War: Rethinking the Familiar

The lecture will cover American motivations during wartime and consider the question: "War, what is it good for?"
It will also explore the idea of the United States as an American powerhouse and question for whom the U.S. was fighting.

The U.S. experienced mass mobilization both at home and abroad during the war.
Examples of mobilization at home include:
- Citizens Defense Corps.
- Citizens Service Corps.
- American Unity campaigns.
- Salvage programs.
- Victory Gardens.
- WPA (Works Progress Administration) projects with job opportunities for Pennsylvanians in civilian defense efforts through the Pennsylvania State Council of Defense.
This mobilization democratized the workplace, exemplified by the "We Can Do It!" poster.
War Production Co-ordinating Committees were established.
Efforts were made to match individuals with war jobs in industry, agriculture, and business through the U.S. Employment Service.

World powers responded to the Depression with restrictions and by extending influence.
Key events:
- 1931: Japan occupies Manchuria.
- 1935: Italy invades Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
- 1936: Hitler takes back Rhineland and arms it; Axis powers form and help Franco crush the democratically elected government of Spain.
- 1939: Germany invades Poland.
- 1940: Hitler occupies Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.
- 1941: Germans attack England and invade the Soviet Union.
These international conflicts tested U.S. isolationism.
- 1935: Neutrality Act was passed.
- America First Committee emerged, suggesting capitalism couldn't survive American participation in the war.

U.S. leaders viewed economic and political interests as inseparable.
- 1941: John McCloy (War Department) stated that German control could shut off U.S. trade with Europe, South America, and the Far East.
National and ethnic loyalties leaned toward Western European democracies.
Key actions:
- 1939: U.S. repeals arms embargo, begins selling weapons to France and Britain.
- 1940: War Department's budget triples, first peacetime draft instituted.
- 1941: Lend-Lease Act to anti-Axis powers, signing of the “Atlantic Charter,” and undeclared war with Germany in the Atlantic.
- December 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor.

The U.S. emerged as a world power (economically and militarily) and entered the atomic age.
Cooperation between the public and private sectors increased.
A new era of American patriotism began.
The GI experience created a new generation of heroes who “saved democracy.”
The military was segregated but more diverse.
Growth and integration of the industrial workplace accelerated.
Another wave of migration occurred from the South to the North, and from small towns/farms to cities.

Depression Edition:
- Direct spending by the U.S. government.
- Government insurance and subsidies promoted bank lending.
Wartime Edition:
- Prioritization of rapid war production, overshadowing redistributive efforts.
- Establishment of more alphabet agencies including:
  - Office of War Mobilization (OWM).
  - War Production Board (WPB).
  - National War Labor Board (NWLB).
  - War Manpower Commission (WMC).
Paying for the war:
- The war had a $304$ billion price tag.
- The annual defense budget increased from $1.9$ billion (1940) to $59.8$ billion (1945).
- Funding came from new personal income taxes and $150$ billion in bond sales.
Resources:
- 16 million soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen trained, fed, supplied, and transported around the globe
- 300,000 aircraft
- 7,500 naval and merchant ships
- 88,000 tanks
- 640,000 jeeps
- 2.4 million trucks
- 15 million guns
- 40 billion bullets
- 1/4 billion pairs of trousers
- 1/2 billion socks
- A top-secret nuclear weapons program.

Big corporations like Ford, U.S. Steel, DuPont, and GE received most of the war contracts.
‘Cost-plus’ contracts were common, along with tax breaks and subsidies.
Henry Kaiser, known as ‘The Miracle Man,’ ran massive shipyards in California that broke production records and restored the reputation of corporate leaders.
For average Americans:
- War contracts created 17 million jobs.
- Wages doubled between 1939 and 1944.
- Purchasing power was restored.

Government Purchases:
- 1940: $6100$ billions $
- 1943: $81$ billions $
- 1944: $89$ billions $
Gross National Product (GNP):
- 1943: $192$ billions $
- 1944: $210$ billions $
Unemployment (percentage):
- 1938: 19.0
- 1940: 14.6
- 1943: 1.9
- 1944: 1.2

Numerous agencies were created during the Depression and wartime. (e.g. AAA, BPA, CAA, CCC, WPA, etc.)

The U.S. fought for “American freedoms” abroad and at home, but contradictions persisted.
The armed forces were still segregated, yet military experience became formative for minorities.
Racial minorities were economically marginalized, harassed, and assaulted, and Jim Crow laws reigned in the South, yet the “Double V” campaign and March on Washington Movement continued.
Immigration restrictions remained, yet European immigrants could demonstrate their loyalty and “Americanness” by supporting the war.
New Deal programs still discriminated in the distribution of benefits, yet they fueled the economy and demonstrated the advantage of public/private sector cooperation.

The March on Washington Movement sought to challenge racial segregation.
Executive Order 8802 created the FEPC (Fair Employment Practice Committee).
The ‘Double Victory’ campaign emerged.
There was a groundswell of political organizing in the NAACP, CORE, and readership of black newspapers.

FEPC had weaknesses.
White resistance to black workers was evident (hate strikes).
FDR was silent on lynching and the poll tax.
Anti-black riots occurred in Mobile and Detroit.
The armed forces remained segregated, with black soldiers given the worst jobs and attacked in the South.
German POWs were sometimes served in restaurants that refused black customers.

Executive Order 9066 authorized the military to remove ‘any and all persons’ from designated areas and intern them in camps in early 1942.
Italian and German-Americans were not subjected to the same treatment.
Japanese individuals and Japanese-Americans were deemed disloyal because of their race and therefore considered a ‘military threat.’
People of Japanese ancestry were not removed from Hawaii.

The war was considered a worthy mission.
The war economy created an enormous amount of wealth and opportunity.
Institutions, both public and private:
- Were necessary to foster production and win the war.
- Had also long discriminated against select groups.
Organized protest and collective action were utilized both to challenge inequities and to enforce them.