The Home Front

1
Chapter 16

• The Home Front

2
Section 1

• Mobilizing the Home Front

3
Building National Morale

• After Pearl Harbor, Americans rallied to support
  the govt.
• Four Freedoms
• 1.) freedom of speech and expression
• 2.) freedom of worship
• 3.) freedom from want
• 4.) freedom from fear

4
Calling All Volunteers

• Office of Civilian Defense
• OCD
• Raise and maintain the countrys morale
• http//www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/office-ci
  vilian-defense.htm
• Victory Gardens
• 40 of all vegetables grown during the war

5
Calling All Volunteers (cont.)

• Collected materials that could be turned into
  armaments
• Newspapers, aluminum pots, box springs, tin cans
• Supplied much of the steel, half of the tin, and
  half of the paper

6
The Media Go to War

• Office of War Information
• Coordinated war news from federal agencies
• Help Americans understand the progress of the war
  and the governments policies
• http//memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/owiinfo.html

7
The Media Go to War (cont.)

• Entertainment industry
• Movies
• Villains were sadistic Germans, bumbling
  Italians, and sneaky Japanese
• Heroes were Americans

8
The Media Go to War (cont.)

• Advertisements
• Urged Americans to use less rather than buy more
• Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do
  without.
• Patriotic songs
• After 1942, sentimental songs
• http//www.google.com/musicl?lidhTYGg9wTWuMsaX
  oimusicctresult

9
Staging a Production Miracle

• U.S. industry needed to convert to war production
• War Production Board
• WPB
• Exercised general responsibility over the
  nations economy
• Uniforms, bombs, tanks, aircrafts

10
Staging a Production Miracle (cont.)

• Businesses often built new plants to increase
  production
• Govt. often paid for the new plants and equipment
• Industrial production nearly doubled

11
Directing a Wartime Economy

• Gross national product (GNP)the total value of
  all goods and services produced in a nation in a
  given year
• 1945 GNP was 211.9 billion
• Today it is about 13 trillion
• 17 million new jobs
• Crop prices doubled

12
Directing a Wartime Economy (cont.)

• Cost of living rose 15 about 1939 levels
• Inflationgeneral rise in wages and prices caused
  by too much money and credit relative to the
  available goods
• Controlled inflation by a wage freeze

13
Controlling Wages and Prices

• National War Labor Board
• NWLB
• Controlled wages
• Monitored inflation
• Many people worked overtime
• Wage rates rose 24 during the war but weekly
  earnings rose 70
• Wages were limited so workers wanted prices
  controlled

14
Controlling Wages and Prices (cont.)

• Office of Price Administration
• OPA
• Fixed maximum prices
• Consumer price index (CPI)a measure of the
  change in the cost of goods and services as
  compared with their cost in a fixed time period
  (cost-of-living)

15
Reducing Demand Through Rationing

• Rationinga way of distributing limited goods
  fairly
• Ration coupons were needed to purchase many goods
• Quotas for each familys coupons
• Present coupons when buying rationed items
• Govt. controlled demand and kept prices form
  rising
• Rationing was very controversial but successful

16
Paying for a Costly War

• WWII cost 10 times as much as WWI
• Revenue Act
• 1942
• greatest tax bill
• Increased corporate taxes
• All Americans paid income taxes
• Raise to pay for war

17
Paying for a Costly War (cont.)

• 1943system for withholding taxes through monthly
  payroll deductions
• Taxes provided 40 of cost of war
• Bondscertificate that earns interest and is
  redeemed for cash on a specific date
• When WWII ended, Americans saved 129 billion

18
Trying to Uphold a No-Strike Pledge

• Major unions pledged not to go on strike while
  WWII was going on
• NWLB enforced settlements between companies and
  their workers on hours, wages, and working
  conditions

19
Trying to Uphold a No-Strike Pledge (cont.)

• 19433 million workers went on strike
• Most serious in coalfields
• United Mine Workers
• 450,000 coal miners on strike
• NWLB did not grant them a pay raise
• Coal, steel, and railroad workers went on strike
  during WWII
• Labor largely carried out the no-strike pledge

