From 1a4b670f6d30ebc3c94cdc563d24b88a104c1515 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2020 19:17:18 -0400 Subject: homefront and wwii lecture USH --- smith/14_homefront_wwii | 109 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 109 insertions(+) create mode 100644 smith/14_homefront_wwii (limited to 'smith/14_homefront_wwii') diff --git a/smith/14_homefront_wwii b/smith/14_homefront_wwii new file mode 100644 index 0000000..133f29d --- /dev/null +++ b/smith/14_homefront_wwii @@ -0,0 +1,109 @@ +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 -- cgit