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The Home Front American Society during WWII
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American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

Mar 31, 2015

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Page 1: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

The Home FrontAmerican Society during WWII

Page 2: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered

Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million men drafted

The Armed Forces

Page 3: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) is established in May 1945 [just WAC in July 1943]

350,000 women served in the auxiliaries “There are innumerable duties now being

performed by soldiers that can be done better by women” -General George Marshall

The Armed Forces cont’d

Nurses, drivers, electricians, pilots…; non-

combat

Page 4: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

“Just carve on my tombstone, ‘Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man.’” –African-American draftee

“Why die for democracy in another country when we don’t even have it here?” –African-American newspaper editorial

Minorities treated unequally in the United States at this point: segregation, racism, discrimination

Japanese-American were put in concentration camps during WWII

The Armed Forces cont’d

Page 5: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

The Armed Forces cont’d

Tuskegee Airmen

Navajo Code

Talkers

Japanese-Americans

American Latinos

Page 6: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

Production and rationing

American factories were converted to produce the tools and supplies for war

~instead of making consumer goods, factories were making supplies for the armed forces

rationing

World War II ended the Great Depression

Page 7: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

What is rationing?

Page 8: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

Rationing1930s 1940s

Page 9: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

Zoot Suit Riots

Los Angeles, 1943: For 5 days, Sailors and Marines attacked young men who wore the zoot suit

-more than 150 injured-500 arrested for “rioting” or

“vagrancy”

"Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot suiter they could find […] Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked from their seats, pushed into the streets and beaten with a sadistic frenzy.“

-C. McWilliams

Page 10: American Society during WWII. Young men were eager to volunteer. 5 million men volunteered Draft: mandatory recruitment for military service. 10 million.

"The question goes deeper than just suits. It is a racial protest. I have been worried for a long time about the Mexican racial situation. It is a problem with roots going a long way back, and we do not always face these problems as we should." – First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

The L.A. Times responded by accusing Mrs. Roosevelt of having communist leanings and stirring "race discord".

Zoot Suit Riots cont’d