United States home front during World War II

This page, United States home front during World War II, covers the efforts by civilians inside the United States, 1940–1945, to support the war effort in World War II. See also Military history of the United States during World War II. For international comparisons see Home front during World War II; for American comparisons see United States home front during World War II and Union (American Civil War).

Economics

The main contributions of the U.S. to the Allied war effort comprised money, industrial output, food, petroleum, technological innovation, and (especially 1944-45), soldiers. Much of the focus in Washington was maximizing the economic output of the nation. The overall result was a dramatic increase in GDP, the export of vast quantities of supplies to the Allies and to American forces overseas, the end of unemployment, and a rise in civilian consumption even as 40% of the GDP went to the war effort. This was achieved by tens of millions of workers moving from low-productivity occupations to high efficiency jobs, improvements in productivity through better technology and management, and the move into the active labor force of students, retired people, housewives, and the unemployed, and an increase in hours worked. It was exhausting; leisure activities declined sharply. People tolerated the extra work because of patriotism, the pay, and the confidence it was only "for the duration" and life would return to normal as soon as the war was won. Most durable goods became unavailable, and meat, clothing, and gasoline were tightly rationed. In industrial areas housing was in short supply as people doubled up and lived in cramped quarters. Prices and wages were controlled, and Americans saved a high portion of their incomes, which led to renewed growth after the war instead of a return to depression.

Taxes and controls

Federal tax policy was highly contentious during the war, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt battling a conservative Congress. However, both sides agreed on the need for high taxes (along with heavy borrowing) to pay for the war: top marginal tax rates ranged from 81%-94% for the duration of the war, and the income level subject to the highest rate was lowered from $5,000,000 to $200,000. Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully, by executive order 9250, to impose a 100% surtax on after-tax incomes over $25,000 (equal to $440,192 today). Congress also enlarged the tax base by lowering the minimum income to pay taxes, and by reducing personal exemptions and deductions. By 1944 nearly every employed person was paying federal income taxes (compared to 10% in 1940).

Many controls were put on the economy. The most important were price controls, imposed on most products and monitored by the Office of Price Administration. Wages were also controlled. Corporations dealt with numerous agencies, especially the War production Board (WPB), and the War and Navy departments, which had the purchasing power and priorities that largely reshaped and expanded industrial production.

Rationing

Main article: Rationing § United States

In 1942 a rationing system was begun to guarantee minimum amounts of necessities to everyone (especially poor people) and prevent inflation. Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 because supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. Gasoline rationing proved an even better way to allocate scarce rubber. By 1943 one needed government issued ration coupons to purchase typewriters, coffee, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, clothing, fuel oil, silk, nylon, stoves, shoes, meat, cheese, butter, lard, margarine, canned foods, dried fruits, jam, and many other items. Some items—like new automobiles and appliances were no longer made. The rationing system did not apply to used goods (like clothes or cars).

To get a classification and a book of rationing stamps, one had to appear before a local rationing board. Each person in a household received a ration book, including babies and children. When purchasing gasoline, a driver had to present a gas card along with a ration book and cash. Ration stamps were valid only for a set period to forestall hoarding. All forms of automobile racing were banned, including Indianapolis. Sightseeing driving was banned, too.

Personal savings

Personal income was at an all-time high, and more dollars were chasing fewer goods to purchase. This was a recipe for economic disaster that was largely avoided because Americans—cajoled daily by their government to do so—were also saving money at an all-time high rate, mostly in War Bonds but also in private savings accounts and insurance policies. Consumer saving was strongly encouraged through investment in War bonds that would mature after the war. Most workers had an automatic payroll deduction; children collected savings stamps until they had enough to buy a bond. Bond rallies were held throughout the U.S. with famous celebrities, usually Hollywood film stars, to enhance the bond advertising effectiveness. Several stars were responsible for personal appearance tours that netted multiple millions of dollars in bond pledges—an astonishing amount in 1943. The public paid 3/4 of the face value of a war bond, and received the full face value back after a set number of years. This shifted their consumption from the war to postwar, and allowed over 40% of GDP to go to military spending, with moderate inflation. Americans were challenged to put "at least 10% of every paycheck into Bonds". Compliance was very high, with entire factories of workers earning a special "Minuteman" flag to fly over their plant if all workers belonged to the "Ten Percent Club". There were seven major War Loan drives, all of which exceeded their goals.

Labor

"Rosie the Riveter", working on an A-31 "Vengeance" dive bomber. Tennessee, 1943.

The unemployment problem ended in the United States with the preparations leading up to World War II. Greater wartime production created millions of new jobs, while the draft reduced the number of young men available for civilian jobs. So great was the demand for labor that millions of retired people, housewives, and students entered the labor force, lured by patriotism and wages. The shortage of grocery clerks caused some stores to convert from service at the counter to self service and to lower shelves to 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m), allegedly the height that a woman could reach. Before the war most groceries, dry cleaners, drugstores, and department stores offered home delivery service. The labor shortage and gasoline and tire rationing caused many stores to stop delivery. They found that requiring customers to buy their products in person increased sales.

Women

Women also joined the workforce to replace men who had joined the forces, though in fewer numbers. Roosevelt stated that the efforts of civilians at home to support the war through personal sacrifice was as critical to winning the war as the efforts of the soldiers themselves. "Rosie the Riveter" became the symbol of women laboring in manufacturing. The war effort brought about significant changes in the role of women in society as a whole. At the end of the war, many of the munitions factories closed. Other women were replaced by returning veterans. However most women who wanted to continue working did so. Young daughters of these working women learned that to be a working woman was a normal part of life and later many of these daughters also became working women.

