Transition to Peacetime and Home Front Legacies

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Transition to Peacetime and Home Front Legacies

The transition to peacetime was under way on the home front by 1944, though World War II (1939–45) was still raging abroad. In 1943 full industrial and agricultural war production had been achieved; that is, the capability to meet the ongoing Allied needs for war materials and food had been reached. While war production did not slow down or cease, special emphasis on war mobilization was no longer needed. It was up to the armed forces on the battlefield to achieve victory, and the chances of victory looked better as time went by. Although some of the largest and bloodiest battles were yet to come, planners in government and industry began to prepare for peacetime. When the war finally ended, the United States was poised to become one of the world's superpowers: The economy was strong, the population was growing, and U.S. military strength was greater than ever before. Having given their all for the war effort, Americans were ready to enjoy prosperity and peace. The legacies of the home front events of World War II would propel the nation as a world power through the remainder of the twentieth century.

A reconversion debate

The beginning of America's peacetime transition was no less controversial than the beginning of its war mobilization. Officials in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration wanted a well-planned and gradual reconversion to a peacetime economy. They were concerned that unemployment would skyrocket if war production suddenly ceased. They were also worried about the many small businesses that survived on defense subcontracts during the war; they feared these businesses might not survive in peacetime without some assistance. No one wanted a return of the troubled economic times that had preceded the war, so to guard against that possibility, President Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45) proposed an "Economic Bill of Rights" in early 1944. He claimed it would provide economic security for everyone and guarantee national prosperity after the war. The bill would ensure jobs, food, medical care, housing, and social security (a government program providing economic assistance for citizens, including the aged, retired, unemployed, and disabled) for all Americans. Responding to Roosevelt's promises of security, Americans reelected him in November 1944, giving him an unprecedented fourth term in office.

Leaders in big business were not enthusiastic about Roosevelt's economic plans. They had controlled much of the defense work during the war, and they wanted to retain control in the peacetime economy. They preferred a rapid reconversion to the production of consumer goods, with a minimum of government supervision. However, the military did not want reconversion to begin until Germany had formally surrendered; therefore, big businesses that had converted to war production were expected to keep producing war materials. Meanwhile, shoppers were ready for new cars, tires, nylon hose, steaks, whiskey, and many other things that had been in short supply during the war. Big business worried that smaller businesses, which were not as involved in war production, would get a jump on producing the consumer goods the public wanted. Holding $140 billion in savings and war bonds, the public had a lot of buying power. With their profits from war materials production, businesses had also accumulated giant sums—$20 billion in cash reserves. They were eager to use that money to reconvert their factories for consumer goods production.

In an effort to get reconversion under way in a manner acceptable to all, President Roosevelt revamped the Office of War Mobilization (OWM), an agency that had coordinated industry's conversion to war production. Recognizing the continued political power of big business, Roosevelt appointed representatives from business and the military to guide the new Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR). The agency tackled key issues such as how to terminate long-standing government contracts for the production of war materials and how to dispose of war production plants that would soon be out of service.

Victory under a new leader

As the nation traveled an uncertain path toward reconversion and peacetime economics, it was faced with a sudden loss: President Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain) on April 12, 1945, while visiting his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia. A period of national mourning

began. As a train carried the president's body to Washington, D.C., thousands crowded the route. Ten thousand watched the train pass in Charlotte, North Carolina. The popular leader who offered hope and security was gone. His vice president, Harry S. Truman (1884–1972), took over as president during the war's last months.

Victory came soon after the president's death. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. Large celebrations erupted the following day, which is known as V-E Day (Victory in Europe). Japan surrendered three months later, on August 14, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the bombs killed more than one hundred thousand people. After the Japanese surrender, celebrations broke out again and spread from coast to coast. Two million people spontaneously gathered in Times Square in New York City at 7 p.m. on August 15, the date that became known as V-J Day (Victory over Japan). Five thousand tons of paper, including confetti and streamers, poured out of office windows in celebration.

