17.1 & 17.4 –
Mobilization &
the Home
Front
• Following Pearl Harbor,
many Americans to
volunteer to join the war
effort
– 5 million volunteer
• Selective Service (Draft) is
instituted
– 16m serve by war’s end
• Men face an 8 week basic
training before they go off
to war
• George C. Marshall (Army
Chief of Staff) – creates the
Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps (WAACs)
– Serve in noncombat positions
Joining the War
Minorities
• Many minorities question to
fight in the war
– Face discrimination,
segregation, etc
• 300k+ Mexican Americans join
the military
• ~1m African-Americans fight
in the war, but fight in
segregated units
• ~50k Asian Americans serve in
the war
• Native Americans serve as well
– Most famous = Navajo
Code talkers
• 2/42: All auto plants switch to
war production
• Most factories converted for
war production
• Ship plants & defense plants
expand quickly
– Build a ship in 4 days!
• Work force expands from 6m
to 18m (6m+ women)
– “Rosie the Riveter”
• 2m+ minorities work in plants
• A. Philip Randolph marches
on D.C. to protest
discrimination = full
participation for all workers
Production
Scientists
• 1941: Office of Scientific
Research &
Development created
– Brings in scientists
• Spur improvements in
radar & sonar
• Also push for use of
DDT to fight insects
• Work to create an
atomic bomb
– The Manhattan Project
• Office of Price Administration
– Created to fight inflation
– Freezes prices on goods
• War Production Board
– Decides which companies
produced war goods &
allocated materials
– Organizes drives to collect
materials
• Rationing – fixed amounts of
essential goods
– People receive coupons to
buy scarce goods
– Contribution to the war
effort
Economic Control
Gains
• The war was good for
working people
– Unemployment at 1.2%
– Average pay rises 10%
• Workers protest over
issues, but save money
• Farmers prosper – good
weather & improvements
in farming
• Women – staff 35% of
the work force
– Work in defense plants;
lose jobs when war ends
• War triggers massive
population shift
– 1m+ move to California
– Towns 2x/3x overnight
• Continuance of the Great
Migration for African
Americans
• Mothers struggle raising
families alone
• Marriage licenses skyrocket as
couples rush to get married
• GI Bill of Rights
– Provided education &
training for veterans
Shifts
Protests & Tension
• Many African Americans
move to the Midwest
• James Farmer founds the
Congress of Racial
Equality
– Confront urban segregation
• Racial violence erupts as
tensions rise
– Ex: 1943 - Detroit
• Summer 1943: “Zoot Suit”
Riots in LA – Mexican
Americans
– Mobs beat anyone in a
zoot suit
• 120k Japanese Americans
lived America
• Pearl Harbor creates a
fear of a Japanese attack
on the U.S.
• Wave of prejudice against
Japanese Americans
• 1942: Japanese evacuated
from Hawaii
– Many stay, but interned in
camps
• Newspapers print antiJapanese articles & stir a
panic
Internment
Internment (cont.)
• 2/19/42: FDR signs a bill moving
all Japanese Americans on the
West Coast into camps
– For national security
• No charges ever filed or
evidence of subversion
• 1944: Korematsu v. U.S.
– Upholds relocation as a
“military necessity”
• Japanese American Citizens
League
– After the war, pushes for
compensation for losses
– Gain restitution over a
number of years