Social impact of the Second World War; impact on women and minorities; conscription

Office of War Information-

• Government funded organization founded in 1942, to control the public perspective on the war

• Attempted to sway the public towards the war effort, on subjects such as rationing, comradery, recruitment, victory gardens, war bonds, and more

• Bureau of Motion Pictures was a section of OWI, they created films for a variety of audiences. For Americans, the goal was to create empathy for the overseas war, for the Allies, it was to change opinion of who the Americans were, breaking apart the wild west perspective of the states.

Navajo Code Talkers

• A code talker is a name given to Native Americans who used their traditional language (for example Navajo or Diné) to send secret communications on the battlefield during World War II.

• Transmitted secret allied messages in the Pacific

• US military developed a specific policy to recruit and train Native Americans to become code talkers

Women’s Contributions

• Rosie the riveter

  • Over 6 mill women took to the factories

• 3 mill volunteered for red cross

• Over 200,000 served in the military

• Women received around 53% of the pay that men did

• Top secret Rosies

  • women computers used to code SO MUCH for the military but got no credit

Double V Campaign

• In 1941 president Roosevelt identified “four freedoms” (The freedom from want, fear, freedom of speech, and to practice religion) that the United states needed to fight for by entering into World war II. For African Americans, the intentions of joining the war were not only to support the war, but was also a way to fight for racial equality.

• During the second world war, African Americans made huge sacrifices as a way to trade military services and wartime support for great amounts of social, political, and economic gains

• The newspaper designed a important double V logo to spread the campaign via posters buttons, and ran photographs of people siding with the campaign

• It was so popular that there were Double V baseball games, gardens, beauty pageants, pictures of double v girls in the daily papers, a hair style, fashions and accessories, dances, songs, and parades.

• African Americans were able to take in the war effort that they contributed and create a stronger bond within their community

• After the japanese attack on the peral harbor (1941) , a race riot broke out between African American Gis, Civilians, and police.

War Bonds

• The government spent $300 billion on WW2 and needed money = Bonds

• The US had to borrow over half of the $300 billion

• The government had a ton of propaganda to sell bonds, including getting celebrities to canvas people

Bracero Program

• Bracero Program: a series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the US that, from 1942 - 1964, permitted over 4 and a half million Mexican men to legally migrate to the US to work on short-term labor contracts

  • this was done to address the labor shortages going on in the US because of the war, and also “attempted to fix unjust depression-era deportations that Mexican American citizens suffered

  • agriculture + railroads, Texas + California

• Mexican concerns:

  • doubted labor shortage, suspected excuse for cheap labor

  • avoided discrimination prone states

  • worried about own economic development w/o workers

• “Guarantees”

  • free sanitary housing, medical treatment, bathing facilities, transportation, wages, construct in spanish

• Recruitment

  • centers became very crowded, bribery became prevalent

  • If no permit, many would illegally immigrate into the US

• Discrimination

  • both growers and US government ignored set standards, workers experienced harsh discrimination

    • US growers would use Mexican workers as leverage over the American workers

• Abuses of the program

  • 10% of their wages withheld + placed in fund controlled by mexican government

  • majority of workers never received compensation

• Effects of program today

  • established a common migration pattern, Mexican citizens to US for $, back home, then back to US for more $

• Canada: Japanese internment

  • Lots of racism towards japanese people before war but then after pearl harbor, where some canadian troops were stationed, canada feared invasion.

  • Canadian government detained and dispossessed more than 90 per cent of Japanese Canadians, some 21,000 people in 1942 and held for the rest of ww2

• Canada: National selective service regulations

  • Ensured that agriculture workers didn’t leave the industry for a non-war essential job

  • Gave women the opportunity to find jobs in fields they otherwise wouldn’t have been

• Canada: Mackenzie king– prime minister during war (1920s-1940s)

  • Wanted a united country, so he avoided overseas conscription at all costs

  • Didn’t want canada as involved to save lives but many canadians wanted to enlist regardless

  • Created National resource mobilization act

• Canada: War measures act

  • allowed for censorship, detainment of citizens without charge, and surveillance

  • Anyone siding with the enemy in word or action could be jailed.

  • Also lead to japanese internment

• Canada: CD Howe

  • Minister of munitions and commerce but kinda ran a little bit of everything during the war cause of the war measures act

• Canada: National resource mobilizaion act

  • Didn’t lead to conscription like in WW1 but instead had conscription on the home front, rather just home defence and service

• Canada: Victory bonds

  • Raised 12.5B for the war effort

• Canada: Agriculture

  • Just getting over one of the worst ag. Crises.

  • Had national ag. Food board but then got a seat on the Allied Combined

  • No compulsory military service required by farmers and their sons

Rationing / Victory Gardens