State of the nation

The United States came out of World War II in relatively good shape for the peacetime transition. Worldwide the human toll of the war was massive. Between fifteen million and twenty million military personnel were dead or missing; forty million to sixty million civilians were also dead or missing. Millions more were injured. In contrast, the United States had 292,000 combat deaths and another 114,000 military deaths from other causes. Though the individual deaths were devastating to the soldiers' families and friends, these figures had a relatively small impact on the country. Other nations were decimated by their human losses. For example, the Soviet Union suffered more than twenty million deaths. In addition, bombing raids had destroyed large parts of the European landscape—farmland and city buildings. Except for the damage inflicted by the Pearl Harbor attack in Hawaii, the American home front was spared from such destruction.

From an economic standpoint, World War II provided some advantages. Despite increased taxes, wage and price controls, and rationing of essential goods, the U.S. economy expanded during wartime, fueled by war production jobs. No other country had a similar home front experience during World War II. At the end of the war Americans had greater purchasing power and a higher standard of living (the level of comfort maintained in everyday life) than before the war. In 1944, while some of the bloodiest battles raged overseas, good times abounded in the United States. Buyers mobbed department stores. The New York department store R. H. Macy and Company had its best day ever in sales on December 7, 1944. Restaurants were busy, as were movie houses and stage theaters. Hotels were often full. It seemed as though the wartime economy had restored the good times

stolen by the Great Depression, the severe economic crisis of the 1930s.

Postwar anxieties

After enduring a decade of economic hardship during the Great Depression and then almost four years of war, Americans on the home front were eager to return to a normal way of life. However, as home front victory celebrations ended, economic concerns returned. Temporary government wartime agencies were quickly dismantled, throwing many government employees out of work. War industries had already begun reconversion, and many war workers were laid off. For example, by the spring of 1945 the giant Willow Run bomber plant outside Detroit, Michigan, started cutting back its workforce, and the temporary government housing built for Willow Run workers began to empty out. Thirteen thousand families had lived in the housing at the height of the war, but by late 1945, only six hundred families remained. The plant became the home of a new automobile manufacturer building Kaiser automobiles, owned by Henry J. Kaiser (1882–1967) and Joseph Frazer. Industry workers who were lucky enough to keep their jobs still lost the overtime pay they had become accustomed to during wartime. To make matters worse, wartime price controls on consumer goods ended, so prices went up just as workers' pay was going down.

Besides laid-off war industry workers, the nation had twelve million war veterans who would need jobs when they returned from overseas. Before thinking about employment, many of those soldiers needed time to heal from physical and psychological wounds left by the war. Some veterans suffered from posttraumatic stress syndrome (a psychological reaction to highly stressful events, such as warfare, including anxiety, depression, and frequent nightmares) or alcoholism; others faced family troubles, or economic hardships. The Veterans Administration would play a key role in attending to these physical and mental health problems. Most veterans adjusted satisfactorily to life on the home front. Americans welcomed and honored the returning veterans as heroes, easing their transition back to civilian life.

GI Bill

The GI Bill (more formally known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act) contributed greatly to the postwar economic boom in the United States. The bill passed in 1944 with the strong support of President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress. This notable piece of legislation offered a well-deserved reward for veterans returning to the home front from the battlefield: money for education and low-interest loans for home purchases, new businesses, and fledgling farms. The bill pumped millions of dollars of government funds into the home front economy as the war came to a close. The sixteen million returning veterans and their families made up one-third of the U.S. population; as they spent this government money, it helped millions of nonveterans by creating jobs in construction, manufacturing, and retail sales.

The GI Bill also created social change in the United States. More than half of the veterans, almost eight million, took advantage of the bill's education or training benefits. They enrolled in high schools, trade schools, and colleges. In 1947 half of all college students were veterans. In 1949 three times as many college degrees were awarded as in 1940. The bill had put the cost of a college education within reach of many more people. With more education, veterans were able to find higher-paying jobs and could better afford to start a family. This trend led to a great postwar baby boom and a period of widespread prosperity in the nation.

