World War II, Part 2 _ The Homefront: Crash Course US History #36 episode transcript - U.S. History by Crash Course

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World War II, Part 2 _ The Homefront: Crash Course US History #36

From: U.S. History by Crash Course

In which John Green teaches you about World War II, as it was lived on the home front. You'll learn about how the war changed the country as a whole and changed how Americans thought about their country. John talks about the government control of war production, and how the war probably helped to end the Great Depression. Broader implementation of the income tax, the growth of large corporations, and the development of the West Coast as a manufacturing center were also results of the war. The war positively changed the roles of women and African Americans, but it was pretty terrible for the Japanese Americans who were interred in camps. In short, World War II changed America's role in the world, changed American life at home, and eventually spawned the History Channel.

Full Transcript

World War II Part 2 - The Homefront Crash Course US History 36

speaker01 00:00:00

Hi I'm John Green, this is Crash Course us history and today we're going to discuss how World War 2 played out at home and also the meaning of the war. Mr Green Mr Green, so this is going to be like one of the boring philosophical ones then? Oh me from the past, I remember when you were idealistic. I remember a time when all you cared about was the deep inner meaning of mostly girls. But you've changed me from the past, and not in a good way.

speaker01 00:34:00

So anyway, World War 2 brought about tremendous changes in the United States, in many ways shaping how Americans would come to see themselves and how they would want to be seen by the rest of the world. Some of these ideological changes were a continuation of the New Deal. Others were direct results of the. But one thing we can say is that by the end of the war, the country was very different.

speaker01 00:53:00

For starters, World War 2 strengthened the federal government of the United States. This always happens when a country goes to war, but World War 2 brought about even more governmental intervention and control than we had seen in World War One. It was like the New Deal on steroids, like federal agencies, like the War Production Board, war manpower on Mission and Office of Price Administration took unprecedented control of the economy. There was massive rationing of food and supplies. Entire industries were completely taken over by the government. The federal government fixed wages, rents, prices, and especially production quotas, like if you're looking to buy a 1000 and 940000 twoo model Ford or Chrysler goodwi because there weren't any, the government told those car makers not to create new models that year. So basically, FDR was president for life and controlled all the industries.

speaker01 01:36:00

I mean, how did this communist end up on the dime? Well, the answer is that while it might have sucked not to have a 1000 and 920 twow, most people were just happy to be working.

speaker01 01:44:00

After the Great Depression, unemployment dropped from 14% in 1009 40 to 2% in 1043. Of course, 13 million Americans were serving in the military in some capacity, so that helped employment. But in general, the war kick the American economy into overdrive. Like by 1944, American factories were producing an airplane every 5 minutes and a ship every day.

speaker01 02:04:00

U gross national product went from 91 billion to 214 billion during the war. Why did this happen? Well, that's controversial, but primarily because of federal spending. Government expenditures during the war were twice the amount they had been in the previous 150 years combined, although a lot of this was financed with debt, much of the war was paid for with taxes. Like the federal government began the practice of withholding taxes from paychecks, for instance, a practice I first became familiar with when working at Steak and Shake, discovering that instead of being paid, I don't know, like $100 a week, I was being paid negative $30 a week because I had to declare my tips because my dad, before World War 2, only 4 million Americans even paid federal income taxes. But after the war, 40 million did.

speaker01 02:49:00

Also, big business got even bigger during the war because government contracts cost plus contracts guaranteed that company would make a profit. And the Lions share of contracts went to the biggest business. So by the war's end, the 200 biggest American corporations controlled half of all of America's corporate assets. And all this government spending also spurred development, like defense spending basically created the West Coast as an industrial center. Seattle became a shipping and aircraft manufacturing hub, and California got 10% of all federal spending. And Los Angeles became the second largest manufacturing center in the country, meaning that it was not, in fact, built by Hollywood. It was built by World War Two. All of this was pretty bad for the South because most of this industrialization happened in cities, and the South only had two cities with more than half a million people.

