Topic 8B – The Homefront

Morale• Office of Civilian Defense• Victory gardens

• 40% of vegetables during the war

• Scrapping• Volunteer work

• Entertainment• Media used to gather

support for the war• Movies• Radio addresses

Production• War Production Board• Helped convert factories to

war factories• Limited the essential

production of non-war materials• Convinced business to build

new factories• Production doubled• Beginning in 1942,

unemployment decreased drastically

Economic Effects• Wage rates increase by 24%• Weekly earnings rise 70%

• All due to increased war production• Office of Price Administration

• Fixes a price ceiling on goods• Rationing

• Americans gave up consuming certain items so it could go to war production• All despite increasing wages and desperation from the Great Depression

Social Effects• Migration to cities• Rise of Boomtowns • Family stress• Women• Children

• Racial Tension• Zoot Suit Riots • Bloody Monday

Social Effects• Japanese internment• “Relocated due to threat of

spying”• Businesses closed• Camps bleak and in the

middle of nowhere• Seemed more like prison

than anything• American citizens rounded

up and moved to camps• Japanese-Americans

suffered from racial discrimination

End of WWII• Effects• End of the New Deal and focus on winning the war• Government is now responsible for the economy

• Using deficit spending• Racism persists despite fighting Hitler• Great sacrifices were made to accomplish victory• America emerges as the strongest nation in the world

• Economically• Militarily

• Advances in society for minorities• Women• African-Americans