A postwar lull

Employment concerns continued into 1946. Seeking to maintain jobs and wartime pay levels, organized labor (a collective effort by workers to seek better working conditions) supported a series of strikes that year. The strikes (work stoppages to force an employer to meet worker demands) involved perhaps 10 percent of the workforce, and raised further concerns about the nation's postwar productivity. During the war employers and workers had set aside their differences and worked together to achieve victory; however, that unity was quickly disintegrating.

President Harry Truman (1884–1972; served 1945–53), a Democrat, presided uneasily over the declining economy. Unhappy with the decline, voters gave the Republicans a solid victory in the midterm elections of November 1946. For the first time since 1932, Republicans held majorities in both houses of Congress. The new conservative majority soon pushed through the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, legislation that labor unions vigorously opposed because it weakened their ability to call strikes by requiring cooling periods and gave courts the authority to block strikes if national interests were at stake. Republicans were in favor of this legislation because they opposed labor's ability to influence management's decisions concerning pay and work decisions.

Prosperity arrives

To the nation's relief, the economic downturn at war's end proved short-lived. Boom times came as industry very quickly reconverted to the production of much-needed consumer goods. The purchase of those goods spurred employment by creating more manufacturing jobs and an overall expansion of the economy. By early 1947 peacetime prosperity was on track, and concerns about the economy receded.

Political consistencies

Despite Republican gains in the 1946 congressional elections, no immediate major political transformation had occurred. Democrat Harry Truman, seeking reelection as president in 1948, won an upset victory in a campaign focused on domestic issues. The Democrats held onto the White House for four more years.

The Democratic coalition of diverse voters—white Southerners, lower-income workers, black Americans, urban working class, Catholic immigrants, and Jews—forged in 1936 under Roosevelt and influential during the political campaigns of World War II remained intact for the postwar. However Republicans and conservatives had steadily gained more power, greatly influencing domestic programs.

An international giant

Ending the war with decisive victories and a strong economy gave Americans a sense of international superiority. They considered their country the world leader in freedom, justice, and economic well-being. The war fed the growth of modern American capitalism (an economic system in which private business and markets, largely free of government intervention, determine the prices, distribution, and production of goods). Big government, big business, big labor, big farming, and a strong military were the building blocks of the new economy. By war's end large organizations had established control over every sector of U.S. society.

Big business thrived during the war. A mere 6 percent of private industrial contractors received 90 percent of all the defense contract dollars. These few corporations gained huge profits from their war production efforts. Certain industries, such as petroleum, electronics, chemicals, metals, and transportation, developed great corporate power and prestige through the large government war contracts they received. After the war, U.S. industry continued to be the most productive in the world. In meeting the demand for new products and technologies through well-paying jobs, working-class Americans achieved a new social status, moving to the newly expanding suburbs, possessing much increased purchasing power and leisure time, and enjoying financial stability that workers in other countries had never known.

The wartime success of big business generally did not "trickle down" to smaller businesses. Some small businesses profited as subcontractors to big corporations, but half a million small companies in the United States failed between 1940 and 1945. The war industries had top-priority access to raw materials, limiting the availability of materials for other manufacturers. In addition many small-business owners left for military service or took better-paying war industry jobs in the larger corporations. As smaller businesses dwindled, big business took over their share of the marketplace and grew even bigger.

The war also brought profits to U.S. farms, both large and small. Money spent on food, mainly from foreign countries, rose from $14 billion in 1940 to $24 billion in 1944. U.S. farmers supplied food to countries around the world, including China, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Farm prices and farmers' incomes doubled during the war. Big farmers prospered most, but the small farmers who survived did fine as well. Those that did not survive could not compete with the increasing mass production of big farms. Farm productivity increased, thanks to improved technology and mechanization, increased availability and use of fertilizers, and the development of pest- and disease-control products. Greater productivity meant lower prices for consumers, which, in turn, helped farmers because they sold greater volumes of product.

