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authorHolden Rohrer <hr@hrhr.dev>2020-10-20 19:17:18 -0400
committerHolden Rohrer <hr@hrhr.dev>2020-10-20 19:17:18 -0400
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+The Homefront: Life in Wartime America
+- Why is WWII remembered as "the good war?"
+- What were the effects of WWII on American society?
+- How did it affect social conditions for Japanese, black, etc
+
+Over time, the disturbing nature of the war has been downplayed and the
+noble bits admired.
+1984 "The Good War" by Studs Terkel
+- Asserts that this was a noble war
+ - Combat an evil fascist, expansionist regime
+ - Americans cooperated beyond ethnic, racial divisions on war bond,
+ volunteer campaigns
+ - The war brought prosperity to a depressed nation
+ - GI Bill of Rights gave federal support to GIs
+ - More, better jobs
+ - Advanced the Civil Rights movement by discrediting anti-semitic
+ Nazi Gremany
+ - Provided women with unprecedented opportunities in Civil Service,
+ military, labor force.
+ - The war did not curtail public rights: freedom of press, speech
+ protected
+- This rosy view is imperfect att best
+ - Rapid erosion of black and women rights after the war.
+ - Japanese internment camps
+ - The romanticism is not a historical belief, a nostalgic
+ one---shaped by Hollywood
+- Shaped by advertising of the gov't
+ - Freedom of Speech
+ - Freedom of Worship
+ - Freedom from Want
+ - Freedom from Fear
+The Arsenal of Democracy
+- War Powers Act allowed Roosevelt to reorganize the gov't, modifying
+ business, even censoring mail
+- Production was a primary concern of FDR
+ - Conversion of industries to wartime production produced huge
+ numbers of Jeeps, Tanks, trucks, warplanes.
+ - Outpaced Hitler, Mussolini, Japan combined.
+ - By 1945, US produces half the goods in the world
+- Revenue Act of 1942 covered the huge cost of the war w/ income tax
+ - The rest was borrowed in the form of war bonds
+ - Sextupled the national debt
+ - Jobs were plentiful. Many Americans moved to the jobs
+ - Homeland shortages created by shipping to Allies and military
+ - Price ceilings prevented gouging of commodities
+ - Rationing: coupons for amount of basic goods
+- Propaganda
+ - Pushed image of gov't war policies like war bonds and donating to
+ the troops being to protect freedom and democracy.
+
+But the war didn't actually support freedom for *everyone.*
+- Esp. black people, in an article in a black newspaper, anti-lyncher
+says "if my country cannot outlaw lynching...to hell with Pearl Harbor."
+- Double Victory = Stop, at home, aggression, prejudice, discrimination
+ - Defense Industries were critical for Civil Rights; black workers,
+ who hoped they could find work in defense plants, were often shut
+ out or placed in menial, low-paying jobs
+ - Protests began in Spring 1941 by A Philip Randolph
+ - Called for end to discrimination in Defense/Military
+ - March on Washington, expected to be huge
+ - Gets Roosevelt to sign executive order banning discrimination
+ and protecting rights for African-Americans
+ - Black residents suffered in what was essentially tenements in
+ Detroit
+ - City tried to construct black housing project in white nbhood
+ - Cross lit in front; Detroit race riot of 1943, showing that
+ black status caused social unrest
+ - Grew massively, both groups attacking the other based on
+ rumors
+ - Ended by army troops in tanks with automatic weapons
+ - Terrified residents of Paradise Valley
+ - No white people killed by police, 17 black people
+
+Tuskegee airmen, creation of segregated (black-only) platoons run by
+white officers (black officers could not control white soldiers).
+ - Several more years until the military was really integrated
+- 1942 Emergency Farm Labor "Bracero" Program
+ - Mexico agreed to provide ~70K seasonal, undocumented workers
+ - US agreed to ensure work conditions
+ - Extended after the war, annual numbers increased
+- Zoot Suit Riots
+ - Mexican-American teens in baggy pants, long-tailed coats
+ - Sailors patrolled and viciously beat zoot suiters
+ - Latino Civil Rights movement eventually emerged by veterans
+ realizing they had rights to participate fully in US
+
+Women worked in military, 8mn women entered the workforce
+- Rosie the Riveter, Rosina Bonavita.
+ - Many men opposed, purporting domestic work
+ - Women were eager to escape grinding domestic life and wanted the
+ ability to work in factory and make money
+ - Often women workers were wives entering was-exclusive industries
+ - Still worked in sex-segregated work like clerical/service
+ - Earned 65% of what men made
+
+Discrimination against Japanese
+- Hunger for vengeance against Nisei, Japanese descent living in US.
+- "No Japanes wanted," banks stopped cashing checks, grocers stop
+ serving them food
+- Hastily constructed War Relocation Camps
+ - guarded by sentry towers and machine guns
+ - Internment Camps initiated by Roosevelt
+ - 75% were already American citizens
+ - No trials, due process, or concerns of civil rights
+ - "Military necessity"---no evidence of any espionage
+ - Actually just to quell fears of white Americans after Pearl..
+ - Japanese Americans served in the Armed Forces
+ - Only in 1983 did US government even acknowledge the injustice
+ - $20K each in compensation for still-living nisei