Chapter 18 Chapter 18 Section 2Section 2The Home Front

Promoting the War By this time most Americans supported the war. The government urged the media to do their part in

keeping morale high {Movie stars advertised war bonds and traveled

overseas to entertain troops Hollywood studios began making hundreds of war

films} Radio stations broadcast war news that was controlled

by the government-run Office of War Information The war affected the regular programs. Stations cut

spy and sabotage programs during the duration of the war and others programs banned certain sound effects they used such as sirens

Life During Wartime Americans cut back their use of luxuries to help the

war effort Americans also planted victory gardens Fearing an attack on the mainland, cities began

practicing nighttime blackouts (because they thought brightly lit cities would make easy targets for Japanese bombers) and practicing air-raid drills

Broadway musicals like Oklahoma became popular as well

Also as a result of interest in the war more people starting reading non-fiction books

War time also brought about the first appearance of paperback books in 1939

For sixty years Norman Rockwell showed the positive side of American life in his illustrations. His most famous are the ones he drew for the covers of Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell’s illustrations reminded people of the reasons behind the war and why we were there without downplaying the difficulty of the struggle.

Rosie the Riveter Once again women in

America were asked to return to the workforce in the absence of soldiers. Advertisements promoted {Rosie the Riveter, the symbol of patriotic working women.} Women’s participation in the workforce gave many a sense of pride. Without the efforts of American women, the United States could not have produced the materials necessary to win the war

Discrimination During the War African Americans who went to war were still segregated into

their own units For some African Americans that stayed home during the war,

many moved into higher paying jobs Others had a hard time finding work because despite the no-

strike pledges, {some white workers staged “hate strikes” to keep black workers out of high paying factory jobs}

Fearing the possible riots, Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination in defense plants and government offices in order to keep A Phillip Randolph from marching on Washington

On June 25, 1941 Roosevelt created the {Fair Employment Practices Committee to enforce the order

The FEPC investigated companies to make sure all qualified applicants, regardless of race, were considered for jobs}

The FEPC was strengthened be an executive order requiring nondiscriminatory clauses in all war contracts

Continued…. Mexican Americans also helped American labor needs and

faced discrimination Carlos E. Castaneda served as an assistant to the chair of the

FEPC In 1945 the FEPC ordered a Texas oil company to stop

discrimination against Hispanics {Under a 1942 agreement between the U.S. and Mexico

thousands of Mexican farm and railroad workers-known as braceros- came north to work in the Southwest during WWII}

Mexican American youths had adopted the fad of wearing zoot-suits

In Los Angeles June 1943 U.S. sailors roamed the streets looking for zoot-suit clad Mexican Americans in what came to be know as the zoot-suit riots.

The government eventually came down on the sailors but not after they had brutally beaten many Mexican Americans

Japanese American Relocation

During WWII the United States committed a huge injustice against the Japanese Americans.

{The United States enforced the internment, or the forced relocation and imprisonment, of Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast}

In 1941 about 119,000 people of Japanese ancestry lived in California, Oregon and Washington.

About 2/3 of them had been born in the United States and were American Citizens

There was no evidence of disloyalty by the Japanese Americans, but because of the anti-Japanese attitude in America at the time they were forced into detention camps.

Because Hawaii’s Japanese population was to large to relocate, the islands were placed under martial law for the duration of the war

The entrance to Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp during World War 2, near lone pine California.