AMSCO 7.12 World War II Mobilization

Overview

AMSCO Topic 7.12, World War II Mobilization, covers how the United States transformed its economy, government, and society to fight World War II from 1941 to 1945. The big idea: total war reached into every American's life. The federal government grew far beyond anything seen in World War I or the New Deal, wartime production ended the Great Depression, and the war opened doors (and exposed deep injustices) for women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, and Japanese Americans. As FDR put it in April 1942, there was "one front and one battle" where every American was in action: the home front.

For APUSH, the key question to answer from this chapter is how and why U.S. participation in World War II transformed American society.

The Federal Government Takes Over the Economy

Washington created a web of new agencies to direct the war economy, just as it had in World War I, but on a much bigger scale.

• The War Production Board (WPB), established early in 1942, managed war industries.
• The Office of War Mobilization (OWM) set production priorities and controlled raw materials.
• The Office of Price Administration (OPA) froze prices, wages, and rents and rationed goods like meat, sugar, gasoline, and auto tires to fight inflation. Rationing also created a black market where people illegally bought and sold scarce goods.
• The government used a cost-plus system, paying contractors their production costs plus a guaranteed percentage of profit. This made war production a sure bet for business.

Deficit spending on a massive scale

War spending dwarfed New Deal spending. Federal spending increased 1,000 percent between 1939 and 1945, and the gross national product grew 15 percent or more per year. By the end of the war, the national debt hit $250 billion, five times its 1941 level and 120 percent of total U.S. economic output for 1946.

The takeaway AMSCO wants you to remember: World War II proved what the New Deal did not, that the government could spend its way out of a depression.

Business, Industry, and Wartime Production

Wartime demand and government contracts ended the Great Depression for good. By 1944, unemployment had practically disappeared, and U.S. war-related industrial output was twice that of all the Axis powers combined.

The production numbers are staggering:

• Over 300,000 planes
• 100,000 tanks
• Ships totaling 53 million tons of capacity
• Henry Kaiser's California shipyard could build a new ship in just 14 days

One catch: war production concentrated in big business. Smaller firms lost out on contracts to larger corporations with more capacity, and the 100 largest corporations accounted for up to 70 percent of wartime manufacturing.

Research and development

The government partnered with universities and research labs through the Office of Research and Development, which contracted scientists to develop radar, sonar, penicillin, jet engines, and rockets. It also ran the top-secret Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic weapons. Ironically, many European scientists who fled fascist persecution helped defeat fascism through their work in the United States.

Workers and unions

Unions and corporations agreed to a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war. But workers grew frustrated as their wages stayed frozen while corporations made big profits. John L. Lewis led several coal miner strikes anyway. Congress responded with the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act of 1943 (passed over FDR's veto), which let the government take over war-related businesses threatened by strikes. FDR used it in 1944, ordering the army to briefly run the nation's railroads.

Financing the War and Selling It to the Public

The government paid for the war ($100 billion spent in 1945 alone) two ways: raising the income tax and selling war bonds.

• For the first time, most Americans had to pay an income tax, and in 1944 the government began automatically deducting a withholding tax from paychecks. That paycheck deduction system still exists today.
• War bond sales raised $135 billion. The shortage of consumer goods made saving easier, so Americans had money to lend.

Wartime propaganda

Few people opposed this war, so propaganda mainly aimed to maintain morale, encourage conservation, and boost production rather than win over skeptics. The Office of War Information controlled news about troop movements and battles. Movies, radio, and popular music projected a cheerful, patriotic view of the war, and Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" illustrations captured the values at stake. That unity is why the generation that fought it remembered World War II as "the Good War."

The War's Impact on American Society

Mobilization reshaped where Americans lived and worked. Millions left rural areas for factory jobs in the Midwest and on the Pacific Coast, especially California. New communities sprang up around factories and military bases, and many defense installations went to the South because of its warm climate and low labor costs. These wartime migrations set the stage for the postwar move to the Sunbelt.

African Americans

Over 1.5 million African Americans left the South for jobs in the North and West, and a million young men served in the armed forces, including the first Black combat aviators. But discrimination and segregation continued at home and in the military. White resentment of Black families moving into northern cities sparked deadly race riots in New York and Detroit in the summer of 1943.

Civil rights activism grew in response:

• The "Double V" campaign called for victory over fascism abroad and victory over inequality at home.
• NAACP membership increased, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) formed in 1942 to push more militantly for Black interests.
• After Black leaders threatened a protest march on Washington, FDR issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination in government and in businesses with federal contracts.
• In Smith v. Allwright (1944), the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to exclude African Americans from political party membership as a way of blocking them from voting in primaries.

Mexican Americans

Over 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the military, and many more worked in defense industries. A 1942 agreement with Mexico created the bracero program, letting Mexican farmworkers enter the U.S. during harvest season without formal immigration procedures. Braceros were temporary residents only; they were not welcomed to stay. The influx of Mexican immigrants into Los Angeles stirred White resentment and led to the zoot suit riots in the summer of 1943, when Whites and Mexican Americans fought in the streets.

American Indians

About 25,000 American Indians served in the military and thousands more worked in defense industries. Having found opportunities off the reservations, more than half never returned to them.

Japanese Americans

Japanese Americans suffered more wartime discrimination than any other ethnic group. After Pearl Harbor, irrational fears of spies and a Japanese invasion, plus plain racism, led the government in 1942 to force more than 100,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast into internment camps. The order did not apply to Japanese Americans in Hawaii or elsewhere in the country.

In Korematsu v. U.S. (1944), the Supreme Court upheld internment as justified in wartime. Despite this treatment, almost 20,000 Japanese Americans served in the military. In 1988, the federal government admitted the policy was unjust and paid financial compensation to surviving internees.

Women

Over 200,000 women served in uniform in the army, navy, and marines, in noncombat roles. The labor shortage pulled almost 5 million women into the workforce, many into shipyards and defense plants, with "Rosie the Riveter" as the recruiting symbol. The share of married women in the workforce rose to 24 percent. Women still earned well below male factory workers, but many gained independence as heads of households and chief income earners while men served overseas.

Wartime solidarity

Serving together in combat and working side by side in defense plants helped reduce prejudices based on nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Wartime migrations softened regional differences and opened many Americans' eyes to the injustice of racial discrimination. Those shifts plant the seeds of the postwar civil rights movement you'll see in Unit 8.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Pair these notes with the 7.12 World War II: Mobilization course study guide for the College Board framing, and review the rest of Unit 7 AMSCO notes to see how mobilization connects back to the New Deal and the World War I home front, a comparison the exam loves.

Then test yourself:

• Run guided multiple-choice practice on Period 7 questions.
• Try an FRQ with instant scoring. Mobilization's effects on women and minorities make a classic SAQ or LEQ prompt.
• Look up unfamiliar vocab in the APUSH key terms glossary.