speaker01 03:34:00

And organized labor continued to grow as well, with union membership soaring from around 9 million in 1000 and 940 to almost 15 million in 1000 and 940 two-five. Besides union friendly New Deal policies, the government forced employers to recognize unions in order to prevent labor strife and keep the factories humming so that war production would not decrease. And from a human history standpoint, one of the biggest changes is that many of the workers in the factories were women. You've probably seen this picture of Rosie the Rich, and while there wasn't actually a riveter named Rosie, or maybe there was, but she's an amalgam, but by 1000 and 940 two-four women made up one third of the civilian labor force, in addition to the 350000 who were serving in the military And the type of women who were working changed. Married women in their 30s outnumbered single women in the workforce, but the government and employers both saw this phenomenon as temporary. So when the war was over, most women workers, especially those in high paying industrial jobs, were let go. This was especially hard on working class women who needed to work to survive and had to return to lower paid workers as domestics or in food services, or God forbid, as teachers.

speaker01 04:36:00

It's time for the mystery document. The rules here are simple. We use primary sources for learning as this is a serious show about history. And then if I guess the author wrong, I get shocked.

speaker01 04:46:00

Okay, what do we got today? Let's take a look, certainly there is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution, which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of healthy and strong democracy, the basic things expected by our people and their political and economic systems are simple. They are equality of opportunity for youth and for others, jobs for those who can work, security for those who need it, the ending of special privilege for the few, the preservation of civil liberties for all.

speaker01 05:17:00

I mean, that's a pretty hardcore New Deal stuff right there. And the biggest new dealer of all was FDR. I remember last time when I guessed FDR and it was actually Eleanor Roosevelt, so. You wouldn't do Eleanor Roosevelt toys, or would you? Now it sounds more like a speech. FD, yes. So I mentioned at the beginning of this video that World War 2 was an ideological war, and nothing better encapsulates that idea than Fdr's for freedoms, which were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

speaker01 05:53:00

During the war, the National Resources Planning Board offered a plan for a peacetime economy based on full employment and expanded welfare state and a higher standard of living for all. In 1944, FDR even called for a new economic bill of rights that would expand governmental power in order to create full employment and guarantee an adequate income, medical care, education, and housing to all. All American. As FDR put it, true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. But that didn't happen largely because Southern Democrats in the House and Senate didn't want it to, because it would have meant a larger role for unions and also extending greater equality to African Americans, and they weren't about to let that happen. I mean, their jobs were literally dependent upon African Americans not being able to vote. The Congress did pass the GI Bill of Rights, officially, the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, to attempt to prevent widespread spread unemployment for returning soldiers. It worked amazingly well, and by 1946, more than 1 million former soldiers were enrolled in college and almost 4 million got assistance with mortgages, spurring a post war housing boom.

speaker01 06:54:00

That town and all the 2000 that look like it came after the war. So we talked about Fdr's 4 freedoms, but big business added a fifth freedom. Free enterprise advertisers helped on this front, trying to make the war about consumption, telling Americans that they were fighting to hasten the day when you can once more walk into any store in the land and buy anything you want, according to an ad for Royal Typewriters.

speaker01 07:17:00

Fdr's vision of extending freedom wasn't limited to the United States. Like Henry Luce, the publisher of Time magazine published a book called The American Century, claiming that the war had thrust upon the us the opportunity to share with all people their magnificent industrial products. That's a quote. And American ideas like love of freedom and free economic enterprise, the struggle against Nazism also helped reshape the way that Americans thought of themselves.

speaker01 07:41:00

Like, because the Nazis were racist, Americanism would mean diversity and tolerance and equality for all people. The federal government supported this version of America FDR claim that to be an American was, quote, a matter of mind and heart, not a matter of race and ancestry. It wasn't a matter of race and ancestry killed of the indigenous population. This was also, not coincidentally, the period where American intellectuals began publishing books debunking the supposed scientific basis of racism. Now, this didn't mean that Americans suddenly embraced equality for all people, anti-Semitism still, still two and 2 existed and contributed to the governments not doing more to help the Jews who perished in the Holocaust. In fact, only 21000 Jewish people were allowed to come to the us during the course of the war, and white people's fear over minority groups contributed to race riots in Detroit and suit riot against Mexicans in Los Angeles in 1943.

speaker01 08:31:00

Not just a song by the Cherry Pop and Daddies, also a tragic moment in American history, The Warriors saw a dramatic increase in immigration from Mexico under the Bracero program, which lasted until 1964, about 500000 Mexican American men and women served in the armed forces during the war, as did 25000 American Indians, although Indian reservations, being largely rural, didn't really share in the wartime prosperity.

