Mr. Ermer
U.S. History Honors
Miami Beach Senior High
 1940: Congress passes Selective Service & Training Act
 1st peacetime draft in American history
 Army flooded with new recruits, needs land & supplies
 U.S. army was segregated
 African-Americans see war as opportunity to fight racism
 “Double V”: Victory over racism in Germany and at home
 Tuskegee Airmen: 99th Pursuit Squadron
 Navajo “code talkers”
 500,000 Hispanics (17 win Medal of Honor)
 Women serve various roles (Women’s Army Corps)
 FDR’s National Defense Advisory Committee
 Cost-Plus: Gov’t will pay businesses the cost plus a
percentage in profit for war materials
 Building fighter planes and “two ocean” navy stimulate
economic growth
 200,000 factories converted to wartime production
 Car factories make tanks, ships, planes
 “Liberty Ships”
 WWII ends the Great Depression
 Families move to where the jobs are—Sunbelt
 Most men go off to war, especially white men
 Women, African-Americans, Mexican immigrants fill jobs
once reserved for white, male American citizens
 Executive Order 8802
 “Victory Suits” and the “Zoot Suit” Race Riots
 Japanese subs bomb California coast/oil refineries
 West Coast Japanese moved to inland internment camps
 German and Italian immigrants were restricted from
travel, loss of property, internment camps
 Wages and prices rise b/c of demand
 Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply
(OPACS) and Office of Economic Stabilization (OES)
 Economy regulated better than in WWI
 Rationing of supplies and resources
 Victory Gardens
 Office of War Information (OWI)
 Most Americans believe in reasons for war, sacrifice
 Germany kills 6 million Jews, 5 million others
 Gypsies, handicapped, homosexuals, Slavic peoples
 Nazis pass laws restricting the rights of Jews
 Kristallnacht
 Many Jews try to leave for other countries—rejected
 The St. Louis Affair
 Rejected by the U.S. & Cuba, ship returns to Europe
 The Final Solution
 Concentration camps/extermination camps