Chapter 25
Americans and a World Crisis
1933-1945
Introduction
• How did President Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy”
affect US-Latin American relations?
• How did the American people and their government
respond to the international crises of the 1930’s?
• How did President Roosevelt and Congress mobilize the
country for war?
• What impact did the war have on the US economy?
• How did the war change US society and affect minorities
and women?
• What were the different goals of the US, Great Britain
and the Soviet Union and how did these goals affect
combat strategies?
• Why did President Truman decide to drop the atomic
bombs on Japan and was he justified in doing so?
The US in a Menacing World 19331939
• US improves relationship with Latin
America
• Fascism takes over Spain, Italy, Germany
and Japan
Nationalism and the Good
Neighbor
• Franklin Roosevelt- “No country has the
right to interfere in the internal or external
affairs of another”
• Roosevelt withdrew American troops from
Haiti, reduced American domination over
Panama and the Canal Zone
• Roosevelt decided not to use force against
leftists government of Mexico and Cuba
The Rise of Aggressive States in
Europe and Asia
• 1936 Axis Alliance
• Benito Mussolini- 1922- Italy
– Invade Ethiopia
• Adolf Hitler- 1933- Germany
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1936 Re-militarized the Rhineland
Kristallnacht
1938- Sudetenland
Munich Conference
Appeasement
• Japanese Imperialists
– Japan seizes Manchuria
– 1937 war with China
The American Mood: No More war
• WWI was a mistake
• Nye Committee- bankers and weapons
suppliers played a role in drawing US into
WWI
• 1930’s novelists, playwrights, film makers
condemned war
• Neutrality Act prohibited US from trading
with belligerents
• Isolationism
The Gathering Storm 1938-1939
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1939- Hitler seizes Czechoslovakia
German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
Mussolini attacks Albania
FDR asks Hitler and Mussolini to pledge
not to attack any other countries
• FDR asks Congress to begin preparing US
defenses
America and the
Jewish Refugees
• 1935 Nuremberg laws
• 60,000 Jews entered the US between
1933-1938
• Leo Szilard and James Franck helped
build the atomic bomb
• US refused to adjust immigration limits
• 1939 St. Louis was forced to return to
Europe carrying Jewish refugees.
The European
War
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WWII began on September 1, 1939
Adolf Hitler and Germany attacked Poland
Great Britain and France declared war on Germany
US revised the Neutrality Acts to “Cash and Carry” for
Great Britain and France
April 1940 Germany troops overtook Denmark and
Norway
May 1940 German troops took over the Netherlands and
Belgium
June 1940- France falls to Germany
Winston Churchill appeals to US for assistance
Majority of Americans still not willing to enter the war
From Isolation to
Intervention
• Because of the situation, Roosevelt decides to run for an
unprecedented third term
• Republicans run Wendell Wilkie
• Roosevelt wins and Congress adds “Lend Lease” to the Neutrality
Acts
• FDR finds out that Great Britain is struggling financially
• US may lend military equipment to countries that are vital to US
security passed in March 1941
• Germany attacks USSR in June 1941.
• US extends Lend lease to USSR
• Most of the supplies ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic because
of German U-Boats
• US convoy system is used to counter submarine threat
• Roosevelt and Churchill meet in the summer of 1941 in
Newfoundland- agreement is called the Atlantic Charter
Pearl Harbor and the
Coming of War
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Greater-East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere/ Asians for Asia
US reacts by refusing to sell aviation fuel to Japan
July 1940 US places an embargo on Japanese goods
July 1941 US seizes Japanese assets in the US
Hideki Tojo sends representatives to Washington to
renegotiate trade treaty with US
• December 7th 1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor believing
the loss of ships and a fueling station would make the
US vulnerable.
• December 11th Germany and Italy declare war on US.
