Section 2: The War
Machine
Key Terms
Essential Question
After Pearl Harbor, in what ways did
America change from a peace time
nation to a war time nation?
1. Liberty Ships
• Basic CARGO ship used
during WWII
• Cheaper and easier to build
because of the welding
technique
• Harder to sink than
traditional riveted ships
• At the height of WWII
production a Liberty Ship
could be completed in 42
days
2. Cost-Plus Contract
• The German blitzkrieg into France in
May 1940 shocked America.
• Roosevelt declared a national
emergency.
• FDR announced a plan to build 50,000
warplanes a year.
• Businesses needed incentive so…
• Government agreed to pay costs
“plus” profits.
• Cost-plus contracts convinced many
factories to convert to war production.
2. Cost-Plus Contract
• During the war, the government
subsidized wages through cost-plus
contracts
• Using cost-plus for wages, factories
hired hundreds of thousands of
unskilled workers and trained them
at the governments expense.
• Informal policies against hiring
women, minorities, and workers over
45 or under 18 were sharply
reduced.
4 million women
took government
clerical jobs.
3. The Great Migration
• The wartime economy created
millions of new jobs
• Americans migrated to where
the jobs were
• A new industrial region—the
Sunbelt—was created due to
this Great Migration of
Americans
• Cities like Los Angeles, Houston,
San Diego and Dallas grew
incredibly fast
4. Bracero Program
• Bracero is Spanish for
“worker”
• There was a shortage of
agricultural workers in the
southwestern United States
• The Bracero Program began in
1942 to eliminate that
shortage
• More than 200,000 Mexican
laborers crossed the border
to work the fields of the
southwest
• The program lasted until 1964