speaker01 08:53:00

Asian Americans are probably the most glaring example of the failure to be adequately pluralistic. Things did improve for Chinese Americans because America couldn't keep restricting the immigration of its ally in the war, Japanese Americans suffered horrible racism and one of the worst violations of civil liberties in America's history, Executive Order 9606 in February in 1942 expelled all persons of Japanese descent from the West Coast. 70% of Japanese Americans lived in California, and as a result of this order, more than 110000 people, almost two-third of whom were American cities, were sent to internment camps where they lived in makeshift barracks under the eyes and searchlights of guards. A man named Fred Korematsu appealed his conviction for failing to show up for internment all the way to the Supreme Court, where he lost in yet another horrendous Supreme Court decision.

speaker01 09:44:00

OK, let's go to the thought bubble the group that experienced the greatest change during World War 2 was probably African Americans they still served in segregated regiments in the armed forces, but more than 1 million of them answered the call to fight and just as important, continuing the Great Migration that had begun in the 1009 hundred S, 700000 African Americans left the South, moving to Northern and especially Western cities where they could find jobs, even though these mass migrations often led to tensions between blacks and whites, and sometimes these tensions exploded into violence. World War Ii also saw the beginning of the civil rights movement angered by discrimination in defense, employment, Black labor leader a Philip Randolph threatened a march on Washington, demanding access to defense jobs and end to segregation, and a federal anti lynching law. He didn't get all those, but he did get Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense hiring and created the Fair Employment Practices Commission. The fepc couldn't enforce anti-discrimination, but as a compliance agency, it helped African American workers obtain jobs in arms factories and shipyards. By 1944, more than 1 million black people were working in manufacturing, and 300000 of them were women. The rhetoric of fighting a war for freedom against a racist dictated ship wasn't lost on African Americans, and many saw themselves as engaged in the Double V campaign victory over the Axis powers abroad and over racism in the United States. The Warsaw ending, segregation and black equality become cornerstones of American liberalism, along with full employment and the expansion of civil liberties. Eventually, even the army and Navy began to integrate, although the full end to discrimination in the military would have to wait until well after the war.

speaker01 11:21:00

Thanks, thought bubble. So if America was isolationist before the war, and I've argued that it actually wasn't really after the war, it certainly wasn't FDR took a very active role in planning for a more peaceful and prosperous post war world and conference. Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam clarified war aims and established the idea that Germany would be divided and Nazis tried for war crimes. These conferences also weighed the foundation for the Cold War in allowing Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. That wasn't such a good thing, but the 19 944 conference Breton Woods in beautiful freedom-loving New Hampshire established America's economic dominance as the dollar, which again would be backed by gold, replaced the pound, the main currency in international transactions. It also created the World Bank to help rebuild Europe and also to help developing countries and the IMF to stabilize currencies. Well, that's worked as debatable, but this isn't the United States became the financial leader of a global capitalist order.

speaker01 12:15:00

The United States also took a leading role in establishing the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 19900 and forty-fourth. Do we not have a UN commission on improving the names of historical events? The goal of the UN was to ensure peace and the United States position as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, signaled that it intended to take an active and leading role in international affairs. And we had to, because by the end of the war, only the United States and the USSR were power powerful enough to have any influence.

speaker01 12:43:00

The World War 2 ended the Depression and transformed America's economy. It cemented the new definition of liberalism established by the New Deal and opened up opportunities for diverse groups of American. It also transformed definitions of both at home and abroad. Even before the us entered the war, it issued the Atlantic Charter along with Britain, affirming the freedom of all people to choose their own government and declaring that the defeat of Nazi Germany would help to bring about a world of, quote, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security at home and abroad. World War 2 became a war that was about freedom, but was also about what Gunner Myrtle called the American creed, a belief in equality, justice, equal opportunity and freedom clear that we have done a terrible job of living up to the American creed. But the story of American history is in many ways the story of ideas pulling policy, not the other way around. American history is an economic and political and social history, but it is also a story about the power of ideas, and World War 2 helped clarify those ideas for America.

speaker01 14:00:00

Do that because many people subscribe on a monthly basis through subtable com to crash course. There are lots of cool perks like sign posters over at subbable, but the biggest perk is that you get to keep watching this show. So thank you for making it possible. Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.