Organizing For Victory
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FDR creates the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Office of Strategic Services (CIA)
War Production Board
Office of War Mobilization- James Byrne
The War Economy
• Wartime economy boomed
• Industrial workers purchasing power increased
by 50%
• Corporate profits rose 70%
• 17 million new jobs were created
• Smith-Connally Act stripped unions of the right to
strike during wartime
• Office of Price Administration- imposed rationing
• Federal taxes and war bonds paid for the war
effort
A “Wizard War”
• Thousands of scientists were employed for
victory
• Manhattan project
• J. Robert Oppenheimer
• July 16th 1945 first atomic bomb was
exploded in New Mexico
Propaganda and Politics
• Office of War Information
• Office of Censorship
• New Deal Programs were cut by
conservative Republicans and Democrats
Liberating Europe
• British and Americans decided to defeat
Germany first and then concentrate on Japan
• Stalin wanted a direct attack on Germany to
open a second front and help ease pressure on
Russian troops
• US decided instead to attack Germany in North
Africa and then in Sicily and Italy.
• Stalingrad
• D-Day
• Battle of the Bulge
War in the Pacific
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Battle of Coral Sea
Battle of Midway
Island Hopping
Solomon, Gilbert, Marshall, Mariana,
Philippines and Leyte Gulf
The Grand Alliance
• US
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Defeat fascism
Open trade
Self determination
Roosevelt wins 4th term in 1944
• USSR
– Weaken Germany forever
– Dominate Eastern Europe
• Great Britain
– Colonial Empire and maintain balance or power in
Europe
The GI’s War
• 15 Million Americans serve in WWII
• Young people experienced foreign cities
and countries
• Came in contact with different religions,
ethnicities, classes and religions
The Home Front
• 15 Million Americans changed locations
• Poor Whites, Blacks and Latinos moved to cities
to seek jobs in war production plants
• High School enrollment dropped as teenagers
took full time jobs
• War news reels
• Rosie the Riveter
• Marriage, birth and divorce rates soared
• 300,000 women joined the armed forces
(WAC’s, WAVES)
Racism and New Opportunities
• NAACP and Congress of Racial Equality lead the fight
for Civil Rights
• A. Phillip Randolph
• FDR signs an executive order in 1941 prohibiting racial
discrimination in hiring and promotion by government
agencies and defense contractors
• Fair Employment Practices Commission created/little
power/wartime labor shortages opened jobs to blacks
• 1million African American soldiers serve in
WWII/segregated
• Great migration continues
• Race Riots in Detroit
War and Diversity
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25,000 Native Americans served in the armed forces
50,000 worked in defense industries
Many returned to reservations after the war
Congress slashed appropriations for the reservations
Mexicans entered the country legally and illegally to seek
jobs in the defense industries
Prejudice against Mexicans and Mexican Americans led
to the zoot-suit riots
• 350,000 Mexican-Americans served in WWII
• Each of these groups emerged from WWII with demands
for equality
The Internment and JapaneseAmericans
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Hysteria over Pearl Harbor
Fear of japanese invasion of the mainland
Prejudicew against Asian Americans
112,000 Japanese Americans were locked
into internment camps
• Korematsu vs. US 1944
• Reparations
The Yalta Conference
• Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in
February 1945 to discuss postwar Europe
• United Nations
• War with Japan
Victory in Europe
• April 1945- Americans and Russians met at Elbe
River
• Hitler commits suicide
• May 2nd Berlin falls to Soviets
• May 8th Germany surrenders
• Roosevelt died April 12
• Harry Truman becomes President
• San Francisco Conference outlines the United
Nations Charter
• Potsdam 1945 July 1945 Grand Alliance
disintegrates
The Holocaust
• 1942- Most Americans did not believe the
reports coming from Germany
• FDR administration chose to concentrate on
winning the war as quickly as possible
• US did not want to admit large numbers of
Jewish refugees
• Great Britain did not want to offend Arab allies
• 1945- Nazis had murdered 6-9 million Jews,
Gypsies, Communists, Inferiors
The Atomic Bombs
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Fighting in the Pacific continues
Iwo Jima
Okinawa
Potsdam declaration- Surrender or suffer
destruction
• August 6th Hiroshima
• August 8th Nagasaki