World War Two Home Front

• War Production Board (1942)• Liberty Ships• Payroll Withholding (1941)• Office of Price Administration

(1941)• War Labor Disputes Act (1943)

• Dr. Win-the-War (1943)• Tuskegee Airmen • Nisei• Keynesian Economics • Military Industrial

Complex (1961)

I. Mobilizing for WarII. Wartime Challenges to the New Deal

FDR’s Objectives for

1942:• 60,000 planes

• 45,000 tanks

• 20,000 antiaircraft guns

• 8 million tons of shipping

The War Production Board directed automobile factories to start producing tanks

Over 2,700 Liberty Ships were produced during the war

GERMANY• 46,857 tanks• 107,245 planes

USA• 88,410 tanks • 283,230 planes

Who Should Pay for the War?

The Middle Class

1) The government lowered the amount of money exempt from income taxes.

2) The government adopted payroll withholding.

3) While 7 million Americans filed income tax returns in 1941, in 42 million did in 1944.

The Wealthy

1) Tax rates were made more progressive, the surtaxes rising to 94 percent.

 

2) F.D.R. proposed a “Super Tax” in 1942, that would confiscate all income over $67,000 a year. Only two to three thousand Americans would have been affected.

To Combat Inflation F.D.R. Created the Office of Price

Administration in 1941

The OPA Imposed a general price freeze in April 1942

The OPA encouraged people to save to fight inflation

The Office of Price Administration also rationed goods in short supply, such as meat . . .

II. Wartime Challenges to the New Deal

Republicans Gains in 1942

• 46 seats in the House

• 9 seats in the Senate

The War Labor Disputes Act

1) The president had the authority to seize and operate any strike-bound plant deemed necessary to national security.

2) Established a mandatory 30-day cooling off period before any strike could be called.

3) Gave the National War Labor Board the authority to settle labor disputes for the duration of the war.

The public saw this as an expression of presidential power.

Dr. Win-the-War

“Old Dr. New Deal . . . knew a great deal about internal medicine, but nothing about surgery. So he got his partner, who was an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Win-the-War, to take care of this fellow who had been in this bad accident.”

“At the present time, obviously, the principal emphasis, the

overwhelming emphasis should be on winning the war.”

- F.D.R

Cost plus contracts benefited major corporation, which received the majority of government contracts.

African Americans in WWII

• About a million African Americans served in the military during WWII, however, most served in segregated units

• Double V campaign– African Americans were fighting for victory

abroad and victory at home– Called for an end to racial discrimination on all

levels

Tuskegee Airmen• Flew more than 15,000 sorties, mostly bomber escort• Destroyed over 1,000 German aircraft • Never lost a bomber

Most civil rights abuses during WW II were against Japanese-Americans

Internment

120,000 Japanese Americans, 77,000 of whom were Nisei—native native born citizens of the United States–were interned during World War Two

Armed Military Police Escorting a Dangerous Japanese-American to a Relocation Camp

Dust Storm at Relocation Camp, Manzanar, California

John Maynard Keynes

Advocated vast government spending—even deficit spending—in times of recession

Acceptance of Keynesian Economics

0

50,000,000,000

100,000,000,000

150,000,000,000

200,000,000,000

250,000,000,000

300,000,000,000

Federal Budget Federal Deficit

19401945

Government Involvement in the Economy:Where $175 Billion of War Contracts Went

General MotorsTop 100 CorporationsRest of Contracts

The Military Industrial Complex“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.”-Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961