20
Recruiting New Workers

• 15 million Americans left work to enter the armed
  forces
• Need for civilian workers increased
• Wartime labor demands wiped out unemployment from
  Great Depression

21
Recruiting New Workers (cont.)

• 6 million workers
• 37 of women worked
• Defense industries (welders, mechanics)
• Rosie the Riveter
• Hard time gaining acceptance
• 60 less pay
• Little job security
• Between 1944 and 1946, 4 million women left their
  jobs

22
Section 2

• The War and Social Change

23
Americans on the Move

• Migrationthe movement of people from one country
  or region to another
• Rural areas to urban areas
• East to West
• North to South
• CA, TX, MD, FL, VA
• Changes in American agriculture
• More fertilizer more machinery consolidating
  small farms into larger ones
• African Americans

24
Boomtowns Emerge

• Small towns that grew in the shadows of
  industrial factories
• Housing scarce, medical facilities inadequate,
  sanitary conditions were terrible, schools
  overcrowded, etc.
• Temporary housing
• Schools lacked ,teachers, etc
• Older residents refused to accept new arrivals

25
Boomtowns Emerge (cont.)

• http//www.militarymuseum.org/LAWWII.html
• Willow Run, MI
• Ford Motor Company
• Bomber planes
• San Diego
• Largest naval base on West Coast
• shipbuilding

26
Social Stresses Multiply

• Natives often resented the newcomers
• hillbillies, poor lazy
• Riots
• Racial Tensions Explode
• Detroit, Harlem, Army training camps

27
Detroit

• 1943
• Overcrowded facilities
• Paradise Valley
• Substandard dwellings
• Racial tensions exploded
• June
• Fight broke out between African American
  teenagers and navy sailors
• Rumors spread (rape, murder, etc.)
• More violence broke out

28
Detroit (cont.)

• Police could not control the violence
• Bloody Monday
• Large crowds of whites looked for African
  Americans to beat or kill
• Police shot looters and battled rooftop snipers

29
Detroit (cont.)

• 6,000 soldiers moved into Detroit to control
  crowds and restore order
• 25 African Americans were killed
• 700 people injured
• 2 million of property destroyed
• http//forums.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?
  id185categoryevents

30

• Harlem
• 1943
• 5 African Americans killed
• 410 injured

• Army training camps
• 1943
• 9 camps
• African Americans wanted equal conditions

31
The Zoot Suit Riots

• Summer of 1943
• Los Angeles
• Hatred of Hispanic American teenagers who wore
  zoot suits
• Zoot-suiters were young people seeking escape
  from burdens of life in the slums

32
The Zoot Suit Riots (cont.)

• Zoot-suits were badge of independence
• Zoot-suiters and white sailors clashed
• City council eventually outlawed zoot suits
• Congress of Industrial Organizations
• to eradicate the misconceptions and prejudices

33
Wartime Family Stresses

• New neighborhoods and surroundings
• Children were often left unattended
• Single-parent families
• latchkey children, eight-hour orphans
• Teenagers left to care for themselves
• Many took jobs (2.9 million)
• 1 million dropped out of school
• Child labor laws were often ignored

34
Wartime Family Stresses (cont.)

• Juvenile delinquency increase
• Some communities enforced curfews

35
The End of the New Deal

• Dec. 1943Dr. Win-the-War
• Military objectives took priority over social
  reform
• Nations should shelve any reforms that could
  interfere with war production

36
The End of the New Deal (cont.)

• WWII phased out some of New Deal agencies
• 1944FDR was reelected to a 4th term
• Deficit spendinga government policy of borrowing
  money in order to spend more than is received in
  taxes

37

• Americans on the home front suffered from housing
  shortages, overcrowding, a breakdown of law and
  order, and juvenile delinquency.
• Many people, though, reaped the financial rewards
  of a wartime, full-employment economy.
• WWII provided new opportunities in employment for
  minority groups and allowed them to make some
  headway in civil rights.

