America at War

Reform Revolt and ReactionLecture Two: Term 1 Week 3

Isolationism

• US still focused on domestic problems• Unpopularity of WW1 (Nye Committee 1934-

35)• German, Italian and Irish American opposition

to intervention• 1930s Neutrality Acts • America First Committee

FDR and Intervention

• FDR - aid to Britain after war starts 1 Sept 1939

• Declared the US “neutral” but “I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well”

• Sept 1940 first peacetime draft• Re-elected (3rd term) Nov 1940

The Undeclared Atlantic War

• Jan 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech

• March 1941 Lend-Lease Act

• Aug 1941 Atlantic Charter

Norman Rockwell’s paintings become an Office of War

Information poster (early 1940s)

The Japanese Attack Pearl Harbour

• 7 December 1941• Over 2,000 people killed• 187 aircraft and 18 naval vessels destroyed or

damaged• Congress vote on declaration of war against

Japan 477-1• 8 December 1941 Germany declares war

against US

America at War

• 15 million Americans in armed forces (total pop. 131.7 million in 1940)

• 405,000 Americans killed• No fighting on American soil• What was the impact of the war on

servicemen and women?

The War Economy

• Jan 1942 War Production Board• Increase in administrators 1.1m – 3.4m• Unemployment fell from 17% to 1.2%• Increased mobility (CA pop. increased 14.5%

1941-4)• Office of Price Administration (Jan 1942)• National War Labour Board 1942

Women and the Family

• War disrupts family life• “goodbye babies” and the “baby boom”• 1940 Govt. childcare in war industry areas (by

1943 320,000 school age children involved)• Rise in juvenile delinquency blamed on

women working

Women at Work

• 6 million women join labour force (57% increase)

• Employed in “male” tasks e.g. shipbuilding increased from 6 women employed to 160,000

• But still discrimination – low wages and little opportunity for promotion

The Impact of WW2?

• Women’s work temporary and gender attitudes remain unchanged?

• US recovered from depression but became increasingly conservative

• FDR dies 12 April 1945 during his 4th term• Beginning of the Cold War• Shift from isolation to leadership of the “free world”• US becomes economic and military Superpower