The U.S. military grew dramatically during World War II, and though it decreased at war's end through mass discharges, it remained a major force in the world. The U.S. government expressed its postwar foreign policy in the National Security Act of 1947. The act created the National Security Council (NSC) within the executive branch to advise the president on national security policy. It also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather information on foreign activities and interpret its meaning. A 1949 amendment to the act created the Department of Defense, which united all the armed services into a single federal department. The emphasis on the prominent international role of the United States was made through this new policy. The military continued to spend large amounts in the postwar period as the so-called Cold War (1945–91) came into existence. The Cold War was an intense political and economic rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that fell just short of military conflict. The Soviet Union and the United States had been allies in their fight against Germany, but in the postwar period they became bitter enemies.

In regard to labor, unions increased membership during World War II from nine million to fifteen millions workers, the most in the history of the United States to that time. Labor became organized nationally to a greater degree and played important roles during the war in the War Manpower Commission (WMC) and the National War Labor Board (NWLB). Organized labor became a more accepted part of American society though anti-union sentiment was still prevalent among the more conservative segments of society.

Keynesian Economics and Federal Budgets

During the Great Depression of the 1930s British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) proposed that massive deficit spending (government spending more than it receives in revenues) could successfully end an economic downturn and produce prosperity. Under this plan, increased government spending would replace decreased consumer spending and private investment. Though President Franklin D. Roosevelt had greatly increased federal spending on various relief programs to ease the suffering of the American people, he was unwilling to pursue the amount of spending Keynes suggested. Roosevelt feared Keynes could be wrong and that economic problems could be worsened by large government debts.

World War II provided an occasion to test Keynes's ideas on the home front; despite his reluctance to increase federal spending, Roosevelt had no choice but to spend huge amounts on the war effort. As government spending rose from $9 billion in 1939 to $98 billion in 1945, unemployment fell sharply from 15 percent in 1940 to just over 1 percent in 1944. Incomes rose, industries boomed, and nearly all Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living. The success of deficit spending during the war made a lasting impression on the country and its leaders. Although some people remained critical of deficit spending, most Americans began to see it as an acceptable method of managing the home front economy.

Despite the emphasis on small, temporary agencies to organize the war effort, government also increased in size and influence over the daily lives of its citizens. A new tax structure was established in 1942 to help pay for the war. More people than ever were paying income taxes. The military services enjoyed the greatest growth as defense spending accounted for a much larger share of the annual federal budget. This trend would continue in the postwar years as the superpower rivalry with the Soviet Union immediately grew. National defense would become a major part of government and sustain a large industry through contracts.

A nation on the move

During World War II, fifteen million Americans were members of the armed forces. They traveled from one military base to another, back and forth across the country, to get their training; then they would head overseas for combat duty or serve on the home front. In addition, some fifteen million civilians moved across county lines to seek work in the war industries; eight million moved across state lines. Altogether, about 20 percent of Americans made a major move to a new state or region of the country. Many of them were in their twenties and thirties; most were moving to urban industrial centers and military bases.

The location of new military bases and war production plants determined future growth patterns in the United States. The population shift from rural to urban areas, a trend that began long before the war, accelerated. Between 1940 and 1945 more than six million people—20 percent of the rural population—left rural America to find better-paying jobs in the war industry or military service. Areas that grew dramatically included the South Atlantic Coast, the Gulf Coast, the West Coast, and the upper Midwest and Northeast.

In the South, cities grew rapidly while the population of rural areas declined. Charleston, South Carolina; Norfolk, Virginia; and Mobile, Alabama, all experienced substantial growth during the war years through shipbuilding. Washington, D.C., also grew dramatically as five thousand new government workers were added every month during the peak of the war. Aircraft production centers drew new residents to Atlanta, Georgia, and to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. The petroleum industry brought new jobs and people to Texas and Louisiana.

