CHAPTER 25
WWII
NATIONALISM AND THE GOOD
NEIGHBOR POLICY
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“No state has the right to intervene in the
internal or external affairs of another.”
U.S. withdraws troops from Haiti and the
Dominican
 Renounce the Platt Amendment
 Reduce role in Panamanian affairs
 Provide indirect aid to Batista in Cuban revolt
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Lower a tariff on sugar cane and
RISE OF AGGRESSIVE STATES
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Mussolini
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Ethiopia
Hitler
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Conscription and military buildup
The Rhineland
Austrian Anchluss
Munich Pact
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Sudetenland
Imperial Japan
Manchuria
 China proper
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THE AMERICAN MOOD: NO MORE WAR
Nye Committee and the “merchants of death”
 Proposed War Referendum Amendment (Louis
Ludlow of Indiana)
 Neutrality Acts (1935, 1937)
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No weapons sold to belligerents
 No Americans on belligerents ships
 No loans to belligerents
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1936 Olympics – Owens wins four golds
 1938 – Joe Louis defeats Max Schmeling
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THE GATHERING STORM: 1938-39
Munich Pact was a disaster
 1939 – Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
 After Czechoslovakia falls
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All action “short of war”
 Asks Hitler and Mussolini not to invade any more
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FDR asks Congress for $300 million in military
appropriations
 20,000 plans in the Army Air Corps
 1939 budget - $1.3 billion for defense
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AMERICA AND THE JEWISH REFUGEES
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Nuremberg Laws of 1935
Outlaws marriage and sexual intercourse between
Jews and non-Jews
 Jews stripped of German citizenship
 Restrictions on Jews in education, social, and
political life
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1938 – Kristallnacht
 Refugees –
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Though many came and benefited the U.S. in the
field of science many were turned away
St. Louis was turned back
THE EUROPEAN WAR
Germany demanded the Danzig and the
Polish Corridor
 Invaded Poland
 FDR did not ask Americans to be impartial
in thought or deed
 Amending of the Neutrality Acts
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Cash and Carry
FROM ISOLATION TO INTERVENTION
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FDR wins reelection
Appoints republicans as Sec. of War (Henry Stimson)
and Sec. of Navy (Frank Knox)
Signs the Selective Service and Training Act –
America’s first peacetime draft
Bases for Destroyers deal with Britain
Lend Lease Program approved (even to USSR)
America creates a “great arsenal of democracy”
US convoys assist the British in the Atlantic
Atlantic Charter and the “Four Freedoms” and the
post war goals
Reuben James and the arming of merchant ships and
their entry to belligerent ports in war zones
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZjJsIA1EI
PEARL HARBOR AND THE
COMING OF WAR
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Japan seeks a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere
U.S. attitudes towards the Japanese – years of
the “yellow peril”
U.S. bans the sale of aviation fuel and scrap
metal to the Japanese
The Dutch and French can’t hold on to there
Asian possessions
U.S. freezes Japanese assets and places an all-out
trade embargo on Japan
Dec. 7, 1941
20 ships; 350 aircraft 2,400+ dead; 1,200 wounded
The awakening of a sleeping giant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e99lfmmDN0
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQm_I3GpaGM
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ORGANIZING FOR VICTORY
FDR forms the Joint Chiefs of Staff
 Office of Strategic Services is created
 War Production Board allocates materials,
limits production and distributes contracts
 War Manpower Commission supervises the
mobilization of men and women
 National War Labor Board mediates
disputes
 Office of Price Administration rations scare
product and imposes price controls
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Office of War Mobilization coordinates the
production, procurement, transportation and
distribution of civilian and military supplies
Industry conversions and new technologies
Auto manufacturers make tanks
 50 new synthetic rubber plants are created
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Alliance between the defense industry and the
military
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10 biggest companies got a third of the war contracts
Dr. New Deal becomes Dr. Win the War
THE WAR ECONOMY
U.S. spent $320 billion to defeat the Axis
Powers (10x more than in WWI)
 17 million new jobs; increased corporate
after-tax profits by 70%; raised purchasing
power of industrial workers by 50%
 $40 billion went to the West (California got
10% of the funds)
 South’s industrial capacity increased by 40%
 Middle-class nation was emerging
 Factories hired the deaf and dwarfs
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Large-scale commercial farmers prospered
due to higher consumer prices and
increased productivity
 Labor union membership leaped from 9
million to almost 15 million in five years
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NWLB’s “maintenance-of –membership” rule
Only a tiny minority of workers broke the
no strike rule – wildcat strikes
 The Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes
Act of 1943 allowed the President to take
over any facility where strikes interrupted
the war effort
 OPA institutes rationing
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Revenue Act of 1942 raised top income
tax rate from 60 to 94% and imposed
taxes on the middle class and lower
income Americans for the first time
 In 1943 payroll deductions
automatically withheld taxes from
wages and salaries
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A WIZARD WAR
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The importance of wartime scientific and
technological development
Office of Scientific Research and Development
(OSRD) – spent $1 billion to generate sonar and radar
devices, rocket weapons, and bomb fuses: helps create
lasers, transistors and semiconductors
Earliest computers are created: Mark I and ENIAC
Improvements in blood transfusions, heart and lung
surgeries, and synthetic drugs; antibiotics produced
like crazy
MASH units
Manhattan Project – University of Chicago; Oak
Ridge, TN; Hanford, WA; Los Alamos, NM
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Used 120,000 people and $2 billion
July 16, 1945 – it works!
PROPAGANDA AND POLITICS
Office of Censorship – examined letters
 A year passed before death and damage figures
were released concerning Pearl Harbor
 Govt. banned publication of photographs of
American war dead until 1943
 Office of War Information (OWI) – employed
artists, writers and advertising specialists to
promote the war
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