In the figure below the development of the United States labor force by gender during the war years.

Year	Total labor force (*1000)	of which Male (*1000)	of which Female (*1000)	Female share of total (%)
1940	56,100	41,940	14,160	25.2
1941	57,720	43,070	14,650	25.4
1942	60,330	44,200	16,120	26.7
1943	64,780	45,950	18,830	29.1
1944	66,320	46,930	19,390	29.2
1945	66,210	46,910	19,304	29.2
1946	60,520	43,690	16,840	27.8

Farming

Labor shortages were felt in agriculture, even though most farmers were given an occupational exemption and few were drafted. Large numbers volunteered or moved to cities for factory jobs. At the same time many agricultural commodities were in greater demand by the military and for the civilian populations of Allies. Production was encouraged and prices and markets were under tight federal control.

The Bracero Program, a bi-national labor agreement between Mexico and the United States, started in 1942. Braceros ("strong arms," in Spanish) were recruited and contracted to work in the agriculture fields. More than 20% of all Mexican workers (46,954 of 220,640) who came to the United States between 1943 and 1947 were contracted to work in the Pacific Northwest.

Between 1942 and 1946 some 425,000 Italian and German prisoners of war were used as farm laborers, loggers and cannery workers. In Michigan, for example, the POWs accounted for more than one-third of the state's agricultural production and food processing in 1944.

Teenagers

With the war’s ever increasing need for able bodied men consuming America’s labor force in the early 1940s, industry turned to teen-aged boys and girls to fill in as replacements. Consequently, many states had to change their child-labor laws to allow these teenagers to work. The lures of patriotism, adulthood and money led many youth to drop out of school and take a defense job. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of teenage workers increased by 1.9 million, and the number of students in public high schools dropped from 6.6 million in 1940 to 5.6 million in 1944, as a million students—and many teachers—took jobs.

Labor unions

Welder making boilers for a ship, Combustion Engineering Co., Chattanooga, Tennessee. June 1942.

The war mobilization changed the relationship of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) with both employers and the national government. Both the CIO and the larger American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew rapidly in the war years.

Nearly all the unions that belonged to the CIO were fully supportive of both the war effort and of the Roosevelt administration. However the United Mine Workers, who had taken an isolationist stand in the years leading up to the war and had opposed Roosevelt's reelection in 1940, left the CIO in 1942. The major unions supported a wartime no-strike pledge that aimed to eliminate not only major strikes for new contracts, but also the innumerable small strikes called by shop stewards and local union leadership to protest particular grievances. In return for labor's no-strike pledge, the government offered arbitration to determine the wages and other terms of new contracts. Those procedures produced modest wage increases during the first few years of the war but not enough to keep up with inflation, particularly when combined with the slowness of the arbitration machinery.

Even though the complaints from union members about the no-strike pledge became louder and more bitter, the CIO did not abandon it. The Mine Workers, by contrast, who did not belong to either the AFL or the CIO for much of the war, threatened numerous strikes including a successful twelve-day strike in 1943. The strikes and threats made mine leader John L. Lewis a much hated man and led to legislation hostile to unions.

All the major unions grew stronger during the war. The government put pressure on employers to recognize unions to avoid the sort of turbulent struggles over union recognition of the 1930s, while unions were generally able to obtain maintenance of membership clauses, a form of union security, through arbitration and negotiation. Employers gave workers new untaxed benefits (such as vacation time, pensions and health insurance), which increased real incomes even when wage rates were frozen. The wage differential between higher skilled and less skilled workers narrowed, and with the enormous increase in overtime for blue collar wage workers (at time and a half pay), incomes in working class households shot up, while the salaried middle class lost ground.

The experience of bargaining on a national basis, while restraining local unions from striking, also tended to accelerate the trend toward bureaucracy within the larger CIO unions. Some, such as the Steelworkers, had always been centralized organizations in which authority for major decisions resided at the top. The UAW, by contrast, had always been a more grassroots organization, but it also started to try to rein in its maverick local leadership during these years. The CIO also had to confront deep racial divides in its own membership, particularly in the UAW plants in Detroit where white workers sometimes struck to protest the promotion of black workers to production jobs, but also in shipyards in Alabama, mass transit in Philadelphia, and steel plants in Baltimore. The CIO leadership, particularly those in further left unions such as the Packinghouse Workers, the UAW, the NMU and the Transport Workers, undertook serious efforts to suppress hate strikes, to educate their membership and to support the Roosevelt Administration's tentative efforts to remedy racial discrimination in war industries through the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Those unions contrasted their relatively bold attack on the problem with the timidity and racism of the AFL.

The CIO unions were progressive in dealing with gender discrimination in wartime industry, which now employed many more women workers in nontraditional jobs. Unions that had represented large numbers of women workers before the war, such as the UE and the Food and Tobacco Workers, had fairly good records of fighting discrimination against women. Most union leaders saw women as temporary wartime replacements for the men in the armed forces. It was important that the wages of these women be kept high so that the veterans would get high wages.

Civilian support for war effort

See also: United_States_civil_defense § World_War_II, and American_Theater_(1939–1945) § Atlantic_Ocean

A synagogue in New York City remained open 24 hours on D-Day for special services and prayer.

Early in the war, it became apparent that German U-boats were using the backlighting of coastal cities in Eastern and Southern United States to destroy ships exiting harbors. It became the first duties of civilians recruited for local civilian defense to ensure that lights were either off or thick curtains drawn over all windows at night.

