The Home Front More than 16 million

Americans served in the military during WWII

Large numbers of minority groups served, including one million African Americans and 350,000 women

The Home Front

January, 1942, the government set up the War Production Board (WPB) to convert peacetime industry to war industry

Massive defense spending ended the Great Depression- unemployment dropped to 2%

By 1944, American production was double that of all the Axis powers combined

The Home Front

Increased production demanded an increase in workers

Executive Order 8802 assured fair hiring practices in any job funded by the government

More and more people moved from rural areas to cities to find work, leading to racial conflicts between whites and minority workers

The Home Front

Japanese Americans faced extreme prejudice in the US during the War

Executive Order 9066 allowed the internment, or temporary imprisonment of Japanese Americans

Supreme Court even upheld the internment of over 100,000 citizens for “security reasons”

The Home Front

Eventually, WWII cost the United States $330 billion- DOUBLE federal spending of our entire history!

National debt went from $42 billion to $269 billionPaid by war bondsPaid by taxes taken from paychecks

The Home Front

Office of War Information was created to encourage support of the war effort

Government distributed coupon books that allowed a certain number of purchases of vital war time product

Simply put- American life during WWII was WWII

Effects of WWII

Before the war ended, the Big Three met several times to pre-determine post-war EuropeYalta Conference (Feb, 1945)- free elections

for much of Eastern Europe (last for Churchill and FDR)

Potsdam Conference (July, 1945)- Germany would be divided into 4 zones (British, French, US, USSR), borders and elections for Poland, and USSR would declare war on Japan

Effects of WWII

After the war, clashes took place between communists and non-communists in Eastern Europe and China

Japan went under American military occupation

Set the stage for independence of European/Japanese colonial possessions

Effects of WWII

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the worlds superpowersUS: largely untouched by war, booming

industry, powerful military with atomic bombUSSR: suffered terribly during war, but Red

Army was largest in the world, controlled most of Eastern Europe

Effects of WWII US led the way for

sharping the postwar economy, including the World Bank

United Nations was formed (UN), based on the cooperation of world powersUS, China, Britain,

France, and USSR most powerful

Effects of WWII

During the war, the Axis powers violated the Geneva Convention over and over again

More than 1,000 Japanese were tried, with hundreds executed for war crimes

In Europe, the Nuremberg Trials condemned Nazi leaders for their crimes during the war

Effects of WWII

At home, American life would never be the same after the war:Americans felt that they represented

democracy, tolerance, and peaceAmerica’s national security was tied to world

securityAfrican Americans were reenergized in the

fight for civil rightsDecades of economic growth, South and

West gained more population and wealth, expanded the role of the government in the American economy