to racial tension and it became a national issue

36. Randolph led the “Double V” campaign: victory at home & abroad
A. Philip Randolph threatened a “March on Washington” to protest the war time discrimination not hiring African Americans in defense industries.
Other groups, like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), staged sit-ins in restaurants in major cities to protest discrimination. (Chicago)

37. African Americans As a result of the pressure, FDR took small steps:
Executive Order 8802 opened jobs and training programs in defense industries without discrimination
Fair Employment Practices Commission was created to handle complaints about discrimination as well as to establish for equal pay for black workers.

38. African Americans HOWEVER…
More than 1 million black soldiers served in segregated units under the command of white officers
Unlike WWI, black soldiers were allowed to fight; the “Tuskegee airmen” in the U.S. military were recognized for heroism & bravery

39. Segregated units…again
Tuskegee Airmen

40. Artist: Jacob Lawrence

41. Mexican Americans Faced significant discrimination
U.S. created Bracero Program with Mexican government: Bring Mexican laborers to U.S. to help fill shortage of farm laborers
The increase in Mexican American population led to racial tension in the SW, like the Zoot Suit Riots in LA
In general, 250, ,000 Hispanic Americans fought during WWII

42. 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

43. “Zoot Suit” Riot in Los Angeles

44. Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.
Japanese-Americans
Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.
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

45. Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.
Japanese-Americans
Japanese who were not American citizens living in the U.S.
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 issued Executive Order 9066 which ordered 112,000 Japanese-Americans to move to internment camps
Korematsu vs. U.S.: Supreme Court ruled that internment was Constitutional.

46. Executive Order 9066 forced Japanese Americans into internment camps

47. 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)

48. Japanese Americans were allowed to return home in 1945, many had lost everything.
Government gave some repayment to survivors in 1988 and officially apologized.

49. 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