The Civil Air Patrol was established, which enrolled civilian spotters in air reconnaissance, search-and-rescue, and transport. Its Coast Guard counterpart, the Coast Guard Auxiliary, used civilian boats and crews in similar roles. Towers were built in coastal and border towns, and spotters were trained to recognize enemy aircraft. Blackouts were practiced in every city, even those far from the coast. All exterior lighting had to be extinguished, and black-out curtains placed over windows. The main purpose was to remind people that there was a war on and to provide activities that would engage the civil spirit of millions of people not otherwise involved in the war effort. In large part, this effort was successful, sometimes almost to a fault, such as the Plains states where many dedicated aircraft spotters took up their posts night after night watching the skies in an area of the country that no enemy aircraft of that time could possibly hope to reach.

The United Service Organizations (USO) was founded in 1941 in response to a request from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide morale and recreation services to uniformed military personnel. The USO brought together six civilian agencies: the Salvation Army, Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association, National Catholic Community Service, National Travelers Aid Association and the National Jewish Welfare Board.

Women volunteered to work for the Red Cross, the USO and other agencies. Other women previously employed only in the home, or in traditionally female work, took jobs in factories that directly supported the war effort, or filled jobs vacated by men who had entered military service. Many high school and college students dropped out to take war jobs.

Various items, previously discarded, were saved after use for what was called "recycling" years later. Families were requested to save fat drippings from cooking for use in soap making. Neighborhood "scrap drives" collected scrap copper and brass for use in artillery shells. Milkweed was harvested by children ostensibly for lifejackets.

Draft

A female factory worker in 1942, Fort Worth, Texas. Women entered the workforce as men were drafted into the armed forces.

In 1940 Congress passed the first peace-time draft legislation. It was renewed (by one vote) in summer 1941. It involved questions as to who should control the draft, the size of the army, and the need for deferments. The system worked through local draft boards comprising community leaders who were given quotas and then decided how to fill them. There was very little draft resistance.

The nation went from a surplus manpower pool with high unemployment and relief in 1940 to a severe manpower shortage by 1943. Industry realized that the Army urgently desired production of essential war materials and foodstuffs more than soldiers. (Large numbers of soldiers were not used until the invasion of Europe in summer 1944.) In 1940-43 the Army often transferred soldiers to civilian status in the Enlisted Reserve Corps in order to increase production. Those transferred would return to work in essential industry, although they could be called back to active duty if the Army needed them. Others were discharged if their civilian work was deemed essential. There were instances of mass releases of men to increase production in various industries. Working men who has been classified 4F or otherwise ineligible for the draft took second jobs.

In the figure below an overview of the development of the United States labor force, the armed forces and unemployment during the war years.

Year	Total labor force (*1000)	Armed forces (*1000)	Unemployed (*1000)	Unemployment rate (%)
1939	55,588	370	9,480	17.2
1940	56,180	540	8,120	14.6
1941	57,530	1,620	5,560	9.9
1942	60,380	3,970	2,660	4.7
1943	64,560	9,020	1,070	1.9
1944	66,040	11,410	670	1.2
1945	65,290	11,430	1,040	1.9
1946	60,970	3,450	2,270	3.9

One contentious issue involved the drafting of fathers, which was avoided as much as possible. The drafting of 18-year olds was desired by the military but vetoed by public opinion. Racial minorities were drafted at the same rate as Whites, and were paid the same, but blacks were kept in all-black units. The experience of World War I regarding men needed by industry was particularly unsatisfactory—too many skilled mechanics and engineers became privates (there is a possibly apocryphal story of a banker assigned as a baker due to a clerical error, noted by historian Lee Kennett in his book "G.I.") Farmers demanded and were generally given occupational deferments (many volunteered anyway, but those who stayed at home lost postwar veteran's benefits.)

Later in the war, in light of the tremendous amount of manpower that would be necessary for the invasion of France in 1944, many earlier deferment categories became draft eligible.

Disloyalty

Civilian support for the war was widespread, with isolated cases of draft resistance. The FBI was already tracking elements that were suspected of loyalty to Germany, Japan or Italy, and many were arrested in the weeks after Pearl Harbor. 7000 German and Italian aliens (who were not U.S. citizens) were moved back from the West Coast, along with 100,000 of Japanese descent. Some enemy aliens were held without trial during the entire war. The U.S. citizens accused of supporting Germany were given public trials, and often were freed.

Population movements

There was large-scale migration to industrial centers, especially on the West Coast. Millions of wives followed their husbands to military camps. Many new military training bases were established or enlarged, especially in the South. Large numbers of African Americans left the cotton fields and headed for the cities. Housing was increasingly difficult to find in industrial centers, as there was no new non-military construction. Commuting by car was limited by gasoline rationing. People car pooled or took public transportation, which was seriously overcrowded. Trains were heavily booked, with uniformed military personnel taking priority, so people limited vacation and long-distance travel.

Racial tensions

The large-scale movement of blacks from the rural South to defense centers in the North (and some in the South) led to small-scale local confrontations over jobs and housing shortages. Washington feared a major race war. The cities were relatively peaceful; much-feared large-scale race riots did not happen, but there was small-scale violence, as in the 1943 race riot in Detroit and the anti-Mexican Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943.

Role of women

Standlee (2010) argues that during the war the traditional gender division of labor changed somewhat, as the "home" or domestic female sphere expanded to include the "home front". Meanwhile the public sphere—the male domain—was redefined as the international stage of military action.

Employment

Riveting team working on the cockpit shell of a C-47 transport at the plant of North American Aviation. Office of War Information photo by Alfred T. Palmer, 1942.

