Chapter 25: WWII Americans at Home

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Chapter 25 WWIIAmericans at Home

• Section 1 Mobilization

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Mobilizing the Armed Forces

• Sept 1940- Congress passed the Selective Training
  Service Act- required all males 21-36 to
  register for military service
• Boosted defense spending from 2 to 10 billion

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The GI War

• More than 16 million served as soldiers, sailors,
  aviators
• Called GIs- government issued

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Diversity in the Armed Forces

• 300,000 Mexican Americans
• 25,000 Native Americans
• Navajos developed a secret code, based on their
  language
• Code talkers provided important, secure
  communication links

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• 1 million African Americans
• First limited to supporting roles
• Late 1942- given the opportunity to fight
• Fought in separate units
• Tuskegee Airmen- 1st African American flying unit
  in the US
• Late 1944- accepted into white combat units

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Women in the Military

• 350,000 volunteered
• All areas except combat
• Clerks, typists, airfield control tower
  operators, mechanics, photographers, drivers

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Preparing the Economy for War

• Allied production of goods were way down

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War Production

• Jan. 1942- government set up the War Productions
  Board (WPB) to set up industries to produce
  wartime goods
• Halted the production of many consumer goods

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• Armed forces decided which company would receive
  contracts to manufacture military hardware
• May 1943- FDR appointed James Byrnes to head the
  Office of War Mobilization
• Super agency in the centralization of resources

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• Liberty ships- large, sturdy merchant ships that
  carried supplies or troops
• Government established the cost plus system for
  military contracts to motivate businesses
  guarantee profits

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• Military paid development production costs
  added a percentage of costs as profits for the
  manufacturer
• 1944- the US production levels doubled all of the
  Axis nations

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The Wartime Work Force

• Unemployment virtually vanished
• Earnings went up more than 50 between 1940-1945
• Union membership rose
• 1940-41 increased by 1.5 million

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• Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, labor business
  representatives agreed to refrain from strikes
  lockouts (employers keep employees out of the
  workplace to avoid meeting their demands)
• Cost of living went up strikes were hard to
  avoid

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• Most serious occurred in the coal industry
• United Mine Workers Union called four strikes in
  1943
• Congress passed the Smith-Connally Act limiting
  future strike activity

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Financing the War

• Spending increased from 8.9 billion in 1935 to
  95.2 in 1945
• GNP more than doubled
• Between 1941 1945 government spent 321 billion
  on the war
• Higher taxes paid for 41

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• Government borrowed the rest from banks, private
  investors, the public
• War bonds brought in 196 billion
• Deficit spending helped the US field a well
  equipped army navy, bring prosperity to workers
  pull the US out of the Depression
• Boosted the national debt from 43 t0 259 billion

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Daily Life on the Home Front

• 30 million moved during the war
• Birthrate up- population grew by 7.5 million from
  1940-1945

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Shortages Controls

• People finally had extra money, but rationing led
  to few consumer goods
• Metal went to make guns, rubber to make army
  truck tires, nylon to make parachutes

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• Food shortages
• US got cut off from receiving sugar, tropical
  fruits coffee
• April 1941 Office of Price Administration (OPA)
  was established
• Job was to control inflation by limiting prices
  rents

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• Problems
• Company would cut back of goods that werent
  profitable, thus creating shortages
• People found ways to get around the limits

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• Rationing
• Goal was a fair distribution of scarce items
• 1943 OPA assigned point values to sugar, coffee,
  meat, butter, canned fruit, shoes
• Issued ration coupons
• Gas was strictly rationed on the basis of needed

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Popular Culture

• People bought read more books magazines
• Went to baseball games
• 60 went to the movies every week

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Enlisting Public Support

• FDR established the Office of War Information
  (June 1942) to work with magazine publishers, ad
  agencies, radio stations
• Hired writers artists to create posters ads
  that stirred American patriotic feelings

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• Victory Gardens- add to home food supply
• By 1943- produced 1/3 of our vegetables