In the West Coast region, large shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturers attracted many new workers. The West Coast population grew more than 30 percent between 1940 and 1945, whereas the national population increased by only 6 percent in that same period. The population in San Diego County grew by over 40 percent, the Portland, Oregon, area by over 30 percent, the Bay Area (around San Francisco) by 25 percent, and the Puget Sound area (around Seattle) by 20 percent. Many young adults moved to the West Coast; black Americans also moved to the West, particularly to the Los Angeles area. After leaving farming areas for wartime factory jobs, Mexican Americans remained in the urban industrial centers, particularly in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. The West Coast was also home to many military bases, including air bases, naval bases, army training camps, and testing areas. Various service industries sprang up around the bases, offering more jobs for the ever increasing civilian population.

Populations also grew in midwestern and northeastern industrial centers. Like the South, the Midwest experienced a regional population shift as members of the rural population moved to urban areas, especially to cities in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. In the Northeast, war production plants brought large numbers of new residents, particularly in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.

Women workers postwar

Millions of American women joined the workforce during World War II. As reconversion of industry accelerated in 1944 and 1945, public surveys indicated that most working women wanted to stay employed. However, both industry and the government encouraged women to leave their jobs so that servicemen returning from overseas could find work. The majority of women followed this advice; they left their jobs and stayed at home to raise their families.

If women did not voluntarily quit their jobs, they were often laid off; neither labor unions nor supervisors chose to protect them from this fate. By the summer of 1945, 75 percent of women in the shipbuilding and aircraft industries were laid off. The percentage of women working in the Detroit auto industry fell from 25 percent to less than 8 percent. Five million women were laid off overall. Those who found work outside industry often had to settle for low-paying jobs as sales clerks, waitresses, and maids. Though these positions were less lucrative (and often less interesting) than their wartime jobs, many women over thirty-five chose to remain in the workforce.

Baby boomers, television, and the nuclear age

The birthrate had increased by more than 20 percent between 1939 and 1943, and immediately following the war, births skyrocketed. Between 1946 and 1964, seventy-six million Americans were born, forming what became known as the baby boom generation. By the 1980s one-third of the nation's population was baby boomers.

Baby boomers became the nation's first television generation. Television was introduced in 1939, but World War II delayed further development until after war mobilization was over. In 1946 only six thousand television sets were owned in the United States. By 1953 that number had risen dramatically to seven million. Television would set the baby boom generation apart from previous generations, giving baby boomers a new medium for information and entertainment. Along with television came frozen dinners, which aided the many working mothers on the home front. After the war they became known as "TV dinners" because families could eat these quick and easy meals while gathered around the television.

Besides television setting the baby boom generation apart from the previous generation, there was also the threat of nuclear war. The nuclear arms race through the 1950s between the United States and the Soviet Union increased fears of nuclear war. The children of the late 1940s through 1960s were the first to grow up knowing the world could be annihilated at any time by a shower of nuclear missiles.

The Cold War and civil defense

Home front mobilization during World War II created a strong alliance between big business and the military services. This alliance is sometimes referred to as the industrial-military complex. The alliance began developing after the American Civil War (1861–65) as large industry became more important in the American economy. The industrial-military complex continued to grow during World War I (1914–18), when, for the first time, machine guns and other mechanized weapons played a crucial role in the war's outcome. During World War II the alliance between industry and the military became a more formal and permanent part of the U.S. economic system. Industrial and military leaders directly shaped the U.S. mobilization strategy for World War II by influencing Congress

to limit the growth of new federal agencies.

When the war ended and the United States made its transition back to a peacetime economy, the industrial-military complex continued to develop and manufacture weapons, aircraft,

ships, submarines, and missiles armed with atomic warheads. (By playing on the public fears of the Soviet expansion in Europe, industry and the military services were able to successfully lobby Congress for substantial national defense spending on new weapons development, including a nuclear missile arsenal. Many believed it was the Soviet's intent to take over the world.) The alliance between U.S. industry and the U.S. military would shape the nation into a military superpower.