Woman aircraft worker checking assemblies. California, 1942.

Woman standing next to a wide range of tire sizes required by military aircraft.

Women took on an active role in World War II and took on many paid jobs in temporary new munitions factories and in old factories that had been converted from civilian products like automobiles. This was the "Rosie the Riveter" phenomenon.

They also filled many traditionally female jobs that were created by the war boom—as waitresses, for example. And they worked at jobs that previously had been held by men—such as bank teller or shoe salesperson. Nearly one million women worked as so called "government girls," taking jobs in the federal government, mainly in Washington, DC, that had previously been held by men or were newly created to deal with the war effort.

In general, when they replaced men, they came with fewer skills. Industry retooled its machine jobs so that unskilled workers could handle them. (This opened many jobs for men who had been unemployed in the 1930s.) Some unions tried to maintain the same pay scale as men had because they expected men to resume their jobs after the war. In 1944, unemployment hit an all time low of 1.2%.

Volunteer activities

Women staffed millions of jobs in community service roles, such as nursing, USO, and Red Cross. Unorganized women were encouraged to collect and turn in materials that were needed by the war effort. Women collected fats rendered during cooking, children formed balls of aluminum foil they peeled from chewing gum wrappers, and also created rubber band balls, which they contributed to the war effort. Hundreds of thousands of men joined civil defense units to prepare for disasters, such as enemy bombing.

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) mobilized 1000 civilian women to fly new warplanes from the factories to airfields located on the east coast of the U.S. They are important in gender history because flying a warplane had always been a male role. Unlike Russia, no American women flew warplanes in combat.

Baby boom

Marriage and motherhood came back as prosperity empowered couples who had postponed marriage. The birth rate started shooting up in 1941, paused in 1944-45 as 12 million men were in uniform, then continued to soar until reaching a peak in the late 1950s. This was the "Baby Boom."

In a New Deal-like move, the federal government set up the "EMIC" program that provided free prenatal and natal care for the wives of servicemen below the rank of sergeant.

Housing shortages, especially in the munitions centers, forced millions of couples to live with parents or in makeshift facilities. Little housing had been built in the Depression years, so the shortages grew steadily worse until about 1948, when a massive housing boom finally caught up with demand. (After 1944 much of the new housing was supported by the G.I. Bill.)

Federal law made it difficult to divorce absent servicemen, so the number of divorces peaked when they returned in 1946. In long-range terms, divorce rates changed little.

Housewives

Juggling their roles as mothers due to the Baby Boom and the jobs they filled while the men were at war, women strained to complete all tasks set before them. The war caused cutbacks in automobile and bus service, and migration from farms and towns to munitions centers. Those housewives who worked found the dual role difficult to handle.

The worst psychological pressure came when sons, husbands, fathers, brothers and fiances were drafted and sent to faraway training camps, preparing for a war in which nobody knew how many would be killed. Millions of wives tried to relocate near their husbands' training camps.

Role of minorities

FEPC

The Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) was a federal executive order requiring companies with government contracts not to discriminate on the basis of race or religion. It assisted African Americans in obtaining jobs in industry. Under pressure from A. Philip Randolph's growing March on Washington Movement, on June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) by signing Executive Order 8802. It said "there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin". In 1943 Roosevelt greatly strengthened FEPC with a new executive order, #9346. It required that all government contracts have a non-discrimination clause. FEPC was the most significant breakthrough ever for Blacks and women on the job front. During the war the federal government operated airfield, shipyards, supply centers, ammunition plants and other facilities that employed millions. FEPC rules applied and guaranteed equality of employment rights. These facilities shut down when the war ended. In the private sector the FEPC was generally successful in enforcing non-discrimination in the North, it did not attempt to challenge segregation in the South, and in the border region its intervention led to hate strikes by angry white workers.

African American: Double V campaign

Participants in the Double V campaign, 1942. From the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration.

The African American community in the United States resolved on a Double V Campaign: Victory over fascism abroad, and victory over discrimination at home. Large numbers migrated from poor Southern farms to munitions centers. Racial tensions were high in overcrowded cities like Chicago; Detroit and Harlem experienced race riots in 1943. Black newspapers created the Double V Campaign to build black morale and head off radical action.

Most Black women had been farm laborers or domestics before the war. Despite discrimination and segregated facilities throughout the South, they escaped the cotton patch and took blue-collar jobs in the cities. Working with the federal Fair Employment Practices Committee, the NAACP and CIO unions, these Black women fought a “Double V” campaign—against the Axis abroad and against restrictive hiring practices at home. Their efforts redefined citizenship, equating their patriotism with war work, and seeking equal employment opportunities, government entitlements, and better working conditions as conditions appropriate for full citizens. In the South black women worked in segregated jobs; in the West and most of the North they were integrated, but wildcat strikes erupted in Detroit, Baltimore, and Evansville where white migrants from the South refused to work alongside black women.

Internment of Japanese Americans

Main article: Japanese American internment

In 1942 the War Department demanded that all enemy nationals be removed from war zones on the West Coast. The question became how to evacuate the estimated 120,000 people of Japanese citizenship living in California. Roosevelt looked at the secret evidence available to him: the Japanese in the Philippines had collaborated with the Japanese invasion troops; most of the adult Japanese in California had been strong supporters of Japan in the war against China. There was evidence of espionage compiled by code-breakers that decrypted messages to Japan from agents in North America and Hawaii before and after the attack on Pearl Harbor. These MAGIC cables were kept secret from all but those with the highest clearance, such as Roosevelt. On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which set up designated military areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded." The most controversial part of the order included American born children and youth who had dual U.S. and Japanese citizenship. Germans and Italians were not interned shown from the "Korematsu v. United States" case.