38
Section 3

• The War and Civil Rights

39
Civil Rights Movement Grows

• Racial tensions were growing in the U.S.A.
• Racismthe idea that one race is superior to
  others, and that race determines a persons
  character or ability
• Racism was basis of segregation and
  discrimination
• African Americans used their ability to vote in
  the North and West
• Double V campaign
• Victory at home as well as abroad

40
Civil Rights Gains

• In the South, African Americans were legally
  segregated from whites in all public facilities
• Rest of countrytrains, buses, restaurants, movie
  theaters were segregated
• Lived in slums and ghettos
• Excluded from middle-class neighborhoods

41
A. Philip Randolph

• 1941
• Led the movement for African American equality
• creating unrest among the Negroes
• Father of the Civil Rights Movement

42
A. Philip Randolph (cont.)

• March on Washington Movement
• MOWM
• We loyal American citizens demand the right to
  work and fight for our country.
• Direct Action
• http//www.nlc.edu/archives/3.5a.html

43
NAACP

• persuade, embarrass, compel, and shame our govt.
  and our nation to end discrimination
• Political and legal processes
• Education, political pressure, and legal action
• Membership grew to 450,000
• Traditional, noncontroversial means of protesting

44
Roosevelt and Randolph Compromise

• FDR wanted to prevent the MOWM
• Roosevelt publicly condemned job discrimination

45
Executive Order 8802

• June 25, 1941
• Govt. agencies, job training programs, and
  defense contractors put an end to discrimination
• http//www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od8802t.html
• Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)
• Randolph cancelled MOWM

46
Other Victories

• Congress of Racial Equality
• CORE
• 1942
• Mobilizing mass resistance to discrimination and
  employed acts of nonviolent civil disobedience
  (sit-ins)
• Helped end segregation in public accommodations
  in several Northern cities
• http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcore.htm

47
Other Victories (cont.)

• Smith v. Allwright, 1944
• Political parties were agents of the state and
  they could not nullify the right to vote by
  practicing racial discrimination

48
The FEPC Fights Discrimination

• FEPC could only act on formal complaints about
  hiring practices or discrimination on the job
• FEPC was given not power to enforce its orders
  but had to rely on support from other federal
  agencies
• FEPC moved cautiously
• Received 8,000 complaints (only 1/3 were resolved
  successfully
• http//www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/fepc.htm

49
Internment of Japanese Americans

• Civil libertiesfreedom to enjoy the rights
  guaranteed by the constitution of the state or
  nation

50
Internment of Japanese Americans (cont.)

• Relocation
• Spring 1942
• More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were moved
  to relocation camps
• Arkansas and western states
• We looked like them (the enemy). That was our
  sin.

51
Internment of Japanese Americans (cont.)

• Executive Order 9066
• Feb. 19, 1942
• Authorized the removal of Japanese Americans from
  the West Coast
• http//www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flashtruedoc
  74

52
Economic Hardship

• Extreme economic hardship
• Sell most of their possessions
• Received 5 cents for every dollar
• Lost 500 million
• Military justified relocation centers on the
  basis that Japanese Americans would commit
  sabotage to aid Japan in an attack on the West
  Coast

53
Economic Hardship (cont.)

• Farmers and businesses thought they would profit
  by eliminating Japanese American competitors
• The Japanese race is an enemy race.

54
Life in the Camps

• 10 armed and guarded internment camps
• Entire families lived in a single room
• Very little furniture
• Created alternative communities to serve their
  cultural needs

55
Life in the Camps (cont.)

• Determined to live with dignity and provide
  resources for their children
• Some Japanese Americans were allowed to work at
  jobs in the interior of the U.S.A.

56
Judicial Rulings Support Relocation

• Hirabayashi v. U.S.
• 1944
• Ruled that a curfew order affecting only Japanese
  Americans did not violate their civil rights
• http//usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac
  /65.htm

• Korematsu v. U.S.
• Dec. 1944
• Upheld order for internment
• Judiciary could not second-guess military
  decisions
• http//tourolaw.edu/patch/Korematsu/

57

• During WWII, the nation saw both gains (African
  Americans) and losses (Japanese Americans) in
  civil rights and liberties.