Fears raised by the tensions of the Cold War ensured a continued role for civil defense. In fact, civil defense was more important than ever, because newly developed weapons—atomic bombs, long-range bombers, and intercontinental missiles—were deadlier than the bombers of World War II. In 1948 President Truman created the Office of Civil Defense Planning. When the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in 1949, fear of enemy attack gripped the United States, just as it had after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In December 1949 Truman signed an executive order that created the Federal Civil Defense Administration as the principal civil defense agency in the United States. However, Congress provided little funding for civil defense until the late 1950s, when U.S. leaders began to suspect that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was growing. It was renamed the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization in 1958 as public and funding support started to increase. As Cold War tensions continued to escalate through the next decade, President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–1963) became a big supporter of civil defense. Kennedy renamed the lead civil defense agency once again to the Office of Civil Defense and placed it in the Defense Department. The showdown in October 1962 between the United States and Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles being placed just off the U.S. shores in Cuba, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, led to a rapid growth of civil defense over the following months. More than 112,000 nuclear fallout shelter sites were selected as possible protection for some sixty million civilians. The 1960s would be a peak in civil defense activity. As Cold War tensions lessened in the 1970s many lost interest and its funding support declined.

In 1979 the concept of civil defense was revived when President Jimmy Carter (1924–; served 1977–81) created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Over two decades later threats of terrorism—marked by the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., killing some three thousand people—sparked a substantial increase in home front defense. A new department of the federal government was formed in late 2001 called Homeland Security.

Civil rights movement

Black Americans had greatly contributed to the war effort, both on the home front and in the military services. However, despite some gains in job opportunities on the home front during World War II, particularly in the later war years as labor shortages grew, black Americans saw little actual progress in gaining the freedoms enjoyed by most U.S. citizens. Black servicemen returned home to the same segregated society they had left. Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation (separation of blacks and whites in public places) persisted, and blacks still faced some restrictions on voting in public elections. Nevertheless, the opportunities experienced by black Americans during World War II planted the seed for sweeping societal changes that would take place in the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond.

Progress remained limited until 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education landmark decision striking down segregation in public schools. However, black activism was still necessary to extend social reform to other aspects of life. What is referred to as the civil rights movement was born. The movement represented a "freedom struggle" by black Americans to gain freedom from discrimination, including equal opportunity in employment, education, and housing, the right to vote, and equal access to public facilities.

The high point of the civil rights movement occurred on August 28, 1963, when 250,000 thousand persons participated in the March on Washington. The gathering urged the federal government to support desegregation and protect voting rights. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) gave his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech promoting nonviolent direct action and voter registration. Congress responded with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Though sweeping in prohibiting discrimination in places of public accommodation, the act did not address voting rights.

In 1965 King led another march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, protesting continued voting restrictions.

More than 25,000 people joined the march protected by 3,000 federal troops. Congress again responded, this time with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act expanded protections of voting rights of blacks by prohibiting use of literacy tests and other forms of discriminatory qualifications. No other twentieth-century social movement, spurred by gains made during World War II, posed as profound an effect on U.S. political and legal institutions.

A lasting legacy

World War II was one of the key historic events of the twentieth century that shaped modern America socially, politically, economically, militarily, and racially. National unity was at its peak on the home front. Americans had understood and supported a clear goal: to defeat the military aggression of Nazi Germany and Japan. Victory had confirmed to Americans that they were in the right. The war's legacies on the home front would be felt for decades to come, through such developments as increased protection of rights for women and minorities and a large federal budget built around national security issues.

The war brought much-needed economic relief to a nation that had been struggling economically for more than a decade during the Great Depression (1929–41). Through massive government war spending—amounting to $321 billion—the nation had amassed the capability to lead the world. Industries were modernized, important technological innovations were developed, and markets were opened overseas as reconstruction of war-devastated European and Asian regions began. The vast government spending during World War II greatly expanded the U.S. economy and hastened national prosperity. The standard of living improved for most Americans, while women and black Americans experienced new, though not always equal, economic opportunities in the job market. For example, wartime conditions brought women into the industrial workplace en masse, something that might not have happened otherwise.

Though distinct progress occurred, when the war ended the home front still harbored social problems and inequities that would continue to divide the population. Nevertheless, the following decades would see the legacies of World War II take root, and poise the United States as a military and economic giant on the world stage.