In February 1943, when activating the 442nd Regimental Combat Team—a unit composed mostly of American-born American citizens of Japanese descent living in Hawaii—Roosevelt said, "No loyal citizen of the United States should be denied the democratic right to exercise the responsibilities of his citizenship, regardless of his ancestry. The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry." In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of the executive order in the Korematsu v. United States case. The executive order remained in force until December when Roosevelt released the Japanese internees, except for those who announced their intention to return to Japan.

Italy was an official enemy, and citizens of Italy were also forced away from "strategic" coastal areas in California. Altogether, 58,000 Italians were forced to relocate. They relocated on their own and were not put in camps. Known spokesmen for Benito Mussolini were arrested and held in prison. The restrictions were dropped in October 1942, and Italy switched sides in 1943 and became an American ally. In the east, however, the large Italian populations of the northeast, especially in munitions-producing centers such as Bridgeport and New Haven faced no restrictions and contributed just as much to the war effort as other Americans.

Wartime politics

Roosevelt easily won the bitterly contested 1940 election, but the Conservative coalition maintained a tight grip on Congress. Wendell Willkie, the defeated GOP candidate in 1940, became a roving ambassador for Roosevelt. After a series of squabbles with Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Roosevelt stripped him of his administrative responsibilities and dropped him from the 1944 ticket, choosing instead Senator Harry S. Truman. Truman was best known for investigating waste, fraud and inefficiency in civilian programs. In very light turnout in 1942 the Republicans made major gains. In the 1944 election, Roosevelt defeated Tom Dewey in a relatively close race that attracted little attention.

Propaganda and culture

Rural school children in front of homefront posters. San Augustine County, Texas. 1943.

Main article: American propaganda during World War II

The media cooperated with the federal government in presenting the official view of the war. All movie scripts had to be pre-approved. For example there was widespread rumors in the Army to the effect that people on the homefront were slacking off. A Private SNAFU film cartoon (released to soldiers only) belied that rumor.

World War II posters helped to mobilize the nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present, the poster was an ideal agent for making war aims the personal mission of every citizen. Government agencies, businesses, and private organizations issued an array of poster images linking the military front with the home front—calling upon every American to boost production at work and at home. Deriving their appearance from the fine and commercial arts, posters conveyed more than simple slogans. Posters expressed the needs and goals of the people who created them. By definition, wartime posters are naturally propagandistic, but most posters were merely patriotically so. Some, however, resorted to extreme racial and ethnic caricatures of the enemy, sometimes as hopelessly bumbling cartoon characters, sometimes as evil, half-human creatures. The National Archives, Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota all have extensive collections of World War II posters accessible online that contain many examples of posters of the era in regard to the use of propaganda, both subtle and patriotic, and blatantly anti-German and Japanese.

One of the most noteworthy areas of civilian involvement during the war was in the area of recycling. Many everyday commodities were vital to the war effort, and drives were organized to recycle such things as rubber, tin, waste kitchen fats (the predominant raw material of explosives and many pharmaceuticals) paper, lumber, steel and many others. Popular phrases promoted by the government at the time were "Get into the scrap!" and "Get some cash for your trash" (a nominal sum was paid to the donor for many kinds of scrap items) and Thomas "Fats" Waller even wrote and recorded a song with the latter title. Such commodities as rubber and tin remained highly important as recycled materials until the end of the war, while others, such as steel, were critically needed at first, but in lesser quantities as damaged war supplies were returned from overseas for scrapping, lessening the need for civilian scrap metal drives. Once again, war propaganda played a prominent role in many of these drives.

A strong aspect of American culture then as now was a fascination with celebrities, and many stars of Hollywood and radio gave service above and beyond the call in the donation of their time for everything from being Civilian Defense marshals to making personal appearances at War Bond drives. The sale of bonds produced the money that financed the war, and Bond drives where celebrities appeared were always very successful. The public paid 3/4 of the face value of a war bond, and received the full face value back after a set number of years. While this may have represented a rather unspectacular interest rate, the government has never defaulted on payment of any bond. People were challenged to put "at least 10% of every paycheck into Bonds". Compliance was high, with entire factories of workers earning a special "Minuteman" flag to fly over their plant if all workers belonged to the "Ten Percent Club". There were seven major War Loan drives, all of which exceeded their goals. An added advantage was that citizens who were putting their money into War Bonds were not putting it into the home front wartime economy. There was a job for anyone who wanted one during the war, most of them well-paid. Personal income was at an all-time high, and more dollars were chasing fewer goods to purchase. This was a recipe for runaway inflation that was largely avoided because Americans—cajoled daily by their government to do so—were also saving money at an all-time high rate, mostly in War Bonds but also in private savings accounts and insurance policies.

Hollywood studios also went all-out for the war effort, as studios allowed their major stars (such as Clark Gable and James Stewart) to enlist, and also created propaganda films to remind American moviegoers of their heritage. Many of the finest films of the era are about the war, such as Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, and Going My Way, while others, such as Yankee Doodle Dandy, focused on patriotism. Even before active American involvement in the war, the popular Three Stooges comic trio were lampooning the Nazi German leadership, and Nazis in general, with a number of short subject films, starting with You Nazty Spy! in January 1940, nearly two years before the United States was drawn into World War II, the very first Hollywood-produced work to ridicule Hitler and the Nazis.

