WWII – American Homefront

An American Story…..

America Mobilizes

• How America mobilizes its human resources-

• Selective Service- expanded the draft to add another 10 million soldiers

• GIs- reported to military bases for 8 weeks of basic training

• Factories retooled to build tanks, planes, boats and command cars

American Economy

• Office of Price Admin (OPA) – froze wages, prices, rationed foods

• War Production Board (WPB) – rationed fuel and materials vital to war (gas, metal)

• Dept of Treasury – issued war bonds• Office of Scientific Research and Dev

(OSRD)mobilized scientists (radar, atomic)• Roosevelt-full participation of all workers

GIs, rations, coupons

AMERICAN WOMEN

• WAAC (Women’s Auxiliary Army Corp)

-women volunteers would serve in non-combat roles (nurses, ambulance drivers, radio operators, electricians) full benefits

• 6 million plus worked in factories –welding and riveting guns

• Gave them the opportunity to prove themselves in a variety of professions

Women

NATIVE AMERICANS

• 25,000 volunteered for the army• Native Americans helped with secret

codes that could not be broken –Navajo Windtalkers

• Also, 300,000 Mexican Americans joined the armed forces

AFRICAN AMERICANS

• One million served in military in non-combat roles in segregated units

• April 1943 – after protests, Af-Amer finally saw combat

• Race riots back home brought discrimination to the fore front of America

JAPANESE AMERICANS

• 33,000 joined the military – many were Nisei (born in US of Japanese parents)

• Many worked as spies/interpreters on the battlefield

• Internment camps – 10 relocation camps that held 110,000 Japanese Americans

• Lost homes, businesses, belongings• Korematsu v United States -

Korematsu v United States

• Supreme court decision that upheld the use of internment camps to house Japanese-Americans

• “military necessity”• The US government later paid restitution

Internment Camps

ROLE OF THE MEDIA

• Hollywood developed war films to encourage patriotism and propaganda against Germans/Japanese

• Posters/billboards encouraged rationing and support for the war effort

Propaganda

Tuskegee Airmen

• **All African American pilots of the 99th Pursuit squadron

• trained at the Tuskegee Institute (remember Booker T. Washington??)

• many victories against Italian and German air forces

• received the Presidential Unit Citation and 100 Distinguished Flying Crosses

CHANGE IN AMERICA

• Increased women and minorities in the work force

• End of the Great Depression• Population shifts – many move up

North/West to work in factories• Civil Rights protests increase• Increase in new technologies• Change to families

GI Bill

• Provided education and training for returning GIs

• ½ returning soldiers attend College or technical school paid for by government

• Federal loans for homes and farms for GIs• Helped lead to “BABY BOOMER”

generation

3 things you learned

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