World War II at Home

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World War II at Home
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Military Mobilization

• 16 million men and women served
• Selective Service
• Men aged 18 65 must register
• _at_ 72,000 conscientious objectors
• _at_ 5,500 jailed for refusing to enlist
• Women
• Over 250,000 served (medical, flying equipment,
  decoding)
• WACs (Womens Army Corp), WAVES (Women Appointed
  for Voluntary Emergency Service), WAFs (Womens
  Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron)
• African Americans
• Over 1 million served in segregated units
• Other minorities enlisted
• Native Americans Navajo code talkers
• Japanese Americans Nisei soldiers

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Economic Mobilization

• Office for War Mobilization (OWM)
• Created to supervise agencies for war production
• War Production Board (WPB)
• Regulated the use of raw materials
• ½ of factory production went to war materials
• Rosie the Riveter
• Over 5 million women entered the work force
• Propaganda films to encourage more Rosies
• Wages increased (still less than 2/3rds that of
  men), family income swelled
• Pressure to leave the workforce after the war is
  over
• Demographic shift to the Sunbelt
• Population shift to the Southwest and South

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Economic Mobilization (cont.)

• Attempts to control inflation
• War Labor Board created to keep wages to go
  with standard of living increases
• Office of Price Administration (OPA)
• Froze prices _at_ March, 1942 levels
• Rationing everything from cars and tires to
  meat, coffee, and sugar
• Taxes
• Taxes pay for most of the war
• 1939 4 million paid taxes, 1945 50 million
• National Debt
• 1941 49 billion 1945 259 billion
• New Deal WWII warfare welfare state
• Smith-Connolly Antistrike Act (1943)
• Govt could seize plants or mines if idled by a
  strike (1943 United Mine Workers strike)

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African Americans WWII

• Massive migration to industrial areas
• Detroit Race Riot (June, 1943) 47 other cities
  affected by racial violence
• NAACP grows from 50,000 members to 500,000
  members during the war

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A. Philip Randolph

• African-Americans excluded from war-related
  industries (well paying)
• 3 demands for FDR
• Equal access to defense jobs
• Desegregation of the armed forces
• Desegregation in federal agencies
• Proposed March on Washington (1941)
• Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)
• FDR issues Executive Order 8802 in June, 1941
• Govt agencies ended segregation
• Randolph father of the Civil Rights movement

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Mexican Americans WWII

• Bracero Program
• Need for increased farm production led to
  short-term work permits for Mexican workers
• Zoot Suit Riots (L.A. 1943)
• Young Mexican-Americans often attacked in L.A.
• U.S. sailors attacked zooters while on leave
• Radio reports blamed the zooters, but real
  issue was racism and need for more housing

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Interment of Japanese Americans

• Executive Order 9066 (2/19/1942)
• FDR proclaims the West Coast as a war theater
• 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry interned
• 1/3 Issei foreign born, 2/3 Nisei American
  born
• Interment Camps
• 10 camps in 7 states headed by General john
  DeWitt
• 48 hours to get rid of all belongings (most lost
  _at_ 95)
• Camps were in desolate areas and conditions were
  harsh

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Japanese Relocation

• Considered but didnt relocate German or Italians
• Korematsu v. U.S. Supreme Court upholds
  internment but could be free once loyalty
  established
• Labor business wanted Japanese removed
• No act of sabotage ever discovered
• 17,000 Nisei soldiers fought
• Camps close in March, 1946
• 1990 Congress pays 20,000 to each internee
  (1.25 billion total)