Cartoons and short subjects were a major sign of the times, as Warner Brothers Studios and Disney Studios gave unprecedented aid to the war effort by creating cartoons that were both patriotic and humorous, and also contributed to remind movie-goers of wartime activities such as rationing and scrap drives, war bond purchases, and the creation of victory gardens. Warner shorts such as Daffy - The Commando, Draftee Daffy, Herr Meets Hare and Russian Rhapsody are particularly remembered for their biting wit and unflinching mockery of the enemy (particularly Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tōjō and Hermann Goering. Their cartoons of Private Snafu, produced for the military as "training films", served to remind many military men of the importance of following proper procedure during wartime, for their own safety. Hanna Barbara also contributed to the war effort with slyly pro US short cartoon The Yankee Doodle Mouse with "Lt" Jerry Mouse as the hero and Tom Cat as the "enemy".

Walt Disney's studio also helped the war effort, as almost every cartoon produced by Disney in this period dealt with the war effort. Each Disney cartoon began with a headshot of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, or Goofy, and during this time each wore an Army or Navy cap. Disney produced a B-Feature based on the book, Victory Through Air Power and several promotional and comical shorts on the importance of rationing, buying bonds and paying one's income tax ("Taxes Against the Axis"). Education for Death was a Disney short documentary based on the book of the same name, on the making of a Nazi; demonstrating the cruelty of Hitler's Reich against even its own citizens, weeding out the "weak or inferior" and breeding hatred and obedience in its people, devoid of compassion. Der Fuehrer's Face aka Donald Duck in Nutziland, starring Donald living a nightmare in German province and working in a munitions plant, was one of the most popular and famous cartoons of the period. The song from the cartoon - "Der Fuehrer's face" recorded by Spike Jones & the City Slickers - also became very popular for its contempt of Nazi leaders:

Ven der Fuehrer says, "Ve iss der master race,"

Ve HEIL! [honk!] HEIL! [honk!] Right in der Fuehrer's face!

Not to luff der Fuehrer iss a great disgrace,

So Ve HEIL! [honk!] HEIL! [honk!] Right in der Fuehrer's face!

Ven Herr Goebbels says, "Ve own der world und space,"

Ve HEIL! [honk!] HEIL! [honk!] Right in Herr Goebbels' face!

Ven Herr Goering says, "Dey'll never bomb dis place,"

Ve HEIL! [honk!] HEIL! [honk!] Right in Herr Goering's face!

Disney's famous Three Little Pigs song "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf" became a rallying cry for civilians during the war. In a short during the war years, the familiar pigs and wolf were re-imagined with the "bricks" in the Practical Pig's house being actually made of war bonds, and the Big Bad Wolf is shown wearing a swastika, representing Nazi Germany.
Disney Cartoon Mascots during the War:

The American Volunteer Group's “Flying Tiger” insignia, shown on a Curtiss P-40 fighter of that unit, piloted by ace Robert "R.T." Smith, was created by the Walt Disney Company.

• Donald Duck-mascot of United States Coast Guard Auxiliary; 309th Fighter Squadron; 415th Fighter Squadron; 438th Fighter Squadron; 479th Bombardment Squadron; 531st Bombardment Squadron.
• Goofy-mascot of 602nd Bomb Squadron; 756th Bomb Squadron.
• Pete (Disney)-mascot of United States Merchant Marine; 603rd Bomb Squadron
• Figaro (Disney) mascot of RAF Ace Ian Gleed's Spitfire Mk. Vb Troop while he was in action over the Western Desert and the Mediterranean during the middle of the war.

The Disney company also created a number of military unit insignias for the United States forces during World War II, including the American Volunteer Group, the "Flying Tigers" of the China-Burma-India Theater's early years in the war.

The Looney Tunes characters of the time, from the Warner Brothers animation studio, also were used by a number of American military units, and individual fighting vehicles (mostly tanks, jeeps and warplanes), such as:

• Bugs Bunny-mascot of Kingman Army Air Field, Kingman, Arizona; 486th Bomb squadron; 530th Bombardment Squadron
• Daffy Duck-mascot of 600th Bomb Squadron
• Sylvester (Looney Tunes)-mascot of 45th Reconnaissance Squadron
• Yosemite Sam-mascot of US Army air Corps 20th Reconnaissance Squadron (later the 20th Intelligence Squadron)

See also

• American Minority Groups in World War II
• American music during World War II
• Greatest Generation
• Home front during World War II
• Military history of the United States during World War II
• Rosie the Riveter
• Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park
• Women Airforce Service Pilots
• Woman's Land Army of America
• Propaganda films:
  • Black Marketing
  • Campus on the March
  • Henry Browne, Farmer
  • Manpower
  • Negro Colleges in War Time
  • The Arm Behind the Army
• United States home front during World War I

References

• Brinkley, David. Washington Goes to War Knopf, 1988.
• Campbell, D'Ann (1984), Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era Harvard University Press.
• Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk, eds.; Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (1951), massive compilation of many public opinion polls from USA
• Ferguson, Robert G. "One Thousand Planes a Day: Ford, Grumman, General Motors and the Arsenal of Democracy." History and Technology 2005 21(2): 149-175. ISSN 0734-1512 Fulltext in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco
• Flynn, George Q. The Draft, 1940-1973 (1993) (ISBN 0-7006-1105-3)
• Gallup, George Horace, ed. The Gallup Poll; Public Opinion, 1935-1971 3 vol (1972) esp vol 1. summarizes results of each poll as reported to newspapers
• Garfinkel, Herbert . When Negroes March: The March on Washington and the Organizational Politics for FEPC (1959).
• Koistinen, Paul A. C. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940–1945 (2004)
• Miller, Sally M., and Daniel A. Cornford eds. American Labor in the Era of World War II (1995), essays by historians, mostly on California
• Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (2003)
• Wynn, Neil A. The Afro-American and the Second World War (1977)
• Vatter, Howard. The U.S. Economy in World War II Columbia University Press, 1985. General survey
• Hinshaw, David. The Home Front (1943)
• Hoehling, A. A. Home Front, U.S.A. (1966)

