• Hoover reaffirmed the country’s belief that the U.S. should not enter into firm commitments with other nations (against Woodrow
Wilson’s League of Nations)
• Isolationism

• Early 1930s, Japan defied the
League of Nations by invading
Manchuria in 1931
• League of Nations condemned the attack, but did nothing else
• Japan walked out
• The League showed its inability to keep peace

• Crisis at home prevented
Roosevelt from focusing too much on foreign policy
• Good Neighbor Policy: tried to improve relations with Latin
America
• Roosevelt recognized the
Soviet Union in 1933

• Economic hardship, nationalism and bitterness over the outcome of WWI
• Italy: Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) and the Fascist Party -1922
• Germany: Adolf Hitler and the
Nazi Party, policy of anti-
Semitism – 1933
• Japan: Militarists, emperor is a puppet, invaded China and SE
Asia for raw materials

Lindbergh joins the America First
Committee
Many Americans, disillusioned with WWI, do not want to be drawn into another conflict
Neutrality Act of 1935
Neutrality Act of 1936
Neutrality Act of 1937
America First Committee: formed by isolationists in 1940 and warned countries against the folly of getting involved in
Europe’s troubles

• Late 1930s, the policy of appeasement allowed Hitler to build a powerful army and use it
• Munich Conference: 1938, country gives into Hitler to avoid war (Czechoslovakia’s
Sudetenland)
• Italy: invaded Ethiopia in 1935
• Japan: entered into a full scale war with China in 1937
• FDR argued for neutrality/arms buildup and Congress agrees

• Sept. 1939, Hitler invaded
Poland
• Britain and France declared war
• Soon most of Europe was under Nazi control/influence
• Great Britain remained free
• Americans sympathetic to
Britain, but still neutral
• FDR believed British survival was crucial to U.S. security

• FDR chipped away at the neutrality laws to give aid to
Britain
• “Cash and Carry”: allowed the
U.S. to sell aid to Britain (but transported on British ships)
• Selective Service Act: 1940, peacetime registration of males for a draft
• Destroyers for bases: U.S. gave Britain older destroyers for military bases in Caribbean

• Roosevelt breaks the two term tradition (later term limit with
22 nd amendment in 1951)
• Republicans nominated
Wendell Willkie
• FDR won with 54% of popular vote

• Dec.1940 fireside chat: “We must be the arsenal of democracy”
• Roosevelt promised to help the
United Kingdom fight Nazi
Germany by giving them military supplies while the United States stayed out of the actual fighting.
• Lend-Lease Act: 1941, gave
Britain arms it needed on credit
(neighbor’s house on fire)
• Japan joins Axis (Germany & Italy) in 1940, relationship is strained with U.S.
• U.S. cut off trade of vital resources
(oil) to Japan
• U.S. wanted Japan out of China
• Negotiations did not work

• Pearl Harbor, December 7,
1941
• 2,400 Americans killed
• FDR addressed Congress the next day and said Dec. 7 th “a date that will live in infamy”
• Congress agreed and declared war
• Three days later Germany and
Italy declared war on the U.S.

• Hitler invaded Russia in 1941
• Allies: U.S., Britain and Soviet
Union
• U.S. government organized a number of agencies to mobilize the war effort
• War Production Board (WPB) was established to manage war industries
• By 1944 unemployment virtually disappeared
• U.S. output was twice that of
Axis powers

• Govt. set production priorities and controlled raw materials
• Office of Price Administration
(OPA) froze prices, wages and rents
• Rationing of meat, sugar, gasoline and auto tires
• War bonds to raise $
• Shortage of goods made it easier for Americans to save

• Like WWI, jobs were available for
African-Ams. and women
• Discrimination and segregation
• “Double V” – V for victory over fascism and V for victory for equality at home
• Mexican immigrants came for jobs, met resentment
•
25,000 Native Americans served
• 5 million women entered work force, Women took factory jobs – for less pay than men
• “ Rosie the Riveter ” song

• Government’s war propaganda was everywhere
• Posters, songs, and news bulletins
• Maintain public morale, encourage people to sacrifice and conserve resources and increase war production
• Office of war Information controlled news about troop movements and battles
• Patriotism!

• Suspected of being potential spies/saboteurs for Japan
• Japanese invasion of West
Coast?
• 1942 – U.S. government ordered
+100,000 to leave their homes and reside in interment camps
• Korematsu v. U.S. (1944) the
Supreme Court upheld the interment policy of the government as justified in wartime
• 1988 – financial compensation was awarded
• 20,000 Japanese –Americans did serve in WWII

• Many felt that, in the war emergency, there should be no change in leadership
• FDR’s running mate was Harry
S. Truman
• NY governor Thomas Dewey ran for the Republicans
• Roosevelt and Truman won
53% of popular vote
• 432-99 in electoral college
• FDR died several months into his fourth term

D-Day • Two fronts or “theatres of operation”
• Pacific and Europe
• Europe:
• Driving Germans out of North
Africa (Operation Torch)
• Sicily and Italy
• 1944 – Nazi occupied France
• U.S. troops learned of the
Holocaust as they pushed into
Germany
• 6 million Jewish civilians died

• Pacific Theatre
• Battle of Midway
• General Douglas MacArthur
• Iwo Jima
• Okinawa
• Manhattan Project directed by
Robert Oppenheimer built the atomic bomb
• Truman decides to have it used on Japan – Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• Germany surrenders on May
7 th 1945, Hitler committed suicide on April 30 th
• Japan was still in the war
• August 6 th and 9 th 1945 the atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrenders

• During the war the Big Three met several times to discuss war and post-war plans
• Casablanca in 1943
• Teheran in 1943
• Yalta in 1945:
• Germany divided into zones
• free elections in liberated
Europe
• United Nations to be formed

Most destructive war in history
300,000 American dead
800,000 wounded
Total in the world: 50 million civilian, 25 million soldier
Excluding the Civil War, more
Americans died in WWII than all other wars combined
National debt grew to $250 billion
Cities unscarred
U.S. emerges as a superpower
New rivalry emerged between communist Russia and democratic U.S.

• Unlike the League of Nations after WWI, Congress accepted the peacekeeping organization that was created after WWII
• In April, 1945, delegates from
50 nations met in San
Francisco, where they drafted a charter for the United
Nations
• The Senate quickly voted to accept U.S. involvement in the
U.N.