World War II at Home

World War IIat Home

25:i The Shift to Wartime Production[Image source: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23355.html]

Norman Rockwellpainted pictures ofthe Four FreedomsPresident Rooseveltclaimed Americanswere fighting for . . .

1. Freedom from Fear, . . .

2. Freedom From Want, . . .

3. Freedom of Worship, . . .

and 4. Freedom of Speech.

The United States mobilized society at every level in an effort to defeat fascism and promote the Four Freedoms.

[Image source: America Pathways to the Present, page 719.]

The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established in April 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor in an effort to prevent shortages from causing inflation.[Image source: http://image.mplib.org/wp/MPW00204.jpg]

How could the black market hurt the war effort?[Image source: http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/winter2000/winter00wwii.htm]

The OPA would later oversee the rationing of scarce resources.[Image source: http://image.mplib.org/wp/MPW00223.jpg]

The War Production Board (WPB), established in January 1942, directed the conversion of peacetime industries tothe productionof war goods.[Image source: https://www.mplib.org/wpdb/index.asp?exact=MPW00017]

The WPB also set priorities and allocated raw materials.

The Office of War Mobilization (OWM) was created in May 1943 to co-ordinate the agencies dealing with war production, labour questions, and scarce raw materials.[Image source: https://www.mplib.org/wpdb/index.asp?exact=MPW00016]

As production of consumer goods stopped, factories converted to war production.[Image source: America: Pathways to the Present, page 716.]

War Production Board (WPB) poster,1942 (Northwestern University Library) [Image source: http://www.33rdprs.org/images/NWUL001.jpg]

Entrepreneurs, such as Henry J. Kaiser, introducedthe methodsof mass-productionto build large numbers of Liberty ships.[Image source: http://www.nndb.com/people/456/000114114/]

Through the use of prefabricated sections, Kaiser cut the average time for constructing Liberty ships from 150 days down to 46.[Image source: America: Pathways to the Present, page 716.]

The government established the cost-plus system for military contracts, guaranteeing businessesa profit.

As a result, the United States became the arsenal of democracy, producing:300,000 airplanes80,000 landing craft100,000 tanks and armored cars5,600 merchant ships (including 2,600 Liberty ships)6,000,000 rifles, carbines, and machine guns41,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition

War production ended massive unemployment, and average weekly wages in manufacturing rose 27 percent in a little over three years.[Image source: America Pathways to the Present, page 718.

Even though labor and business representatives agreed to refrain from strikes and lockouts, the number of strikes went up during the war.

Between 1939 and 1945, federal spending increased from $9.4 billion to $95.2 billion. (The cost to run the government between 1941 and 1945 was about $321 billion.)[Image source: http://www.spokaneschools.org/lewis_clark/academics/socialstudies/gerard/US%20History%20bookmarks.htm]

[Image source: http://mwhodges.home.att.net/ww-2spend.gif]

[Image source: http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/BigL/BigL-3.html]

Starting in late-1942,the Treasury Department launched bond drives to financethe war.

Total war bond sales brought inabout $156 billion.

Deficit spending turned the economy around overnight, but also created a huge national debt.[Image source: http://jeffkrimmel.com/2006/04/]