Further reading

Surveys

• Adams, Michael C.C. The Best War Ever: America and World War II (1993); contains detailed bibliography
• Blum, John Morton. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II (1995; original edition (1976)
• Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. (2001) excerpt and text search; full text online, a major scholarly survey of the era
• Polenberg, Richard. War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945 (1980)
• Resch, John Phillips, et al. eds. Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront vol 3 (2005), an encyclopedia
• Winkler, Allan M. Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II (1986). short survey
• 10 Eventful Years: 1937-1946 4 vol. Encyclopædia Britannica, 1947. Highly detailed encyclopedia of events

Economy and labor

• Aruga,Natsuki. "'An' Finish School': Child Labor during World War II." Labor History 29 (1988): 498-530. in JSTOR
• Campbell, D'Ann. "Sisterhood versus the Brotherhoods: Women in Unions" in Campbell, Women at War with America (1984) pp 139–62
• Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Time John L. Lewis (1986). Biography of head of coal miners' union
• Evans Paul. "The Effects of General Price Controls in the United States during World War II." Journal of Political Economy 90 (1983): 944-66. statistical study in JSTOR
• Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering & Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945 (1991), social history
• Feagin, Joe R., and Kelly Riddell. "The State, Capitalism and World War II: The U.S. Case." Armed Forces and Society 17 (fall 1990): 53-79. in JSTOR
• George Q. Flynn; The Mess in Washington: Manpower Mobilization in World War II Greenwood Press. 1979.
• Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993). leader of CIO
• Harrison, Mark. "Resource Mobilization for World War II: The U.S.A., UK, U.S.S.R. and Germany, 1938-1945." Economic History Review 41 (1988): 171-92. in JSTOR
• Jacobs, Meg. "'How About Some Meat?': The Office of Price Administration, Consumption Politics, and State Building from the Bottom Up, 1941-1946," Journal of American History Vol. 84, No. 3 (Dec., 1997), pp. 910–941 in JSTOR
• Maines, Rachel. "Wartime Allocation of Textiles and Apparel Resources: Emergency Policy in the Twentieth Century." Public Historian 7 (1985): 29-51.
• Mills, Geofrey, and Hugh Rockoff. "Compliance with Price Controls in the United States and the United Kingdom during World War II." Journal of Economic History 47 (1987): 197-213. in JSTOR
• Reagan, Patrick D. "The Withholding Tax, Beardsley Ruml, and Modern American Public Policy." Prologue 24 (1992): 19-31.
• Rockoff, Hugh. "The Response of the Giant Corporations to Wage and Price Controls in World War II." Journal of Economic History 41 (1981): 123-28. in JSTOR
• Romer, Christina D. "What Ended the Great Depression?" Journal of Economic History 52 (1992): 757-84. in JSTOR
• Simmons, Dean. Swords into plowshares: Minnesota's POW camps during World War II. (2000). ISBN 978-0-9669001-0-1.
• Tuttle, William M., Jr. "The Birth of an Industry: The Synthetic Rubber 'Mess' in World War II." Technology and Culture 22 (1981): 35-67. in JSTOR
• Wilcox, Walter W. The Farmer in the Second World War. 1947 online.

Draft

• Bennett, Scott H., ed. Army GI, Pacifist CO: The World War II Letters of Frank and Albert Dietrich (New York: Fordham Univ. Press, 2005).
• Blum, Albert A. Drafted Or Deferred: Practices Past and Present Ann Arbor: Bureau of Industrial Relations, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, 1967.
• Flynn George Q. "American Medicine and Selective Service in World War II." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 42 (1987): 305-26.
• Flynn George Q. The Draft, 1940-1973 (1993) excerpt and text search

Family, gender and minorities

• Bailey, Beth, and David Farber; "The 'Double-V' Campaign in World War II Hawaii: African Americans, Racial Ideology, and Federal Power, " Journal of Social History Volume: 26. Issue: 4. 1993. pp 817+.
• Campbell, D'Ann. Women at War with America (1984)
• Daniel, Clete. Chicano Workers and the Politics of Fairness: The FEPC in the Southwest, 1941-1945 University of Texas Press, 1991
• Collins, William J. "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review 91:1 (March 2001), pp. 272–286. in JSTOR
• Costello, John. Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (1986), US and Britain
• Finkle, Lee. "The Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest during World War II," Journal of American History (1973) 60#3 pp. 692–713 in JSTOR
• Hartmann, Susan M. Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 40's (1982)
• Kryder, Daniel. Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State During World War II (2001)
• Lees, Lorraine M. "National Security and Ethnicity: Contrasting Views during World War II." Diplomatic History 11 (1987): 113-25.
• Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), famous classic
• Ossian, Lisa L. The Forgotten Generation: American Children and World War II (University of Missouri Press; 2011) 192 pages; children's experiences at school, at play, at work, and in the home.
• Tuttle Jr. William M.; Daddy's Gone to War: The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children Oxford University Press, 1995 online edition; online review
• Records of the Women's Bureau (1997), short essay on women at work
• Ward, Barbara McLean, ed., Produce and Conserve, Share and Play Square: The Grocer and the Consumer on the Home-Front Battlefield during World War II, Portsmouth, NH: Strawbery Banke Museum
• Pfau, Ann Elizabeth. Miss Yourlovin: GIs, Gender, and Domesticity during World War II (Columbia UP. 2008) online

