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World war Ii The Homefront and Road to Victory
Life on the Homefront • Rationing: you could only get a limited amount of scarce, war-needed goods. Among rationed items: (rubber) tires, gasoline, steel, aluminum typewriters, bicycles, footwear, silk, nylon, fuel oil, stoves, meat, butter, shortening and oils, cheese, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams and jellies, and medicines such as penicillin. • Office of War Information: Created Propaganda to encourage support for the war effort
Industrial Production • War Production Board (WPB) was organized in Early 1942 to manage war industries • By 1944 US war-related industrial production was practically twice that of all the Axis powers combined! • Stimulated by war-time demand and government contracts, the US industries did a booming business, officially ending The Great Depression, and unemployment practically disappeared!
Economic Opportunities for Women “Rosie the Riveter” • Over 200,000 women served in the military in non-combat roles. • New job opportunities opened up as soldiers left to fight the war . • 5 million women entered the workforce. • Women went to work even if older or married. • Note…pay was not equal to male workers
Economic Opportunities for African Americans • As in WWI, African Americans left the south to pursue job opportunities in both the north and out west (1.5 million+) • Another million young men served in the armed forces. • Black Americans, however, still faced discrimination and segregation, whether civilian or soldier. • One of the most important Black Activist during this time was named A. Phillip Randolph…we will see him again in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
Double V Campaign • Double Victory - against Fascism abroad and Racism at home. • In 1942, in agreement between A. P. Randolph’s March on Washington group and the Double V Campaign, some 18,000 African Americans congregated in Madison Square Garden threatening a March on Washington if their demands for integration were not met. • This pressured FDR to sign Executive Order 8802, on June 25, 1941, prohibiting racial discrimination in the national defense industry and eventually for hiring practices in any job funded by government money.
Italians, Germans, and Japanese faced discrimination • After the attack on Pearl Harbor anyone who had immigrated from an Axis Nation faced discrimination • They had to register with the federal government. • All three groups had to leave the West Coast in the Winter of 1942
Internment • Because of Pearl Harbor and fierce fighting by the Japanese (ex Bataan Death March), the Japanese faced much harsher treatment than the Germans or the Italians. • President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of Japanese with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942. • 110,000 Japanese American citizens and Japanese immigrants who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States were forced to sell their property and evacuate to "War Relocation Camps." The Japanese would remain in these internment camps until the end of the war. • In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation that apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".The U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs.
“ Tagged for evacuation” Salinas, CA May, 1942 Barracks at Minidoka Japanese Internment Camp in Idaho
Korematsu v. the United States • (1944) Upheld the decision by the United States government wartime policy of removing Japanese Americans and putting them in camps. • Korematsu's conviction for evading internment was overturned on November 10, 1983
The Systematic Murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million other “undesirables” Included Communists, Socialists, Homosexuals, Trade Unionists, Czechs, Poles, and Gypsies The Holocaust
1935 Laws that took away Jewish people’s basic human rights. Denied German Citizenship to Jews Banned marriage between Jews and Non-Jews Segregated Jews in German Society with Star of David patches, Jewish papers to be carried at all times, and eventually forced into Jewish ghettos The Nuremberg Laws A teacher explains racial definitions according to Nuremberg Laws Jews wearing identifying patches Jews being herded into Jewish ghetto
November 9,1938 Attacks on Jewish people and property throughout Nazi controlled Territory. Kristallnacht
Concentration Camps • First Concentration camps were built, starting in 1933 to “rehabilitate” people and turn them into productive members of the 3rd Reich. • As the Jewish ghettos were emptied throughout Europe, Jews were shipped to these concentration/work camps…
Germany started their plan to exterminate the Jews in Death Camps in 1942. Built mostly in Poland The effort was really turned up around mid 1943, as the tide against Germany began to turn 6,000,000+ Jews died Hitler’s “Final Solution” 1942
Anti-Semitism was a large problem in the United States, and many other parts of the “civilized” world... Where were they going to go? Before WW2 most Americans did not want Jewish Refugees to come into their country. No one could have predicted the enormity of the Holocaust. Why didn’t more Jews Flee to the US or elsewhere??
Questions • What were the reasons for and against Japanese American Exclusion and internment? • What happened to Japanese property during internment? • Which groups were targeted during the Holocaust and why? • What was the impact of the US involvement in the second world war on women and African Americans?
