Rise of CIO and World War II at Home and Abroad

Vocabulary flashcards covering the rise of the CIO, New Deal legacy, and United States home front and military involvement during World War II.

Mateo Jarquin

A prize-winning historian from the Department of History at Chapman University who presented a talk on the international and transnational origins of Nicaragua's 1979 Sandinista Revolution.

Industrial Democracy

A concept relating to the empowerment of organized labor and the shaping of workplace democracy that emerged by the end of the New Deal decade.

John L. Lewis

Leader of the United Mine Workers who criticized the AFL for twenty-five years of failure and founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1935.

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

A labor organization founded in 1935 by John L. Lewis and Philip Murray in response to the AFL's refusal to organize "unskilled" workers, specifically targeting the Steel and Auto sectors.

United Auto Workers (UAW)

A CIO union that organized sit-down strikes across plants in Cleveland and Flint between 1936 and 1937, reaching $400,000$ members by the end of 1937.

1936 Presidential Election

An election where FDR campaigned aggressively against "organized money" and business monopolies, winning in a landslide against Landon.

Dada

An art movement, exemplified by Marcel Duchamp's 1917 "Fountain," representing how World War I discredited optimistic and progressive views of the future.

Axis Powers

A military alliance forged in 1940 consisting of Germany, Italy, and Spain.

The Four Freedoms

Essential human rights outlined in FDR's 1941 State of the Union Address: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Battle of Stalingrad

A major confrontation ending in January 1943 where the German Army was defeated in the Soviet Union, marking a shift in the Eastern Front.

Lend Lease Act (1941)

Legislation authorizing military aid to Britain, China, and the USSR via credit, establishing the United States as the "arsenal of democracy."

Pearl Harbor

The site of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, which occurred after the U.S. stopped trading oil with Japan, leading to the U.S. declaration of war.

War Mobilization Statistics

During WWII, $50$ million men registered for the draft, $10$ million served, and federal workers quadrupled from $1$ million to $4$ million.

Grace Lee Boggs

An activist who observed that Black women, formerly restricted to domestic work, felt excitement producing goods in war plants with modern machinery.

Kaiser steel

The first steel plant west of the Mississippi River, located in Fontana, CA, and built with loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).

1941 Lanham Act

Legislation that established $3,000$ childcare centers serving $130,000$ children; the program ended $6$ days after the Japanese surrender in 1945.

Office of War Information (OWI)

An agency created in 1942 to support the war effort using propaganda tactics developed during World War I.

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

A civilian war agency that used direct price regulation to check inflation; it had the second-largest federal civilian staff after the post office.