Politics

• Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom (1970), vol 2 covers the war years.
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (1995)
• Graham, Otis L. and Meghan Robinson Wander, eds. Franklin D. Roosevelt: His Life and Times. (1985). encyclopedia
• Hooks Gregory. The Military Industrial Complex: World War II's Battle of the Potomac University of Illinois Press, 1991.
• Jeffries John W. "The 'New' New Deal: FDR and American Liberalism, 1937-1945." Political Science Quarterly (1990): 397-418. in JSTOR
• Leff Mark H. "The Politics of Sacrifice on the American Home Front in World War II," Journal of American History 77 (1991): 1296-1318. in JSTOR
• Patterson, James T. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (1972)
• Steele Richard W. "The Great Debate: Roosevelt, the Media, and the Coming of the War, 1940-1941." Journal of American History 71 (1994): 69-92. in JSTOR

Primary sources

• Nicholas, H. G. Washington despatches, 1941-1945: weekly political reports from the British Embassy (1985) 718 pages; unusually rich secret reports from British diplomats (especially Isaiah Berlin) analyzing American government and politics

Propaganda, advertising, media, public opinion

• Bredhoff, Stacey (1994), Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II, National Archives Trust Fund Board.
• Albert Hadley Cantril; Mildred Strunk (1951). Public opinion: 1935-1946. Princeton University Press., summaries of thousands of polls in US, Canada, Europe
• Fox, Frank W (1975), Madison Avenue Goes to War: The Strange Military Career of American Advertising, 1941–45, Brigham Young University Press.
• Fyne, robert (1994), The Hollywood Propaganda of World War II, Scarecrow Press.
• Gregory, G.H. (1993), Posters of World War II, Gramercy Books.
• Gallup, George H. (1972), The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1935- 1971, Vol. 1, 1935–1948, short summary of every poll
• M. Paul Holsinger and Mary Anne Schofield; Visions of War: World War II in Popular Literature and Culture (1992) online edition
• Terrence H. Witkowski; "World War II Poster Campaigns: Preaching Frugality to American Consumers" Journal of Advertising, Vol. 32, 2003

Social, state and local history

• Brown DeSoto. Hawaii Goes to War. Life in Hawaii from Pearl Harbor to Peace. 1989.
• Cavnes, Max Parvin (1961). The Hoosier community at war. Indiana University Press.
• Clive Alan. State of War: Michigan in World War II University of Michigan Press, 1979.
• Daniel Pete. "Going among Strangers: Southern Reactions to World War II." Journal of American History 77 (1990): 886-911. in JSTOR
• Gleason Philip. "Pluralism, Democracy, and Catholicism in the Era of World War II." Review of Politics 49 (1987): 208-30. in JSTOR
• Hartzel, Karl Drew. The Empire State At War (1949), on upstate New York online edition
• Johnson, Charles. "V for Virginia: The Commonwealth Goes to War," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100 (1992): 365–398 in JSTOR
• Johnson Marliynn S. "War as Watershed: The East Bay and World War II." Pacific Historical Review 63 (1994): 315-41, on Northern California in JSTOR
• Lange, Dorothea; Charles Wollenberg (1995). Photographing the second gold rush: Dorothea Lange and the East Bay at war, 1941-1945. Heyday Books. ISBN 978-0-930588-78-6. in Northern California
• Larson, Thomas A. Wyoming's war years, 1941-1945 (1993)
• Lichtenstein Nelson. "The Making of the Postwar Working Class: Cultural Pluralism and Social Structure in World War II." Historian 51 (1988): 42-63.
• Lee James Ward, Carolyn N. Barnes, and Kent A. Bowman, eds. 1941: Texas Goes to War University of North Texas Press, 1991.
• Lotchin, Roger W. "The Historians' War or The Home Front's War?: Some Thoughts for Western Historians," Western Historical Quarterly (1995) 26#2 pp. 185–196 in JSTOR
• Miller Marc. The Irony of Victory. World War II and Lowell, Massachusetts University of Illinois Press, 1988.
• Nash Gerald D. The American West Transformed. The Impact of the Second World War Indiana University Press, 1985.
• Smith C. Calvin. War and Wartime Changes: The Transformation of Arkansas, 1940–1945 University of Arkansas Press, 1986.
• O'Brien, Kenneth Paul and Lynn Hudson Parsons, eds. The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society (1995) online essays by scholars
• Spinney, Robert G. World War II in Nashville: Transformation of the Homefront (1998)
• Verge, Arthur C. "The Impact of the Second World War on Los Angeles," Pacific Historical Review (1994) 63#3 pp. 289–314 in JSTOR
• Watters, Mary. Illinois in the Second World War. 2 vol (1951)

External links

• Regional Oral History Office / Rosie the Riveter / WWII American Homefront Project
• American Anti-Axis Propaganda from WWII
• Academic Data Related to the Roosevelt Administration
• FDR Cartoon Archive
• List of Hollywood Actors who Served in the Military during World War II (Classic Movie Hub)
• National Museum of the Civil Air Patrol (online, WWII section)
• Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II, National Archives
• Northwestern U Library World War II Poster Collection
• War Ration Book Records and Related Information
• (1999) Oxford History of the U.S.
• Library of Congress: 1000 Digitized Photos of World War II Occupations on the Homefront